An inventory[58] of the contents of the hall, taken after the death of Francis Bradshawe gives us not only an idea of the contents of the mansion house of a gentleman of that period, but it also furnishes us with the names of the various rooms. Among them is mentioned “The Gallerie, the Gallerie Chamber, and the Clocke Chamber.” The contents of his own bedroom are as follows:
“One bedstedd wth curtaines and Vallancies and all other Furniture, a Truckle Bedd and Fether bedd thereon Two tables one Standinge Cupboard Three Chaires two plaine Chaires Nyne Joynt Stooles two little ones a Close Stoole six Tables and Cupboard Cloathes. Two Skreenes, a Lookeing Glasse Three Brushes a pr of Snuffers Firepan and Tongs.”
Over the kitchen a fine example of an oak panelled room still remains in good condition. The contents of the cellars are described in the inventory as “one greate tuninge vessel and 3 lesser vessells and twentie barrells.” These big cellars have apparently been filled in and flagged over, for in spite of the legend that they still exist, it has been found impossible to discover their position. Of the outbuildings, the big cow house still remains, of the same date as the hall, with windows of a similar design.
The principal entrance to the hall, with its porch, now removed, originally faced Eccles Pike, over which ran an ancient highway, and connected with this was an old bridle road leading to the stone-built arch which was the main gateway. This is still in admirable condition, and beyond the fact that there are indications that originally the archway was enclosed with double gates, which are not now in existence, it is much as it left the builders’ hands. Over it, on the side facing the hill, is a shield bearing a coat of arms, as follows: “Argent two bendlets between two martlets sable” for Bradshawe. Impaling “or a chevron gules between three martlets sable” for Stafford. Above the shield is the Bradshawe crest, “A stag at gaze proper under a Vine Tree fruited proper.”
This coat bears the impress of the work of an amateur, as Francis Bradshawe could only have impaled the Davenport arms as borne by his wife’s family, while he had the right to bear the Stafford arms quarterly with his own, because his mother was an heiress. Had his father built the archway, as some writers have suggested, the Stafford coat would have been borne over the Bradshawe shield on a “Scutcheon of pretence.”
On the reverse side of the archway is the inscription, “Francis Bradshawe, 1620,” below which is a shield bearing the curious device, apparently heraldic, of a thorn between six nails. It has puzzled several students of heraldry. The suggestion was made a few years ago, which is almost certainly the correct one, that it is no heraldic achievement, but “a rebus” on the name Bradshawe:
“viz six nailes for the plural ‘Brads’ a species of nail, and the thorn for the old English Haw hence Brads-haw, that the scroll of foliage surrounding the shield may be a spray of barberry, the whole being in honour of Barbara Bradshawe, whose name would thus appropriately follow that of her husband as her initials did upon the stone of the previous year.”
Bradshawe Hall: Detail of Gateway.
A feature of the walling round Bradshaw is its heavy double coping. The building of the archway and stone fence would not have been built till after “the bulky traffic necessary during the building operations no longer prohibited a restricted approach.” This would account for the date of the gateway being a year later than that of the hall. Here, then, Francis Bradshawe and his wife took up their abode, in the old home rebuilt and modernized according to the fashion of the times. In the year 1630–1 he served the office of High Sheriff for the county, succeeding Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston. The accounts connected with his shrievalty were kept with scrupulous care. They were published in the Archæological Journal for 1904, and are very quaint reading. The board and lodging of the two judges on circuit, for all the officials connected with the Court of Assize, and for the prisoners awaiting their trial, as well as the expense entailed by the execution and burial of those condemned to be hanged, are all included. Contrary to the custom of the present day, the grand jury were fed at the High Sheriff’s expense, and a band was provided to entertain them. Among his personal expenses we read that £11 6s. was paid for lace, £1 3s. 10d. for twenty-six long buttons, 19s. for two dozen “silke and gould buttons and a neeke button,” £30 for twenty-six hatbands, 10s. for his boots, £2 3s. 4d. for his saddle, 11s. 8d. for the fringe, and £1 3s. 10d. for the “silver boole,” which may have been his buckle, but might possibly have been a bowl to be used as a loving cup. At Kirk Ireton he is charged for the hire of a horse, as well as for the keep of the one he left behind, which item suggests the probability that in riding his own horse, as would have been most likely, all the way from Bradshaw to Derby, he had been obliged to change horses on the road, and Kirk Ireton, being on his line of route in travelling by the old but now disused road from Bakewell, he had elected to make the exchange there. During this year he had the misfortune to lose his wife. The entry of her death in the parish registers of Chapel-en-le-Frith for the year 1631 is as follows: “Barbara, the wife of Francis Bradshawe, of Bradshaw, High Sheriff for this Countie this yeare, was buried in the chancell the xviiijth day.” On the 31st of July, 1632, he married as his second wife Lettice Clarke, widow, described in the Chapel-en-le-Frith register as “step-daughter to Sir Harvey Bagott, Knt.” She was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Dilke, of Maxstoke Castle, co. Warwick. After his death she married, as her third husband, Sir John Pate, Bart. Francis Bradshawe died 25th March, 1635, and was buried with his wife on the 27th. His will, made about a month after his second marriage, left two-thirds of his residue to his brother George, his successor in the family estates, and one-third to his widow. She appears to have made Bradshaw her residence till about the year 1637, at which date Bradshaw Hall was apparently occupied by a Mr. Thomas Wigstone; at any rate, he is described as of Bradshaw in the register of the baptism of his daughter Lettice in the October of that year. He may have been a friend or relation, but Nicholas Lomas, who, according to the register, died at Bradshaw in 1640, would certainly have been a tenant. Francis Bradshawe was the last member of the family to reside at Bradshaw; notwithstanding the large amount of money that had been expended on the hall only fifteen years before.