Bradshawe Hall.
The hall is girt on all sides by the lands which have formed part of the domain for many centuries. Many of them, too, are known to-day by the same names which have distinguished the various enclosures through nearly all that time. The ground immediately below the hall on its southern side was the old pleasance, and bears traces of having been originally terraced. Here were the gardens and orchards, the latter certainly in existence as early as 1542, being mentioned in a lease[40] bearing date 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. Below them was the Home Croft, a seven-acred field now called the Hall Meadow. The view from these old pleasure grounds must have been very striking, extending as it does right away to the Combs Moss and Valley, and looking towards the Black Edge.
In the present day the view is certainly much enhanced by a large sheet of water—the reservoir which supplies the Peak Forest Canal, for it has all the appearance of a natural lake. About half an acre of this water covers land which originally formed part of the Bradshaw domain.
On the east side of the hall lies a field known by the name of Hob Hollin, at the back of which is the Hob Marsh. These are bounded on the east by a field called “Little Park” and a pasture named “The Greavy Croft.” This latter field was in ancient times a wood, probably planted to protect the hall from the east winds. This is evident from an old lease, dated “The assumption of our Lady in the 18 year of King Edward IV. (15 Aug., 1478),” in which the description of the lands which fell under it makes a special exception of “a wode calde ye Greyve Crofte.”[41]
Below the hall meadow lies the “Hollow Meadow,” the subject of a long protracted dispute as to its ownership which ended in a law suit in the year 1500. All these fields, with others lying above the hall, are mentioned by name in a division of lands between William Bradshawe and his nephew Richard for farming purposes, which is dated 20th April, 33 Henry VIII. (1542). The name Hollow Meadow, however, occurs in a deed far earlier than this—being mentioned in a charter dated 6 Edward III. (1332), where it is called “Holu-medue.” To the south of this field lie some twenty-two acres of pasture, which are known by the name of “The Turncrofts.” This land, probably originally “Town Crofts,” has been so called as far back as 1398, when a grant of “seven acres of land lying in Turncroft was made by John, son of John de Bradshawe, senr., to William, son of John de Bradshawe, junr.” It is dated at Chapel-en-le-Frith the Monday after the feast of St. James, 21 Rich. II.
In more than one deed there is evidence that at one time a dwelling-house and farm buildings stood on this ground, and it then formed a separate farm. For instance, William Redfern and Emmot, his wife, were, on the 4th of October, 1458, granted a lease for ten years of the Turncrofts, and later on, namely, from 1537 to 1543, Henry Bradshawe and his wife Elizabeth were living there as tenants of their nephew Richard, the then head of the family.
A long line of grass fields now extend along the side of the road as far as the outskirts of Chapel-en-le-Frith. The larger portion of these fields are to this day known by the name of “The Broad Marshes,” and by this name they are referred to in deeds as early as 1429, at which date a conveyance of land called Bradmersh was made by John Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, to Wm. Bradshaw for trust purposes. In 1444, and again in 1457, leases of “The Bradmersh lands” are granted by Wm. Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, to Roger Cooper, subject to an annuity already settled on his mother Joyce.
That the Bradshawes have owned the lands now held by their lineal descendant and representative from the times of the early Plantagenet kings is proved by the deeds which have descended to him with the lands. How long the homestead has occupied the identical site where the present hall now stands cannot be ascertained. That this is not the first residence of the Bradshawes erected there is certain, and it is more than probable that they have never lived very far away from that identical spot. The first Bradshaw residence of which there is any documentary evidence must have been built about the years from 1215 to 1221. This is the period covered by an Assart Roll in the Record Office, on which is recorded, among other interesting transactions connected with the forest laws and customs, the various grants made by King John and his son Henry III. of land in the forest of the High Peak. It contains much information with respect to the ancestors of many well-known North Derbyshire families. Among those to whom leave was granted by the King for the erection of a dwelling-house are several members of the Bradshawe family. From these it is not an easy matter to select for certain the immediate ancestor of the man who owned the land and built the house on Eccles Pike. A deed of grant has descended from his Bradshawe ancestors to the writer of this article dated at Chapel-en-le-Frith 6 Edward III. (1332), in which “Richard, son of John de Bradschawe, granted to John de Bradschawe, my father, and to Mary, his wife my mother, certain lands in Bowden.” Of these one portion is described as being in Wytehaln feld, and another, called Perts’ Acre, as situated near the Holumedue, which latter piece of land there is not much doubt is identical with the Hollow Meadow. The mention of the Wytehaln feld, or Whitehall field, in the deed would suggest—as an ancestor to the above John—one Richard, son of William de Bradshawe, who about the time of 19 Henry III. (1235), made an addition to the land in Whitehall[42] which his father William had assarted at some previous time. This is the more probable, because there has always been a tendency to preserve Christian names in a family. But more than one Bradshawe had grants at this date for the clearance of the forest land in Whitehall. Ivo de Bradshawe and Walter de Bradshaw both held land “in capite” of King John and his son Henry III.
This Walter—son of another Walter de Bradshawe—and one Randolph de Bradshawe, both built a house in Bowden, a part of Chapel-en-le-Frith, in which a portion of the Bradshaw lands are situated to this day. Thus it is quite possible that one of these houses is the original Bradshaw Hall.
The Heralds’ Visitation begins the pedigree with a John de Bradshawe, possibly son of Richard Bradshawe of the deed of 1332, who by his marriage with Cicely, daughter of Thomas Foljambe, was father of William, evidently identical with the William, son of John de Bradshawe, junr., before mentioned, on whom the seven acres of Turncroft were settled in 1398. The lease, however, of 1457, cited before, proves that the Christian name of William’s mother was Joyce. Either she was his stepmother or, as is quite possible, a generation was omitted by the heralds, and the man who married Cicely was the John de Bradshawe, senr., of the 1398 settlement. His son, then, either by her or by a former marriage, would be John de Bradshawe, junr., the husband of Joyce, and the father of William. Cicely must have outlived her husband, for there is evidence that she was in enjoyment of an annuity, from which the estates were released on her death in 1408, for on the 6th of May, 9 Henry IV., John de Bradshawe settled on certain trustees “all the lands in the Ville of Bauden which lately descended to me in right of heirship after the death of Cicely Foljamb.” It will be observed that her maiden name is used. This was not unusual in legal documents of a certain date.