Goldstone is a small hamlet in eastern

Shropshire Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West M ...

, England, in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Cheswardine Cheswardine ( ) is a rural village and civil parish in north east Shropshire, England. The village lies close to the border with Staffordshire and is about 8 miles north of Newport and 5 miles south east of Market Drayton. At the 2001 census, ...

. It lies in an isolated rural area north of

Hinstock Hinstock is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It appeared in the Domesday Book survey as "Stoche" (from Old English ''stoc'', "dependent settlement"); the present version of its name was created in the mediaeval period by prefi ...

and Ellerton, around south of the nearest town,

Market Drayton Market Drayton is a market town and civil parish on the banks of the River Tern in Shropshire (district), Shropshire, England. It is close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is located between the towns of Whitchurch, Shropshire, Wh ...

History

Its name, which in the mediaeval period was variously spelt ''Goldestan'', ''Golston'', and ''Goldston'', is formed on the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''-tun'' ("farm, settlement") while Gold- was a common element in Old English personal names.Bowcock, E. ''Shropshire place names'', Wilding & Son, 1923, p.105 The first time it is mentioned is in The Mount Gilbert (i.e.

Wrekin The Wrekin ( ) is a hill in east Shropshire, England. It is located some west of Telford, on the border between the unitary authorities of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. Rising above the Shropshire Plain to a height of above sea level, i ...

) Forest Roll of 1180, when ''Goldestan'' is listed among those places where assarts (a piece of land cleared of timber and fit for tilling), or imbladements (the sowing of lands within the bounds of a Royal forest) were assessed, and an Alan de Goldestan is named. A Walter de Goldestan is then mentioned in the

Pipe Roll The Pipe rolls, sometimes called the Great rollsBrown ''Governance'' pp. 54–56 or the Great Rolls of the Pipe, are a collection of financial records maintained by the English Exchequer, or HM Treasury, Treasury, and its successors, as well a ...

records for Shropshire in the 31st year of the reign of King Henry II (i.e. 19 Dec 1184 – 18 Dec 1185), and again in the following year (32 Henry II), where he appears as one of the associates/followers of Gilbert Pipard (otherwise 'Pippard'), a man who is found appointed to a number of important roles by Henry II, and quite often with Bertram III de Verdun, in England and Ireland. In 1278 Goldstone was recorded as forming, with Ellerton and Sambrook, one of the four townships of Cheswardine parish and it remains part of the parish to this day. In the 13th century Goldstone was recorded as an outlying member of the manor of Little Ercall (

Child's Ercall Child's Ercall ( ) is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England. It is located in a rural area between the towns of Market Drayton and Newport: the civil parish had a total population of 599 at the 2001 census,Dunval
near Bridgnorth in Shropshire, in the 16th century. As a result, members of the family appear in the registers of

Astley Abbotts Astley Abbotts is a village and civil parish in Shropshire, England, located immediately north of Bridgnorth, and straddling the B4373 Bridgnorth to Broseley road. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 396. The Church ins ...

and are mentioned as resident in

parish from the 15th century. Some information on Richard's fathe
Humphrey ''Goldston''
is found in the History of Parliament Trust publication:- The House of Commons 1509–1558. It confirms that Humphrey was one of the members of Parliament for

Bridgnorth Bridgnorth is a market town and civil parish in Shropshire, England. The River Severn splits it into High Town and Low Town, the upper town on the right bank and the lower on the left bank of the River Severn. The population at the United Kingd ...

, and that in 1541 he was ''receiving income of lands at Astley Abbotts, north of Bridgnorth, formerly belonging to

Shrewsbury Abbey The Abbey Church of the Holy Cross (commonly known as Shrewsbury Abbey) is an ancient foundation in Shrewsbury, the county town of Shropshire, England. The Abbey was founded in 1083 as a Benedictine monastery by the Normans, Norman Earl of Shre ...

''. Dunval Hall is Elizabethan and was clearly built by the Goldstones since they were living there and owned it at the time that it was constructed. It seems most likely that it was John Goldstone of Goldstone and Dunval who built it; he married Dorothy Ottley, daughter of Adam Ottley of Pitchford Hall, on 22 October 1576 at

Pitchford Pitchford is a small village in the English county of Shropshire. It is located between Cantlop and Acton Burnell and stands on an affluent of the River Severn. Pitchford takes its name from a bituminous spring/pitch in the village, located nea ...

. The family continued to reside at Dunval, and continued to own lands there and be connected to the place into the early part of the 17th century. The Acton family who later owned it may have made alterations; they appear to have become related to the Goldstones by marriage. The Goldstones appear to have relocated themselves to London, in the late 1600s/early 1700s, and lived off The Strand, at one time in Howard Street. This may explain why the lordship and manor of Goldstone was passed to the Goldstone's cousin Edward Pegg, who already had land nearby at Ellerton, in 1720 via the use of a legal method called ''The Common Recovery''; he had married Jane Goldstone, daughter of Lawrence Goldstone of Goldstone. Pegg and his successors built and extended a newer Goldstone Hall next to the older manor house, bits of which he must have incorporated since some much older possibly Tudor or earlier wooden beams have been discovered within its structure. From Pegg, the estate and manor of Goldstone passed to other cousins of the Goldstones – the Haywards of Aston Cliffe, Staffordshire and

Hulme Walfield Hulme Walfield is a small village and civil parish, just north of Congleton, in the unitary authority of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West ...

, in the Parish of Astbury (

Newbold Astbury Astbury is a village in Cheshire East, Cheshire, England. It lies south-west of the town of Congleton on the A34 road (England), A34 road, which forms one side of the village green. The parish of Astbury historically covered a large area, also ...

), near Congleton, Cheshire. Thomas Hayward had his estate at Goldstone plotted on a map painted on vellum, entitled: ''Goldstone Lordship, and Estates in the Parish of Hinstock and County of Salop, Belonging to Thomas Hayward Esq, Surveyed 1771 by John Wedge''. On the death of the last of the Haywards, Goldstone, along with their estate at Hulme Walfield, was inherited by their cousin William Vardon, whose family also came from Cheshire. The Vardons are a branch of the de Verdun (Verdon) family from Normandy (ref: de Verdun of Alton, Staffordshire), whose name changed from Verdon to Vardon in the later 17th century. William Vardon must have made some structural changes to the Hall since one wall has a feature which incorporates his crest of a stag's head with his initials "WV" underneath. The building that replaced the original old Manor House at Goldstone was finally incorporated into and connected to the newer Goldstone Hall by Henry G. E. ("Jack") Vardon, heir of Hugh E. Vardon of Goldstone (nephew of William Vardon), after the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

. The more modern property named 'Goldstone Manor' is the farmhouse of Goldstone Manor Farm, rather than the structure or site of the historic Manor. The original border between Shropshire and

Staffordshire Staffordshire (; postal abbreviation ''Staffs''.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It borders Cheshire to the north-west, Derbyshire and Leicestershire to the east, ...

was Goldstone Brook, which formed the boundary between the manors o
Cheswardine
and Goldstone, Cheswardine originally being in Staffordshire. Edward Hayward of Goldstone made an interesting reference to some old manorial marker stones that demarcated Goldstone from Cheswardine, in an entry in his Journal dated 21 May 1805, as follows: ''This day Mr Pierpoint of Ellerton told me that the proper old course of the Goldstone Brook is by the Gate going into Sowdley Lane which is also the Boundary of Goldstone Manor. This he heard the late Mr E. Pegg of Goldstone declare when he refused to give one of the large stones there to'' --?''Jones the Miller''.Edward Hayward's Journal: "Memorandums, Observations & Appointments" (held privately) It is perhaps possible that these marker stones may have more than significance as a part of Goldstone and Cheswardine's manorial history, but also that of the counties of Shropshire and Staffordshire, since they could also have been boundary stones marking the original border between Shropshire and

. As in many rural areas of Britain, the rural depopulation of the 19th and 20th centuries has left Goldstone with only a few dwellings clustering around Goldstone Hall, a Georgian brick house (now a hotel) with an earlier core. In its garden is a well reputed to be the deepest in Shropshire.Raven, M. ''A Guide to Shropshire'', 2005, p.81 The hamlet gives its name to the Goldstone Brook, which rises nearby. It has been surmised that the surnames Goldstone, Gulson and Goulson similarly or first appeared either here or in Goldstone in Kent,Freeman, J. W. ''Discovering Surnames'', Osprey, 2008, p.44 but are far more likely to have arisen quite separately, based on the same form of Anglo-Saxon personal names of people associated with these places named after them.

References

External links

Goldstone and the Manor of Goldstone �
'Goldstone - The Story of a Shropshire Manor and its people over more than 800 years'
Bertram III de Verdun – Bertram III de Verdun and his family {{shropshire Hamlets in Shropshire Cheswardine, Shropshire

History

See also

References

External links