The Ancient Manor of Strensham

By Gordon Sawyer

The Manor of Strensham is a unique and special place, a charming English rural parish on the West Bank of the River Avon. For over 400 years, the Russell family were Lords of the Manor, and along with the Taylor family generations later, oversaw major changes to this agricultural estate's fields, farms and buildings.

This book charts t

• Language: English
• Publisher: Linellen Press
• Release date: Feb 14, 2020
• ISBN: 9781922343154

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Contents

Contents

Strensham Places Mentioned in the Book

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter One - Land and Landscape

Chapter Two - The Beginning of the Manorial Estate

Chapter Three - Agriculture in Medieval Strensham

Chapter Four - The Russells

Chapter Five - The Strensham Inclosure Award 1817

Chapter Six - The Taylors

Chapter Seven - The Manor Houses of Strensham

Chapter Eight - The Parish, the Church and the Vestry

Chapter Nine - Schooling in Strensham

Chapter Ten - The end of the manorial estate

Sources

Author’s Note

About the Author

Strensham Places Mentioned in the Book

Acknowledgements

I have received help and support from many people.

The staff at the many archives that I visited have, without exception, been helpful and willing to go the extra mile to help my researches. I make particular mention of the Worcestershire Archaeological and Archives Service at the Hive in Worcester, Birmingham Library, Gloucestershire Archives, English Heritage in Swindon, Eastnor Castle Archives, and the Corpus Christi College Archives in Cambridge. Maggie Nokes at the Archaeological office in the Hive has been especially helpful throughout. I am grateful to WAAS, The Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College and The Eastnor Castle Collection for their permission to reproduce photographs of documents in their care.

Robin Whittaker, formerly Chief Archivist for Worcestershire, has been a constant source of help. He has helped me navigate the pathways of historical archives and always been ready to respond to my questions sometimes with answers but much better, and more usually, by pointing me along a path that if I followed it may give me the insights I needed. It was through his involvement with the cataloguing of the Archives held at Eastnor Castle that I was amongst the first to be given the opportunity to examine the documents on Strensham discovered there, which have shed so much light on 17th and 18th-century Strensham.

Professor Ian Fairchild, professor of Geosystems at the University of Birmingham and Chairman of the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Earth Heritage Trust, helped enormously in spending time walking the Parish with me, in providing expert guidance in the writing of Chapter 1, and creating the geological cross section shown in Figure 1.

Many local people who live, lived or worked in Strensham have also helped. I thank them all. To Basil Twist, whose first job on leaving school was working at Strensham Court in World War II, I give special thanks. It was his testament that shed light on what really went on there during the war.

And finally, I thank my wife, Sue, for her unflinching support and encouragement and her special way of unearthing new gems using Google Search!

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Introduction

My wife, Sue, and I moved to Strensham in March 2011. Our home was the Old Schoolhouse next to the church. We later renamed it Sunday House. Our lounge was the old Sunday School room. Each day, I walked or drove along Church Road. Each day, come rain or come shine, I soaked up the views and watched the activity and changes on the farm fields that continue to make up three-quarters of Strensham’s land. Each day I looked forward to seeing how nature would conjure the sunset over the Malvern Hills.

At the end of Church Road, the highest point in Strensham, stands its oldest building, the former parish church of St John the Baptist, Grade 1 listed and now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust (CCT). No doubt it was the richness of the church’s interior that brought John Betjeman, the poet and writer and champion of England’s old churches, to Strensham in 1962. But when he talked to the vicar, Norman Holt, it was the view that had impressed him as he is reported as telling the vicar that it was surely the finest in all England. Praise indeed. Still, today, it is easy to see why he might have said this. To the west, an uninterrupted view of the Malvern Hills, to the east, majestic mysterious Bredon Hill, to the north, Worcester and beyond and to the south, Tewkesbury and the Cotswolds.

It was Margaret Guilding’s leaflet—a short history of the parish church--which first ensnared me into researching the history of the parish. The church’s monuments to the Russells and Taylors, its now remote location, and the surrounding fields posed questions about the history of the parish, the estate, the manor of Strensham.

My search has been driven by the pursuit of answers to two questions. What were the events and influences, local and national, ancient and modern, which have shaped Strensham into what it is today? How can we see or imagine that history when we walk around the parish?

It was Nigel Guilding, Margaret’s son, who got me off to a good start. As the last tenant farmer of Bredon Fields Farm and now the owner of Wooshill Farm, he shared with me the estate agent particulars he had kept of the land sales; land sales which charted the course of the breakup of the estate which amazingly only started as recently as 1973. He told me about the name changes for the pub in Upper Strensham which finally closed down in 1996; The Cavalier, The Pelican, and The Taylor’s Arms. The Pelican was so named by Corpus Christi College, Cambridge when they bought the estate from the last of the Taylors in 1935. But, like me, he was mystified by the pub sign which showed a pelican on one side and a galleon on the other. After my initial researches in Pershore Library and the Hive in Worcester, I was fortunate to be invited to search the college’s boxes of Strensham files held in their archives, still held from when it owned the estate when they were Lord of the Manor. The documents they held provided me with a comprehensive description of the estate as the Taylors had developed it as well as giving detailed insight into the changes made in the parish during and after World War II. The archivist even solved the mystery of the pub sign!

The archives at the Hive held the official documents describing the Inclosure Award of 1817; an amazing record which also provided the detail of the estate that the Taylors acquired in 1819 from John Somers Cocks of Eastnor Castle. The archives of the Taylor family of Birmingham and Strensham are now held in Birmingham’s new central library and they revealed much detail for the period 1819 to 1935.

But it was the previous 500 years when the estate, or manor, was held by descendants of the important Worcestershire family, the Russells, which provided the biggest challenge. No Russell archives have yet been revealed and no manorial records are known to exist either. It was Robin Whittaker, now retired from the role of Chief Archivist for Worcestershire County, who pointed me to numerous sources to research most of which led to filling in many gaps. The biggest and most important breakthrough was the discovery by a small team of experts, including Robin, engaged to research and organise the archives stored in Eastnor Castle. Thrillingly, several documents, including two most beautiful and important maps and plans relating to Strensham, were discovered. I was privileged to be invited to study them. Together they added enormously to the history of Strensham in the 17th and 18th centuries.

But many gaps still remain and hopefully, this book may encourage new leads to come forward. Perhaps the most important concerns Strensham Castle, or, more correctly, the fortified mansion known as Strensham Court House. Fortunately, the double moats of this house remain, located behind Moat Farm House, and are now classified as a historic monument by Historic England. Sadly, no archaeological work on the site has yet been done and there are no pictures, drawings or plans which reveal its design. Looking elsewhere for evidence from the same period of time can often be revealing, though not of course proof. I commend the reader to visit Stokesay Castle, another fortified manor house, which survives in amazing condition, now owned by English Heritage.

Another more modern gap concerns the most recent Strensham Court built by John Taylor in 1824 and, sadly, destroyed by fire in 1974. The plans of this house, which were once held in the Taylor Archives are now missing and no photograph or picture exists of its magnificent interior, or the surrounding gardens. Surely, they will emerge!

Talking with local people, who either were born, lived or worked in Strensham, has also led to important findings. Most memorable was meeting Basil Twist who started work as a fourteen-year-old at Strensham Court during World War II. He was able to give me the real story of the how the Court, outbuildings, park and gardens were used to help the war effort. His story reveals that the numerous Nissan huts in the grounds were not living quarters for soldiers as most locals had thought!

In writing this book, I have relied on historical facts from reliable sources, most often original records. But occasionally the reader will see that I have used the words ‘possible’ and ‘probable’. ‘Probable’ has been used where information from other sources suggests that my interpretation of information is most likely correct. I have used ‘possible’ where the explanation I have given is plausible, sometimes providing an alternative explanation to the popularly reported one.

Chapter One

Land and Landscape

It was the Saxons who first gave a name to this estate or manor; Strengesho. Streng is the Saxon word for ‘strong’. Ho is a little more difficult to pin down. Some historians suggest it is an old English word meaning house; hence ‘Strong’s house’. But ho or hoe is also an Anglo Saxon word meaning a sloping ridge shaped like an inverted foot and heel, or hoe. Perhaps a more apt derivation!

The heel of the ho follows the west bank of the River Avon which forms the manor’s eastern boundary, with Eckington on the other side. This steep west bank is unique along the length of the river and on its highest point, 60 metres above sea level, stands the church of St John the Baptist. To the north, the heel slopes gradually down to the Bourne Brook which forms the parish’s northern boundary with Defford. It is the heel of the ho which limits the impact of the Avon’s frequent flooding to