C—Page [49].
This bold projecting rock is called, from Major Thomas, “Smallman’s Leap,” from a tradition that the major, a staunch Royalist, being surprised by a party of Cromwell’s horse, was singly and hotly pursued over Westwood, where, finding all hope of escape at an end, he turned from the road, hurried his horse into a full gallop to the edge of the precipice, and went over. The horse was killed by falling on the trees beneath, but the major escaped, and secreted himself in the woods. Certain historical facts, showing that the family long resided here, appear to give a colouring to this tradition. Thus, in the reign of Henry III. (57th year) William Smallman had a lease from John Lord of Brockton par Shipton, Corvedale, of 17½ acres of land, with a sytche, called Woolsytche, and two parcels of meadow in the fields of Brockton. John Smallman possessed by lease and grant, from Thomas de la Lake, 30 acres of land in the fields of Larden par Shipton, for twenty years from the feast of St. Michael, living 4th Edward II. (1310) 41st Edward III. (1367), Richard Smallman, of Shipton, granted to Roger Powke, of Brockton, all his lands and tenements in the township and fields of Shipton, as fully as was contained in an original deed. Witnesses—John de Galford, Sir Roger Mon (Chaplain), Henry de Stanwy, John Tyklewardyne (Ticklarton), of Stanton, John de Gurre of the same, with others. 1st Henry VI. (1422), John Smallman was intrusted with the collection of the subsidies of taxes payable to the Crown within the franchise of Wenlock. Thomas Smallman, of Elton, co. Harford, and Inner Temple, barrister-at-law, afterwards a Welsh judge, purchased the manor of Wilderhope, Stanway, and the teg and estates, and had a numerous grant of arms, 5th October, 1589. Major Thomas Smallman, a staunch royalist, born 1624, compounded for his estate £140.
Underneath this bold projecting headland, sometimes called “Ipikin’s Rock,” is Ipikin’s Cave, an excavation very difficult of approach, where tradition alleges a bold outlaw long concealed himself and his horse, and from which he issued to make some predatory excursion.
The term hope, both as a prefix and termination, is of such frequent occurrence here that it is only natural to suppose that it has some special signification; and looking at the positions of Presthope, Easthope, Millichope, Middlehope, Wilderhope, Hopesay, and Hope Bowdler, that signification appears to be a recess, or place remote between the hills. Easthope is a rural little village about two miles beyond Ipikin’s Rock, pleasantly situated in one of these long natural troughs which follow the direction of Wenlock Edge.
It appears to have been within the Long Forest, and is mentioned in Domesday as being held in Saxon times by Eruni and Uluric; it was afterwards held by Edric de Esthop, and others of the same name. There was a church here as early as 1240, and in the graveyard, between two ancient yews, are two tombs, without either date or inscription, in which two monks connected with the Abbey of Wenlock are supposed to have been interred.
Near Easthope, and about midway between Larden Hall and Lutwyche Hall, is an enclosure comprising about eight acres, or an encampment, forming nearly an entire circle, surrounded by inner and outer fosses. The internal slope of the inner wall is 12 feet, and externally 25, while the crest of the parapet is 6 feet broad. The relief of the second vallum rises 10 feet from the fosse, and is about 12 feet across its parapet. There is also a second ditch, but it is almost obliterated. It is supposed to have been a military post, forming an important link in the chain of British entrenchments which stretched throughout this portion of the county. Near it a mound resembling a tumulus was opened some years since by the Rev. R. More and T. Mytton, Esq., and in or near which a British urn of baked clay was discovered, on another occasion, while making a drain.
D.—Page [66].
“Proavus meus Richardus de isto matrimonio susceptus uxorem habuit Annam Richardi dicti Forestarii filiam qui quidem Richardus filius erat natu minor prænobilis familiæ Forestariorum (olim Regiorum Vigorniensis saltûs custodum) et famoso Episcopo Bonnero a-Secritis Hic Suttanum Madoci incolebat, et egregias ædes posuit in urbicula dicta Brugge, sive ad Pontem vel hodie dictas Forestarii Dementiam,”
E.—Pedigree of the Forester Family, Page [69].
In his “Sheriffs of Shropshire,” Mr. Blakeway in speaking of the Forester family, says: “They were originally Foresters, an office much coveted by our ancestors, which latter seems probable, from the fact, that on the Pipe Rolls of 1214, Hugh Forester accounts for a hundred merks that he may hold the bailiwick of the forest of Salopscire, as his father held it before him.” King John, however, remits thirty merks of the payment in consequence of Hugh having taken to wife the niece of John l’Estrange, at His Majesty’s request. It does not seem clear, however, that Hugh, the son of Robert, can be traced to have been in the direct line of the Willey family, he having been ancestor to Roger, son of John, the first of the king’s six foresters. The other, Robert de Wellington, the late Mr. George Morris, in his “Genealogies of the Principal Landed Proprietors,” now in the possession of T. C. Eyton, Esq., to whose kindness we are indebted for this extract, says was the earliest person that can certainly be called ancestor of the present family of Forester. His sergeantry is described as the custody of the King’s Hay of Eyton, of which, and several adjoining manors, Peter de Eyton, lineal ancestor of the present Thomas Campbell Eyton, of Eyton, and grandson of Robert de Eyton, who gave the whole of the Buttery estate to Shrewsbury Abbey, was the lord.