The feudal barony of Hatch Beauchamp or honour of Hatch Beauchamp was an English feudal barony with its caput at the manor of Hatch Beauchamp in Somerset. The site of the mediaeval manor house, to the immediate south of the ancient parish church of St John the Baptist, is today occupied by Hatch Court, a grade I listed[1] mansion built in about 1755 in the Palladian style.
The Saxon word Hache signifies "gateway" and it is believed Hatch in Somerset formed the gateway to the royal hunting forest of Neroche. The small River Rag, which flows through Hache, was the northern boundary of the forest.[2]
Hache was held from King Edward the Confessor (died 1066) by the Saxons Godric, Godwin and Bollo, as stated in the Domesday Book of 1086.[3]
The Domesday Book of 1086 records Hache as one of the many holdings in-chief of Robert, Count of Mortain (c. 1031 – 1090), the half-brother of King William the Conqueror, whose tenant there was Robert Fitz Ivo, known as "Robert the Constable". On the rebellion of the Count of Mortain against King William's younger son and successor to the English throne, his lands escheated to the crown, and were soon thereafter re-granted to the de Beauchamp family from Normandy.
The early history of the de Beauchamp family of Hatch is "by no means clear".[4]
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Robert de Vautort (c. 1191 – 1251), alias "Robert IV de Beauchamp", son and heir of Simon de Vautort (died 1199) by his wife the heiress of de Beauchamp. He was aged about 8 at his father's death and became a ward of King John, who granted the wardship to his chamberlain Hubert de Burgh, 1st Earl of Kent (died 1243). He adopted the surname "de Beauchamp" in lieu of his patronymic, and on reaching his majority of 21 he became seized of the Honour of Beauchamp.
Robert V de Beauchamp (died 1264), son and heir, was summoned on many occasions by King Henry III to perform the military service required by his feudal tenure per baroniam, in Scotland and Wales.[2] he married Alice de Mohun, daughter of Reginald II de Mohun (1206–1258), of Dunster Castle in Somerset, feudal baron of Dunster.[10]
John I de Beauchamp (died 1283), son and heir, who married Cecily de Vivonne/de Forz (died 1320), one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of William de Vivonne/de Forz (died 1259), who held a one-half moiety of the feudal barony of Curry Mallet in Somerset.[11] Cecily thus inherited a one-eighth share of the barony of Curry Malet. He served as Governor of Carmarthen Castle and of Cardigan Castle, both in Wales. John built a manor house at his other seat of Stoke-sub-Hamdon. His landholdings included the manors of Marston Magna and Shepton Malet[2] in Somerset. He was summoned to join the king's army at Worcester with horse and arms to combat the rebellious Prince Llywelyn (died 1240) of Wales.[2] He died at Hatch, Somerset on 24 October 1283 and was buried in the Chapel of St. Nicholas in the church of Stoke-sub-Hamdon, Somerset on 31 October 1283.[2]
John II de Beauchamp, 1st Baron Beauchamp (1274–1336), son and heir, received in 1333 from King Edward III a royal licence to crenellate his mansion at Hatch.[2] He served as Governor of Bridgwater Castle in Somerset and fought in the Scottish wars. He received regular writs to attend the king in Parliament, by which in 1299 he was created a baron by writ under the title "Baron Beauchamp de Somerset".
John III de Beauchamp, 2nd Baron Beauchamp (1306–1343), son and heir, who fought in the wars in France and attended Parliament from 1337 to 1342.[2] In 1301 he was granted a royal licence to hold weekly markets on Thursdays and also a fair within the manor of Hatch Beauchamp.[12]
John IV de Beauchamp, 3rd Baron Beauchamp (1330–1361), son and heir. He married Lady Alice Beauchamp, daughter of Sir Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick (who was of no apparent kinship)[13]) by his wife Katherine Mortimer. The marriage was without progeny and thus the barony by writ became abeyant. The co-heiresses to the feudal barony of Hatch and its lands were his three aunts, the most richly endowed of whom[14] was Cecily de Beauchamp (c. 1321 – 1394), wife of Roger Seymour, of whose share the capital manor of Hatch formed a part.
The Seymour family (anciently de St. Maur) of Hatch is earliest recorded seated at Penhow Castle in Glamorgan in the 12th century. The parish church of Penhow is dedicated to St Maur. It should however be differentiated from the Anglo-Norman "baronial family" named St Maur, created Baron St Maur by writ in 1314, who bore different armorials (Argent, two chevrons gules) and which originated at the manor of St. Maur, near Avranches, in Normandy.[15]
The ancestor of the "baronial St Maurs" was Wido de St Maur (died pre-1086) who came to England during the Norman Conquest of 1066, whose son William FitzWido is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as a substantial tenant of Geoffrey Bishop of Coutances, and who held a feudal barony with lands in Somerset, Wiltshire and Gloucester, with ten manors in Somersetshire (of which Portishead was one). He made conquests in Wales in about 1090, which his family afterwards held.
No conclusive evidence exists to confirm the "baronial St Maurs" and the "Seymours of Hatch" as derived from a common stock, however Camden believed this to be most probable.[16] The two families adopted different arms at the start of the age of heraldry, c. 1200 – 1215, with the "baronial St Maurs" bearing: Argent, two chevrons gules. Certainly the "baronial St Maurs" died out in the male line in 1409 when their heir became Baron Zouche of Haryngworth, namely William la Zouche, 5th Baron Zouche (c. 1402 – 1462), whose son was William la Zouche, 6th Baron Zouche, 7th Baron St Maur (c. 1432 – 1468/9). One of the heirs of the St Maur/Zouche family was the Bampfield family of Poltimore in Devon (later Baron Poltimore) which inherited the Devon manor of North Molton from the Zouche family.[17]
Sir Roger I Seymour (alias St. Maur) (1314-pre-1361), born at Even Swindon, Wiltshire, husband of Cecily de Beauchamp (died 1393[18]), heiress of Hatch Beauchamp. Cecily de Beauchamp inherited the manors of Hatch Beauchamp, Shepton Beauchamp, Merryfield, Ilton or 'Murifield', and one third of the manor of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, the manors of Boultbery and Haberton, Devon, of Dorton, Buckinghamshire, and of Little Haw, Suffolk. She survived her husband and remarried secondly on 14 September 1368 to Sir Gilbert Turberville of Coity Castle, Glamorgan.[19][20]
Sir William Seymour (c. 1342 – 1391). He served under the Black Prince in Gascogny in 1362. He resided mainly at his manor of Undy (alias Woundy), near Caldicot in Monmouthshire. He married Margaret de Blackburn, daughter of Simon de Blackburn.[21]
Roger II Seymour (c. 1367/70 – 1420), who married Maud Esturmy (alias Esturmi, etc.), a daughter and co-heiress of Sir William Esturmy (died 1427), of Wolfhall in Wiltshire,[22] Speaker of the House of Commons and hereditary Warden of Savernake Forest in Wiltshire. Following his wife's inheritance, he moved his principal seat from Undy to Wolfhall.[22]
Sir John Seymour(c. 1395/1402 – 1464), son and heir, of Wulfhall in Savernake Forest, Wiltshire, and of Hatch Beauchamp. He served as Member of Parliament for Ludgershall in 1422 and Knight of the Shire for Wiltshire in 1435, 1439, and 1445[23] He was also High Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1431–1432, having previously served as High Sheriff of Hampshire.[24] He married Isabel William (alias Williams) (died 1486), daughter of Mark William, (alias William MacWilliam or Williams of Gloucestershire),[25] a merchant and Mayor of Bristol,[26]
John Seymour (died 1491), grandson and heir, son of John Seymour (1425–1463) who pre-deceased his father. His first wife was Elizabeth Darrell (born c. 1451), daughter of Sir George Darrell (died c. 1474) of Littlecote, Wiltshire, by his wife Margaret Stourton (born c. 1433), a daughter of John Stourton, 1st Baron Stourton and of Margery or Marjory Wadham, daughter of Sir John Wadham.
Sir John Seymour (1474–1536), eldest son from 1st marriage, knighted in 1497 after the Battle of Deptford Bridge, the father of Queen Jane Seymour (1508–1537), 3rd wife of King Henry VIII.
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, KG, (c. 1500 – 1552), eldest son and heir, uncle of King Edward VI (1547–1553) and Lord Protector of England (1547–49). in 1536[27] on his sister's marriage to King Henry VIII, he was created Viscount Beauchamp of Hache and in 1537 was created by the same king Earl of Hertford. He received his dukedom together with the subsidiary title Baron Seymour on the accession of his nephew to the throne in 1547. In 1531 he had served as Sheriff of Somerset and during this time he probably resided at Hache Court.[2] The Duke was executed in 1552 for felony on the order of his nephew King Edward VI, and was attainted by Parliament shortly thereafter when all his titles were forfeited.
Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (1539–1621), eldest surviving son by his father's second marriage, the children from the first marriage having been dis-inherited due to suspected adultery by their mother. He did not inherit his father's titles which had become forfeit, but was elevated to the peerage in 1559 by Queen Elizabeth I (King Edward VI's half-sister) as Baron Beauchamp and Earl of Hertford. His eldest brother, Edward Seymour (1537–1539), who predeceased their father as a two-year-old infant, had been known by the courtesy title "Viscount Beauchamp of Hache", one of his father's subsidiary titles. He married three times: firstly in November 1560 to Lady Catherine Grey, younger sister of Lady Jane Grey, "The Nine Day Queen", by whom he had two sons; secondly in 1582 to Frances Howard; thirdly in 1601 to Frances Prannell.
William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, 2nd Earl of Hertford, 1st Marquess of Hertford (1588–1660), who succeeded his grandfather Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford (1539–1621) and in 1641 was created Marquess of Hertford by King Charles I. Eventually on the Restoration of the Monarchy he regained, in 1660 at the behest of King Charles II, the Dukedom which had been granted in 1547 to his great-grandfather Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset (c. 1500 – 1552). In about 1633 the manor house was visited by the Somerset historian Thomas Gerard (d.1634), who wrote as follows:[28]
William Seymour, 3rd Duke of Somerset (1654–1671), grandson, son of Henry Seymour, Lord Beauchamp (1626–1654), 3rd but eldest surviving son of the 2nd Duke, who predeceased his father having married Mary Capell. He died unmarried and without progeny and was succeeded in the Dukedom by his uncle, but his estates, which were not entailed with the dukedom, were inherited by his sister Lady Elizabeth Seymour, wife of Thomas Bruce, 3rd Earl of Elgin and 2nd Earl of Ailesbury.
Lady Elizabeth Seymour (c. 1655 – 1697), heiress of Hatch and other Seymour estates including Savernake Forest, Wiltshire. She also became representative as senior co-heir of Princess Mary Tudor (1496–1533), sister of King Henry VIII, through the families of Grey and Brandon.[29][30] In 1676 she married Thomas Bruce, 3rd Earl of Elgin and 2nd Earl of Ailesbury (1656–1741). Thus the lands of Hatch passed to the Bruce family but were not long retained.[2]
The descent in the Collins family of the estate of Hatch Beauchamp, but apparently not the lordship of the manor (held by the heirs of the Uttermares), was as follows:
During the early 19th century Hatch Court had many different occupiers. From 1838 to 1855 William Oakes owned it He was a churchwarden and there is a memorial to him in the west porch.
From 1856 to the end of the century various members of the Hardstaff family resided at Hatch Court. They were Methodists, and Henry Hardstaff built a small Methodist chapel on the edge of the park. However, the Hardstaff family as owners of Hatch Court retained the right to the use of five pews in the north aisle of the church, and this is Shawn on the Gilbert Scott plan of the church (1867).
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In 1899 (William) Henry Lloyd (1839–1916) purchased Hatch Court and its 360-acre estate. He was a member of the wealthy Lloyd family of Birmingham, Quakers by religion, long established steel manufacturers and founders of Lloyds Bank, which originated at Dolobran Hall, Montgomeryshire in Wales. He was the fifth son of Samuel II "Quaker" Lloyd (1795–1862), who established the iron founder "Lloyds Foster & Co." which owned the "Old Park Works" foundry and colliery in Wednesbury. The firm however lost a fortune supplying materials for Blackfriars Bridge in London. In 1818 "Quaker" Lloyd moved residence to The Hollies, Wood Green, Wednesbury to supervise his mining estate. He took over Bills & Mills ironworks and renamed it "Darlastan Iron Company" and built Kings Hill Ironworks. "Quaker" Lloyd married Mary Honeychurch (1795–1865). "Quaker" Lloyd's father was Samuel I Lloyd (1768–1849), banker, the second son of Sampson III Lloyd (1728–1807) who with his own father Sampson II Lloyd (1699–1779) of Farm, Bordesley, Birmingham, had co-founded Lloyds Bank in 1765.[41] Sampson II Lloyd was an ironmaster from Dolobran in Montgomeryshire and lived at Farm, Bordesley (now the historic building known as "Lloyd's Farmhouse", Farm Park, Sampson Road, Sparkbrook).[42] Together with his brother Charles Lloyd, Sampson II Lloyd bought the Town Mill iron-forge in Burton-upon-Trent and traded in iron.
In 1874 (William) Henry Lloyd, later of Hatch Beauchamp, toured the United States and Canada, researching the latest industrial developments and making contacts with fellow Quakers.[43] He served as Mayor of Wednesbury (1892–94),[44] when he was living in Hall Green, Birmingham. He married (Margaret) Percie Chirnside (1861–1933), twenty years his junior, a daughter of Jack Chirnside (1833–1902), born in Northumberland, a pioneering sheep farmer and wool producer in Australia, whose uncles Thomas Chirnside and Andrew Chirnside (owner of Skibo Castle in Scotland[45]) founded the "Chirnside Pastoral Empire"[44] and built the Italianate style mansion Werribee Park in Victoria.[46] in Victoria, Australia. Henry Lloyd left Birmingham in 1899 and lived in Hatch Court until his death in 1917, having renovated the house and improved the woods and deer-park.[2] He converted the Methodist chapel as a reading room for the village boys, now used as the parish council meeting room. As he was a Quaker, his wife performed on his behalf the manorial role of patron of Hatch Beauchamp church.[2] His widow remarried to Rev. Herbert Stanley Gallimore, Rector of Hatch Beauchamp Church and twenty years her junior, who out of modesty for his clerical position preferred not to live in the grand manor house, and the couple moved into Laburnum Cottage on the estate.[44]
From 1923 Brigadier Andrew Hamilton Gault (1882–1958) and his second wife Dorothy Blanche Shuckburgh (1898–1972) (granddaughter of R.H. Shuckburgh, JP, of Bourton Hall, Warwickshire),[47] became tenants of Hatch Court, rented from Dorothy's aunt Mrs (Margaret) Percie Gallimore (née Chirnside and widow of (William) Henry Lloyd of Hatch Beauchamp),[44] and in 1931 Brigadier Gault bought the property and gave it to his wife. He was the eldest son of Andrew Frederick Gault (1833–1903)[48] of Montreal in Canada, "The Cotton King of Canada", a merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist born in Strabane, Northern Ireland, the youngest son of Leslie Gault, a merchant and shipowner, by his wife Mary Hamilton.[49] His brother was Mathew Hamilton Gault (1822–1887) who founded the "Sun Insurance Company of Montreal", now Sun Life Financial Incorporated, one of the largest life insurance companies in the world. He served as Conservative and Unionist MP for Taunton from 1922 to 1935. He was a churchwarden and He gave the Hamilton Gault and Galmington playing fields to the Borough of Taunton, and for these benefactions he was made a Freeman of the Borough. He returned to Canada after World War II for tax reasons, where he died in 1958, having occupied for only three weeks his newly built mansion house on his estate at Mont Saint-Hilaire, which he bequeathed to his alma mater McGill University. A Bronze Memorial was placed in the floor of the south aisle of Hatch Beauchamp Church by his widow. Part of the inscription reads: '1882–1958. Brigadier A. Hamilton Gault, D.S.O., E,D., C.N., of Hatch Court and Mount St. Hilaire, Canada. Founder of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. Freeman of the Borough of Taunton." Brigadier Gault came with this famous regiment to France in 1914 and took command of it in 1915. He was the last private citizen of the British Empire to raise and equip a regiment. Following his death his widow returned to Hatch Court in 1959, and to keep her company invited her niece Mrs Anne Blanche Townson (1922–1995) and her family to live with her. Anne was the eldest daughter of Lily Ellen Margaret ("Pearl") Shuckburgh (1894–1981) by her husband (Walter) Cecil Collett Sykes (died 1945), of Horsham in Sussex, of the Royal Flying Corps. She was the wife of John ("Jack") Strover Townson, Royal Navy.[44]
Mrs Anne Townson's first husband died in 1967 and she remarried in 1971 to Barry Nation, a retired officer in the Fleet Air Arm. In 1984, 11 years before her death,[44] she handed over Hatch Court to her daughter Mrs Jane Margaret Odgers (born 1951), who as a child had lived at Hatch Court with her family to provide company for her widowed great-aunt Mrs Dorothy Gault, and recalled that "My great aunt loved having us children around ... every Saturday morning we used to have breakfast in her bed, brought up by her Italian butler". Jane is the wife of Dr Robin Odgers, a GP who became the local doctor after the couple with their two daughters, Susannah and Emma-Jane, moved there from London in 1983. Dr Odgers renovated the one-and-a-half acre walled kitchen garden, from which he supplied the restaurant of the Castle Hotel in nearby Taunton.[50] In 2000, anticipating the departure of their daughters to boarding school and having concluded that the house was too large for their needs, they sold Hatch Court for an asking price of £3 million,[51] including 33 acres and three cottages,[52] and moved to Corton Denham House, near Sherborne in Dorset.[53]
Jane's brother John Townson (born 1949) still lives at Belmont Farm, the former home farm of the Hatch estate which he took over with 200 acres in 1978.[44]