Cusop History Group

Mary Penoyre Morgan Talk 17 February 2018 to Cusop History Group

“My family have lived here since 1182. A family tree in the form of a huge scroll was made in 1650 and stops in 1650. It’s a family history up to that date”

William Penoyre came from Cornwall in the train of Lady Catherine, in the time of Henry II, 1182. Lady Catherine was widow to Thomas Lord Lacy. They settled in the Golden Valley for 300-400 years and then gradually infiltrated LLanerch y coed (Llan y coed), the current site of the Drovers Rest glamping site near Hardwicke. The family tree shows Jenkin Penoyre of the Moor (born in 1452) living at the Moor in 1483.

In 1500 Thomas Penoyre was born. He died in 1547 after marrying a very rich widow who owned a lot of land near Raglan and Usk. They sold that and bought land in the Clifford area, with the help of his “base” son Howell, that formerly belonged to Clifford Priory which was dissolved between 1535 and 1540. On his deathbed, he summoned his legal first son, Howell and in the presence of a curate of Cusop and others, asked that “he should bee good to 2 base sonnes and a base daughter”.  For doing this he left all his land to Howell.

Ghosts

A monk has been reported seen digging away in what was the walled garden. The walled garden was built in 1830, 300 years after the priory was dissolved!

Howell married Anne, the daughter of James Whitney of Upper Court, Clifford. Anne, born 1542, was the great grand daughter of Black Vaughan, probably the most famous ghost of Herefordshire. James Whitney was born in 1524 and he married Anne Vaughan. Thomas “Black” Vaughan, born 1400, of Hergest Court near Kington was called Black due to his very dark hair or as some say, because of his association with rape and murder. He married Ellen Gethin of Radnorshire who was known as “The Terrible” due to her formidable personality. She took revenge on her brother’s murderer by dressing up as a boy at an archery competition in Abergavenny. She shot an arrow through the heart of the miscreant.

Thomas was beheaded by opponents of the Yorkists, whom he supported, aged 69. It is claimed that Black Vaughan was busier after death haunting people and causing trouble. His legacy continued with the story of the Black Dog, a companion of Thomas, who had his own room at the top of the house. The dog was said to appear for many generations signifying imminent death in the family. It is this story that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle probably heard while staying at Hergest Court and was used for his tale of the Hound of the Baskervilles. Apparently, he was asked not to base the story in the area so he used Dartmoor as the location.

Vaughan and his wife are buried in Kington church. The locals got fed up with the ghost so twelve parsons were summoned to Hergest Court along with a new born baby for innocence. The spirit was talked down into a snuff box, which took them all day. Some of those present fell asleep and it was said that only one person remained awake at the end. The snuff box was thrown into a nearby pond and folklore has it that the spirit would not appear for another one thousand years. 

The two “base sons and base daughter” were the children of a Mrs Butler who was living at Llanerch y coed. One of her grandsons, Robert, “happened to be present when a man was killed”, in other words, according to Mary, he killed Thomas. He fled to Bristol taking the Penoyre name with him. It is possible that Robert’s son also named Robert, went to the United States in the “ Hopewell” in 1635 as one of the first migrants and later was to be the founder of Harvard University. Mary Morgan still gets many letters from US citizens asking if they are related to her, but she has to disappoint them by saying that if they are it is through an illegitimate line!

Hardwick Court

In the 17th century Hardwick Court was purchased by the Penoyre family. It consisted of 250 acres and many buildings. The Thomas Penoyre of the day (probably Thomas born 1602 died 1680) owed £50 to Richard Vaughan who was the owner of Hardwicke Court. Vaughan said to Thomas, “if you pay me another £50 you can have the Court”. This Thomas did and at present, Mary’s son lives at Hardwick Court on the B 4348 road. Mary also resided there until 2016.

Civil War

The Penoyre family were on the losing side during the Civil War being Royalists like most people in Herefordshire apart from the Harley family of Brompton Bryan in the north of the county near the Shropshire border.

Mary has the original letter from Col. Barnabas Scudamore, Governor of Herefordshire during the war, dated 22nd June 1645, proclaiming “By His Majesty’s express Command at the Unanimous desire of the Gentry and other Inhabitants of this County assembled the 21st June at Hereford, I am to require you Mr Thomas Penoyre and Mr John Higgins gent to cause forthwith to be listed within the parish of Clifford, thirty seven able bodied men such as you shall judge fittest for Service, and to cause them without fayle to appeare at the gen’all Rendezvous at Wigmarsh the 28 day of this month, and to cause a months contribution of y’r parish to be collected and brought in by you at the same time for the providinge of Muskets Bandoleers etc. for the sayd Souldiers so brought in.”

John Higgins gave one pound and fourteen shillings. The majority of the others gave two shillings and eight pence. Cromwell was doing well at the time and many men were needed for the harvest and consequently a lot of men went home. Scudamore was not pleased and sent a second letter telling Penoyre to find the deserters and bring them to him, otherwise he would be in serious trouble. Penoyre’s son, James was called up and was wounded in the thigh. He moved back to Hardwicke Court and had five children in 1650’s. However, in 1646 Thomas Penoyre was in serious trouble when Cromwell was on top. Thomas was put into prison and charged with recruiting men for the king. In his defence, he said that he had no choice.

Later in 1648, the Penoyre house was plundered by presumably Cromwellians. Two of the three men with pistols, Richard Powell and John French, saw Thomas coming home. They ran up to him and threatened him. Thomas was robbed and kept prisoner by the men. The next morning, Thomas had to appear in front of Corporal Luke in Brilley. The Corporal wanted his horse, but Thomas offered £50 instead. This was not accepted, and he was imprisoned again. He was told that unless he gave up his horse they would plunder everything he owned. He had no choice, accepted the ultimatum and was released.

The family fell on hard times but during the Restoration (1600-1680’s) they reclaimed most of the land that they had previously lost.

Alternate generations of male Penoyre were named either Thomas or James. In 1655 James Penoyre, born 1627, married Dorothy Lloyd and settled at Hardwicke Court. In September 1693, James’ son James, went to London. It took him three weeks by horse and in 1694 he wrote about the rough time he had in the city. James contracted distemper and wrote a farewell letter on his death bed.

In the 18th century a Thomas Penoyre, born 1695, was living through a quite prosperous time and as such he asked to be Lord High Sheriff of Herefordshire, which was granted. Thomas never married which did not please the Herald’s office in London. They were also not pleased that Thomas did not have a coat of arms and so it was arranged for him to have one. However, in 1755 it cost them 40 guineas which was a large amount at the time. Thomas would not pay the fee and sent a rhyming reply to the Herald’s office. It reads:-

Our British Antiquaries hold Penoyre denotes a head of gold

But well you might conceive that head instead of gold was formed of lead

And you as such might justify rocket if ere my gold should fill your pocket!

Incidentally, the next generation submitted to the request and acquired a coat of arms.

The Stallards

Thomas died without children, therefore the estate went to his sister’s sons who were the Stallards and who went to live in London. One of the sons, Thomas born 1729 died 1821, owned a very successful chemists in Leadenhall Street and lived in Streatham. Mary.. “It would be very nice if any of them were left today”. He visited The Moor every summer and in 1783, assumed the name Penoyre by Royal Sign Manual when he inherited The Moor on the death of his uncle Thomas.

Francis Rigby Brodbelt (Broadbelt in some cases) Stallard Penoyre born in 1771, trained as a doctor in Edinburgh and went to Jamaica to practice. He returned to Batheaston, Somerset and inherited The Moor on the death of his uncle, Edmund Stallard in 1824. The condition of inheritance was that he and his heirs assume the surname Stallard Penoyre by Sign Manual. He married Frances Gardner Millward of Jamaica (born 1786, died 1866), in 1803.

The House

In 1824 Francis made alterations to the house on the Moor estate, built in the 1500’s. The house was Georgianised in the 1700’s and then Francis decided to make it more “showy” and very impractical. He built the walled garden and the tower, which still remains and is soon to be developed by the Landmark Trust as a holiday residence. Sadly, Francis only benefitted from the house for three years before he died of a “fit of apoplexy at his gate” after a day out shooting. Nowadays it would be called a stroke of some form.

The Brodbelt Stallard Penoyre’s had one child, Anna Maria Millward, later Stallard Penoyre, b.1804 in Jamaica. Anna Maria inherited a considerable fortune including property in London and Bath and a thousand acres in Cusop and Clifford. She was reputed to be a sad, plain girl who married twice, in both cases to curates. Her first marriage in 1830 was to the Rev. John Leyson, who died 1844. The second marriage in 1846 was to the Rev. William Timothy Napleton who died in 1856. Both her husbands assumed the name Stallard Penoyre.

Holy Trinity Church Hardwicke

In the 1840’s the Penoyre family obtained permission to split Clifford, one of the four largest parishes in the country, in two, creating a new parish on the south side of the Bredwardine road, (the current B4348). It was Anna Maria along with her second husband and her mother, who had Hardwicke Church built in 1849 partly so that her second husband could have a church to manage. He was the first vicar of Hardwicke but only lived for three years after it was built and was the first person to be buried there. Hardwicke church was consecrated on 3rd September 1851 by the Bishop of Hereford  and the separate parish was formed in 1853. Meanwhile Anna Maria lived at The Moor with her mother who died in 1866. Anna passed away in 1874.

According to Thomas Webb, astronomer and vicar at Hardwicke between 1856 and 1885, Anna Maria died of an “unsound mind after a life of hopelessness and misery”. She died childless and left the estate for his life-time to her maternal first cousin, Mr Thomas James Brown, who she apparently was in love with. Brown, who assumed the Stallard Penoyre name, was not well liked by his neighbours and Thomas Webb called him “The Intruder of The Moor”. Brown died without issue. On his funeral day it was declared that he had been married for eight years. His wife was a vulgar actress who took off to Brighton with many valuables from the estate. Later, the family had to buy some pieces back.

The estate was then left to Mary’s great-great grandfather who was Anna Maria’s first cousin on the Penoyre side, the Rev. William Francis Raymond born 1804, but any money went elsewhere. He also assumed the Stallard Penoyre name. He had been Rector of Stockton-on-Teme, Worcester, Rural Dean and Vicar of Wilsford, Wiltshire and Prebendary of Hereford Cathedral.

Mary’s great grandfather, Reverend Slade Baker Stallard-Penoyre, inherited The Moor at age 83. He found it all too much to have servants and maids and he rented out the house from 1885 and in World War II the US army used the house. Mary recalls being taken there in 1951 and seeing the huge walls covered in drawings of women (clothed). The family couldn’t really ask for compensation for this graffiti as it would have been too unpatriotic.

Mary’s father, Slade Baker Stallard-Penoyre born 1899,  was the first heir not to become a vicar. He was an engineer who read at Oxford and was not sure what to do with the house. He rented it out as a nursing home, school and golf club. The property was not wanted after the war and the days of women working in domestic service was over. So it was put on the housing market but it didn't sell and all he got was £1000 for the stone! “It was a pity”, Mary said, ”because 30 to 40 years later Hay became a desirable place to live”. Slade married Mary Delia Margaret James in 1937 and had two children, Mary and her brother Slade. Mary’s parents both passed away in 1961.

The Moccas estate is a lot bigger. The Moor is about 2500 acres maximum. Mainly farmland with some cottages. There were more cottages but some were sold and the revenue invested in the remainder which are now rented out with a handsome income.

Questions

Q. Where did the name Moor come from?

A. It comes from the Welsh Ty Mawr or big house. Mawr became Moor.

Q. There were two towers on the estate?

A. Yes there were two obelisks. As an unemployment project, some people collected up the stone lying on the ground and built two obelisks. Also an arch was built. Only one obelisk remains. 

 

To learn more about the Penoyre Family please check their website https://www.penoyre.uk/