It is to be hoped that some of the members of the families of the personages interred under the two last-named monuments, will adopt some plan, with the sanction of the rector, for their preservation; if not, it would be judicious for some few individuals, who possess sufficient taste to appreciate those interesting memorials of an age long past, to set on foot a small subscription, and adopt measures to preserve them from further injury or mutilation.
The following lines, from Crabbe, [266] may, without impropriety, be quoted here, after describing the ancient monuments in the church:
“Wonder not, mortal, at thy quick decay.
See! men of marble piecemeal melt away;
When whose the image we no longer read,
But monuments themselves memorials need.”
CHAPTER XIII.
HANDFORD HALL
AND
CHEADLE CHURCH,
CHESHIRE. [267a]
Handford is a township of the parish of Cheadle, in Cheshire, in the hundred of Macclesfield, intersected by the London and North Western (formerly the Manchester and Birmingham) Railway, and situated eleven miles from Manchester, and five miles south-west-by-south from Stockport.
The village of Handford is agreeably situated in a pleasant part of Cheshire, upon the turnpike-road leading from Manchester to Wilmslow and Congleton. On entering the village from the northward, a neat but small country church, of brick, which is a chapel-of-ease under Cheadle, lying on the left side of the road, and a well-built National School, on the right, are conspicuous objects.
The Village Green is noticed by Sir William Brereton, Bart., of Handford, whose family I shall soon have occasion to advert to, and whose travels in Holland, England, &c. &c., in 1634 and 1635, have been published by the Cheetham Society, in vol. i. of the Cheetham Papers. He refers to the Village Green, [268a] when narrating his travels in Scotland, and in describing one of the places of public entertainment, he calls it “a poorer house than any upon Handforth Green;” and again [268b] he afterwards states that he had been in a small tavern in Ireland, “a little low thatched Irish house, not to be compared unto Jane Kelsall’s, of the Green at Handforth.” [268c] Her cottage has disappeared, and the Green has long been enclosed: no appearance of either of them now remains, and it may be a question whether portions of the railway and its station do not stand on what was once the south-eastern end of the Green; it is, however, to a certain degree, preserved from oblivion, by the field enclosed from its site, being still called the Green Field.
Handford is also sometimes known by the names of Hanford, Honford, Handforth, Handford-cum-Bosden, and Handforth-cum-Bosden (Handford being a joint township with the township of Bosden). Some centuries ago the manor and estate of Handford belonged to the ancient family of Handford of Handford; then, by marriage, to that of Brereton, in the reign of Elizabeth; [268d] they afterwards passed, under a deed of settlement, to that of Booth, Sir William Brereton having, in the reign of Charles II., settled them, in default of male issue of his son, on Nathaniel Booth, Esq., of Mottram St. Andrew, in tail male; but the estate did not remain any considerable time with the Booths, and it soon became subdivided amongst various proprietors. The manorial rights, however, remained a much longer period with the Booths; the manor having been sold and conveyed, in 1766, by Nathaniel, Baron Delamer, formerly Nathaniel Booth, Esq., and others, to Edward Wrench, Esq., of Chester; in 1805, it was again sold, to Mr. Joseph Cooper, of Handford; and, in 1808, it was once more sold, by the devisees in trust under his will, to Mr. William Pass, of Altrincham.
The family of Brereton, and also those of Grosvenor and Davenport, are mentioned by Ormerod, in his History of Cheshire, as families which can be proved, by ancient deeds, to have existed at or near the time of the Conquest.
I do not pretend to give a full historical account of the old family of Brereton, especially as some very interesting particulars respecting it, have been recently given by Sir Fortunatus Dwarris, in a paper, read before the Society of Antiquaries. [269a] Sir Randle Brereton, of Shocklach and Malpas Hall, in Cheshire, grandson of the founder of that branch, was Chamberlain of Chester, in the 19th and 20th years of the reign of Henry VII., and one of the Knights of the body to that King. He is mentioned generally as Chamberlain to Henry VII., in the 21st year of that monarch’s reign, and that he held that office twenty-six years, to the 23rd of Henry VIII., by whom he was made a Knight Banneret, as a reward for his conduct at Terouenne and Tournay. He built the Brereton Chapel [269b] in the Church of Malpas, in 1522, where he was buried, leaving issue nine sons and three daughters. [269c]