Family History

The Penoyres are an old Welsh border family claiming descent from the eleventh century Norman Kings on the one side and Welsh royalty Rees ap Theodore King of South Wales, Griffith ap Conan King of North Wales, and Madock Meredith Prince of Powys on the other side. William Penoyre left Cornwall in 1172 in the train of Lady Catherine widow to Thomas Lord Lacy who married Moreiddig of Goulden Vale son to Idio Wylht Lord of Llywel son to Silotrik King of Dylrlyn. He settled in the Golden Valley near Vowchurch and married Catherine, daughter to John Pye of Sadlebow.

By the fifteenth century William Penoyre’s descendants had begun to acquire land close by in the Wye valley, and by 1483 were described as Penoyre ‘of the Moor’ (probably a corruption of the Welsh Ty Mawr or Big House) in Clifford. In about 1510 Thomas ap Jenkyn Penoyre married a rich widow, Jenett Adams, (nee Watkyn Vaughan of Bredwardine), who brought him all her late husband’s lands in Raglan, Usk, Chepstow and Monmouth, and with the proceeds of these Thomas and his son Howell (or Hugh) bought a lot of the old Priory lands in Clifford after the dissolution of Clifford Priory.

BLACK VAUGHAN

Howell Penoyre married Margaret Whitney of Upper Court, Clifford whose great-grandfather was Thomas Vaughan of Hergest, known as ‘Black Vaughan,’ from whom the Penoyres are therefore directly descended, and his wife Ellen Gethin ‘The Terrible’. According to legend, Ellen’s brother was killed by a cousin John Vaughan of Tretower and she dressed in men’s clothes, went to an archery tournament in Breconshire which she knew the killer Shon Hir (Long John) would attend, and when it was her turn to shoot fitted an arrow to her bow then suddenly swung round and shot and killed Shon Hir, escaping in the ensuing confusion. She later married Thomas Vaughan, second son of Sir Roger Vaughan of Bredwardine, and they lived at Hergest Court, Kington.

He was killed in the Battle of Banbury in the Wars of the Roses in 1469 and effigies of Thomas and Ellen are carved on their tomb in Kington Church. Black Vaughan’s dog also became a legend, appearing when one of the family was about to die. Conan Doyle visited the area and knew the story and used it in ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles.’ Black Vaughan himself became the most notorious ghost of Herefordshire and was believed to reappear often, sometimes jumping up on horses behind girls, and occasionally turning himself into a raging bull and roaring up and down Kington Church. Eventually (allegedly) twelve parsons with twelve candles and a newborn baby (to provide the required innocence) got together to read his spirit down into a snuff-box. By the time they managed to do this after many hours only one parson was left awake. The snuff-box was thrown into Hergest Pool, from which the legend maintains the ghost of Black Vaughan will re-emerge after a thousand years.

Howell and Margaret lived at he Moor and built or rebuilt the house in the mid-sixteenth century. Their son James married Catherine Watkyns of Llangorse and had five daughters before going off to fight in Queen Elizabeth’s wars in the Netherlands in 1588. On his return he married another heiress, Jane Lloyd of Peterchurch, and had two sons, Thomas and James. Thomas inherited the Moor and married Frances Vaughan of Bredwardine.

THE CIVIL WAR

When the Civil War broke out in 1642 Thomas Penoyre was living at the Moor with his wife Frances, his son James and four daughters. Like most people in Herefordshire - except for the Harleys of Brampton Bryan, he was a Royalist supporting King Charles 1.

This portrait of Charles 1 (artist unknown) has been in the Penoyre family for many years.

In June 1645 he received the following ‘Warrant of the High Sheriff for recruiting and contribution’from Sir Barnabas Scudamore, Governor of Hereford: -

‘By his Ma’ties expresse Commande at the unanimous desier of the Gentry and other Inhabitants of this County assembled the 21th of June at Hereford, I am to Require you Mr. Thomas Penoyer and Mr John Higgins gent to cause forthw’th to be listed within the parishe of Clifford thirty seaven able bodied men such as you shall iudge 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 contribucon of yo’ parishe to be collected and brought in by you at the same time for the providinge of Muskets Bandileers & for the sayd Soldiers so brought in. And you are likewise Required to cause one list of the sayd psons so brought in and their habitatcons to be kept in the Constables hands of the parishe and another of the same to be returned in to the Commissioners that a fittinge course may be taken w’th those that shall happen to Runne away accordinge to a proclamatcon to be yssued for that purpose. And that all the constables and other officers and inhabitants are to be aydinge and assistinge unto you as they will answere the contrary at their perills.

B. Scudamore.Vic.

Hereff. the 22th of June 1645.

Whosoever shall bringe in Musketts Bandaleers the price of them shall be payd to such whoe furnishe them by those whoe gather the p’sent contribucon for this Service'.

From the wording of this warrant it is clear that some of those recruited were expected to desert, specially as it was the summer when men were needed to work in the fields on the harvest, and a ‘Warrant for apprehension of deserters’ was issued by Lord Scudamore two weeks later: -

‘Wheras I have received a list of divers souldiers that were latley Imprest in this Countey w’ch have dessertted their Commanders and are Returned home as is supposed, and being Commanded by his Ma’ty imediately to issue fourth my warrantes not only for the app’hending of them, but allsoe for the gettinge in of all default’ to make the number complete: and findinge by the said leist that the persons subscribed beeinge of yo’ p’ish are a p’te of those that have soe desserted their Commaunders: and that you have not brought in your full number of men; I require you with all vigillancie and care p’sen’ly uppon Receipt heare of: aswell to search for inquire after the said p’sones subscribed either in yo’ owne p’ish or elsewhere within this Countey: and them to ap’hend and bringe beefore mee at Heref to bee disposed of accordinge to his Ma’tis Comaund in that behalfe: as allsoe to make choyce of & bringe in theither soe maney able bodied men as will make the number Chardged uppon yo’ur p’ish complete to bee disposed of unto officers appoynted by his M’ti heare to Receive them, further Requiring you the Constables, & all other Inhabitance of yo’r said p’ish from time to time to have a Speciall care to spp’hend & bring in all such Runawayes: upon the penalty expressed in his Ma’tis late proclamacon for that purpose letting you knowe that if yo’ faiale in either I ame by his Ma’tis Commaunde to Returne unto hime your p’sones to bee disposed of according to his Ma’tis Plesure: and of this you are to give mee an accompt in your p’sones uppon Munday next at your p’ill: Given at Hereford the 5th day of July 1645.

B. Scudamore ar. Vic.

Howell ap John Rice John Tho: Baker John Lewis John Evan John William Richard William William’ Eustance Tho: James

Clifford’

In December 1645 Hereford was captured by Parliamentary troops, Scudamore fled across the frozen River Wye and was later captured and imprisoned at Worcester. In 1646 Thomas Penoyre was arrested and the following accusations made against him: -

‘The heades of the Charge against Thomas Penoyer

Saith that about two yeares since Mr. Thomas Penoyer did aboute midnight being assisted w’th his servants pul’d this depon’nt out of his bedd and pres’d him to be a souldyer for the kinge.

That Mr. Penoyer answered he would finde out 40 men in the same p’ish where upon he had order to prese men for the kinges service.

That Mr. Penoyer did beate and wound diverse of them that he did press for neglecting or refusing the said service and threatened to hang those that disobeyed him therein.’

In his defence Thomas Penoyre sent a petition to ‘The High Court of Parliament’ saying that:

‘yo’r pet’r did never beare anie , or maintayne anie Armes against the nob’le State of Parliam’t . . . Onlie this in a Compulisarie Way . . By Warrant under the hands of Barnabas Scudamore hee being then Governor of this Cittie, and his Ma’tie being then in or about the said cittie of Hereford . . . soe that yo’r pet’r durste not doe anie thing to the Contrarie.’

By this time Thomas Penoyre had been forced to mortgage his estate at ‘the Hardwicke infra pochia de Clifford’ to a man called Wellington, who ‘comes armed and accompanied w’th divers armed souldiers (the unruliest hee could gett) . . . drives Mr. Pen’rs cattle & kyne in an outragious manner upon other mens lands & especially upon his owne where they are impounded, starved almost to death & detained till a Replevie w’th diffiiculty p’cured; and by these wayes Mr. Pe’r receaves noe profitt from the said land . . ‘

‘Mr. Penoyer’s estate is all extended for sev’all debtes & his body in prison upon sev’all executions & his landes not worth one hundred poundes p’ann’.

Thomas Penoyer had been released by 1648 but with Parliamentary troops controlling Herefordshire his troubles were not over. In September ‘One ffraunces James, Richard Powell and John ffrench cam violently into Thomas Penoyres house w’th their pistolls ready charged, to the greate feare & terror of his people,and searched the house and went upp one payre of stayres to his owne chamber and took from there one newe sadle and furniture w’ch cost xxs, and two bridles, one bitt of a bridle, one crossebowe & one sworde & belt being worth xxxs.

The said Thomas Penoyre beinge comynge towards his house Richard Powell & John ffrench did runne & apprehend him and asked him woulde hee have quarters, or ells they woulde pistoll him, and went very fierce & cruell upon him soe that he was fayne to desire quarters, and upon that they searched his pocketts and tooke thence iijs in money .

The said ffraunces James, Richard Powell & John ffrench kkept the said Thomas Penoyre as a prisoner and caused him to enter into a bond of Ch: penaltie to app’r next morninge att the house of Mr. Hugh Lewis in Brilley before corporall Lukes and to bringe with him his st’on horse w’th a white starre in the forehead being worth xl’.

The said Thomas Penoyre app’d the next morninge att the house of the said Hugh Lewis in Brilley according to tenor of the said bond before corporall Lukes, and tendered him xl in lyew of the said horse, but Lukes would not accept thereof, but kept Thomas as a prisoner. And the other soldyers ffraunces James, Richard Powell & John ffrench rayled at the said Thomas Penoyre and sayed that they weare sory that they had not burned his house And wished him w’th all spede to send for the said horse or els they woulde plunder him of all the goodes and meanes that he had in the worlde. And upon this Thomas Penoyre was forced to send his servant w’th Luke’s servant for the said horse, and to remain a prisoner in the meane ttyme, and when the horse was deliv’ed unto corporall Lukes the said Thomas Penoyre was released’.

Thomas Penoyre’s troubles continued until 1655 when he had to bring a bill to Chancery against a man called Simon Brace claiming that his lands had been damaged by Simon Brace and his servants ‘have committed much waste and spoyles upon the said landes by cuttinge downe many Tymber Trees . . .’

The Court ordered ‘Symon Brace and ye his servantss agents and workmen . .under the payne of ffive hundred pounds to be levyed upon the lands goods and chattles of you . that yee desist and forbeare from henceforth from doeinge or committinge any waste or spoyle . . upon the lands in question, And that yee p’mitt and suffer the plaintiffe and his Assignes to hold and quiettlie enjoy the lands in question.’

From then on there is no further record of Thomas Penoyre suffering any further harassment and he died aged 78 in 1680. His son James, who had ridden off as a lad of 16 to fight for Charles 1, been shot in the thigh and was involved ‘in most risings for the King until the Restoration’, married Dorothy daughter of Watkin Lloyd of Brecon , settled at Hardwicke Court and had two sons and two daughters.

DEATH OF JAMES PENOYRE

The older son, Thomas,(1660-1727) inherited the Moor, and the younger son James (1663-1694) went to London in 1693 to work in a business and in his first letter to his brother at home wrote “Dear Soul, This day ab’t two a clock gott here . . . Wee had brave weather but deep roads . . “

Another letter of 14th October reads: - “I think I had never a more melancholy journey than this last coming here . . . and am ashamed (seeing I have been soe long abroad) I should be such a child to weep still at ye thought of you.”

A year later a letter to his parents on 30th October begins: -

“Dear father and mother,

Not wth’out a great de’ll of paine & weakness I endeavour to write you these few lines. I have had a lingering distemper hanging on me this fortnight, & since last friday it hath been very violent on me . . I thought on Sunday night & munday night I was past any hopes of recovering, & should hardly carried yr Blessing to my grave, w’ch I hope you will now grant me. I am like to keep my Chamber for I am soe weak not hardly able to stand. I thought to had Joe Bengor to write for me but I believe he is afraid of my dis’er. God knows whither this be ye last from me . . . you must let this excuse me to my poor Bro’r & all others for I can say noe more but adieu

Yr ever dutyfull son

James Pennoyre”

The letter is marked in red in a different handwriting of the same era:

“Jas Penoyre of London to his father & mother on his death bed in 1694”

FAMILY CREST

When Thomas died in 1727 his son, another Thomas (1695-1783) inherited the Estate. In 1755 he was appointed High Sheriff of Hereford.

Portrait of Thomas Penoyre by Thomas Hudson (1701-1779).

As the office of High Sheriff customarily entailed the display of the holder’s crest and coat of arms he was sent the following letter on February 6th 1755: -

‘Sir,

His Majesty having been pleased to appoint you High Sheriff off Herefordshire for the present year and there being no Arms found in this office belonging to your name as there ought to be in order to their being placed on your seal and trumpeted Banners at the next Assizes. I am ordered to acquaint you therewith and at the same time to offer you my assistance being the Senior Herald in procuring for you the Earl Marshal of England’s Letters Patent for assigning to you and your Descendants a Coat of Arms and Crest to be forever hereafter to be born by you and them according to the Laws of Arms. The office fees for this is forty guineas and my own is ten but as to the last I shall wholy submit myself to your pleasure.

On receiving your favourable answer I will send you down the form of a Memorial for you to signe and am S’r

Your humble serv.

John Warburton. Somerset.’

Thomas Penoyre replied that the Penoyres had long used a crest showing three pears but on February received the following letter from the Heralds Office: -

‘Sir,

I have received your very particular answer to my letter and after a due consideration of its contents and the strictest search into all the Records of this Office, nothing can be found to justify your bearing the Arms you now make use of, or any other.

In S’r Henry St. George’s visitation of Herefordshire in the year 1683 there is a pedigree entered of five descents, with all the collaterals, from Howell Pennoyer of the Moor in the Parish of Clifford, down to Thomas Pennoyer, eldest son of James Pennoyer, which Thomas in the year 1683 was aged 21 years, and very probably was your father but heen, S’r, unluckily for us, the following note is entered against it “Mr. Pennoyer voucheth his Arms to be three Pears referring himself to the Books of Cornwall, where nothing of it is to be found.”

When you are at leasure to consult your old Pedigree in order to extinguish so ignominious a Memoradum, I will give you all the assistance I can, and that without either fee or reward to myself, and with respect

I remain, Sir, your humble Serv’nt,’

John Warburton, Somerset.

Thomas Penoyre consulted a friend and neighbour, who wrote a letter to him on March 8th which said: -

‘I think the fellow either was impertinent or means to be troublesome, and the surest way to keep out of his power is to give none at all but send him the six lines:

Our British Antiquaries hold

Pen Oyre denotes an Head of Gold;

But well you might conceive that Head,

Instead of Gold, was formed of Lead,

And you, as such, might justly mock it

If e’er my Gold should fill your Pocket.’

There is no record of whether Thomas sent this verse but he seems to have taken the advice and refused to pay. It was not until nearly seventy years later in 1823 that the family contacted the College of Arms again. When Thomas who was a bachelor died in 1783 he left the Estate to the four sons of his sister Mary Stallard, but they all died childless and in 1824 the Estate was inherited by

FRANCIS RIGBY BRODBELT

a doctor in Jamaica whose mother Anne Gardner

was the granddaughter of Thomas (1695-1783) Penoyre’s younger brother John Penoyre, He had been born in Jamaica in 1771 but was educated in London and trained as a doctor in Edinburgh. In 1795 he won the Silver Medal of the Medical Society of London for a paper titled ‘Case of Deposition of Mercury upon the Bones.’ He was in Paris in 1792-3 during the French Revolution, and according to a letter of 1824 from his niece “witnessed the death of Louis Seize. He and a young friend, at the risk of their lives, dipped their handkerchiefs in the pail containing his blood. The Guards smeared their faces with it but allowed them to depart. They returned to their lodgings and spread paper on the blood,” and afterwards he sent his father “a piece of paper besmeared with the blood of the unfortunate Louis.” He returned to Jamaica in 1795 and practised medicine with his father’s partner, Dr. James Lee. He had three illegitimate children with Dr.Lee’s illegitimate daughter Jamesina Johnson Lee, two sons and a daughter, paid for both the boys to have medical training in Edinburgh, and left all three considerable property in his Will. He was a member of the Council in Jamaica from 1787 until 1810, and in 1803 married his second cousin, Frances Millward, who was seventeen. They only had one child, Anna Maria, born in Spanish Town, Jamaica in 1804. On returning to England in expectation of inheriting the Moor they settled at Batheaston Villa on the outskirts of Bath and in 1824 he succeeded to the Estate. He set about extending and rebuilding the Moor mansion and, being clearly eager to establish his position as a landed gentleman contacted the College of Arms nearly seventy years after Thomas Penoyre had done so, and presumably paid whatever sum was asked for to acquire this crest and coat of arms: -

It states that Francis-Rigby Brodbelt “finding on enquiry at the College of Arms that no Armorial Ensigns have hitherto been recorded for his Family and that the Arms borne by the Family of Penoyre of the Moor in the County of Hereford from which the Memorialist’s said Mother is descended viz. three Pears on a Bend were not allowed at the Heralds Visitation of that County in 1683 He therefore requested the favor of his Lordship’s Warrant for Our granting and assigning such Arms and Crest for Brodbelt as may be proper to be borne by him and his Descendants and also for our Confirming to him and them the said Arms of Penoyre.”

He did not live long to enjoy his inheritance, dying three years later in January 1827 aged 55 after being “seized with a fit of apoplexy at his gate on his return from shooting.” His bereaved wife and daughter erected the marble memorial below which is still in Clifford Church.

ANNA MARIA BRODBELT (LEYSON) NAPLETON STALLARD-PENOYRE

FOUNDER OF HARDWICKE CHURCH

Anna Maria, the only legitimate child of Francis Rigby Brodbelt, was 22 when her father died and a considerable heiress, inheriting property in London and Bath as well as the Moor Estate. Born in Jamaica, she came to England as a child and grew up at Batheaston. After her father’s death she and her mother carried out between 1827 and 1829 the plans he had had drawn up by George Philip Manners, the City Architect of Bath, to extend the Moor house and turn it into a much grander mansion with gables, pinnacles and a verandah with ornate Gothic porticos.

Manners also designed a Tower, still in use, and two obelisks, one of which survives.

For images of the Tower and Obelisk, please view The Moor page.

In September 1830 Anna Maria married the Rev. John Leyson, who obtained the curacies of Cusop and Craswall and the rectorship of Llanigon. She was described as ‘delicate’ and became pregnant at least once but probably miscarried as there is no record of a live birth. John Leyson died in January 1844 and two years later she married another curate, the Rev. William Timothy Napleton in August 1846. Both her husbands took on the additional surnames of Stallard-Penoyre, presumably in the unfulfilled hope that there would be children to inherit the Moor Estate.

With her second husband and her mother Anna Maria formed a plan to build a new church at Hardwicke, making a separate ecclesiastical parish from that of Clifford which had been one of the four largest parishes in the country. The foundation stone was laid on 12th June 1849 by the Rev. John Webb of Tretire, Monmouth, who was an old family friend and wrote ‘Memorials of the Civil War in Herefordshire.’ The church was designed by Thomas Tudor of Monmouth and the hammer roof and figures of angels were built and carved with oak from the Moor Estate. The church was consecrated by the Bishop of Hereford on 3rd September 1851.

Anna Maria’s second husband, the Rev. William Napleton Penoyre, was the first vicar of Hardwicke until his death, only five years later, in November 1856. His grave, and those of Anna Maria and her mother, Frances Brodbelt Penoyre, are in the churchyard under the east window of the church.

The second vicar was the Rev.Thomas Webb, son of John Webb, who was a distinguished astronomer and lived at Hardwicke Vicarage near the church until his death in 1885.

After her second husband’s death Anna Maria continued to live at the Moor with her mother until the latter died in 1866, despite telling her cousin Ann Mackenzie that “I would much rather live in a cottage than this house.”

According to Thomas Webb in her later years she showed “a great deal of oddity & she was certainly in some respects hardly of sound mind towards the last”. When she died in February 1874 he wrote “it pleased God at length to release her after a life of great helplessness and misery for 16 years. What a lesson as to the vanity of all earthly possessions!”

She had become dependent on cousins on her mother’s side, Mrs. Oswald and Thomas James Brown, and left the latter the Estate for his lifetime although he had no Penoyre blood. Another letter from Thomas Webb referred to Mr. Brown as “The intruder at the Moor” and said “the neighbourhood thought he got the Estate by deceit - he always led everybody & especially the poor Testatrix to believe him a bachelor . . . and on the day of the funeral he declares himself a married man of 8 years’ standing & when he brings down his wife she is so intensely vulgar that, knowing as we well did, the punctiliousness & almost prudery of the Testatrix, we are perfectly confident that had she known it, she would never have made him her heir to the exclusion of her cousin on her father’s side the Rev. W.T.Raymond who had always been looked upon and had looked upon himself as the future possessor.”

A further letter from Thomas Webb stated that “my wife and I join with the neighbourhood in not calling on his unpresentable wife,” and after the evident neighbourhood disapproval it seems that the Browns moved off to Brighton taking much of the Moor furniture and many of the pictures with them. After Mr. Brown’s death in 1886 these were put in a sale and the Raymonds and other members of the Penoyre family had to buy them back.

WILLIAM FRANCIS RAYMOND STALLARD-PENOYRE

By the time William Francis Raymond, the oldest son of Francis Rigby Brodbelt’s sister Nancy, inherited the Moor and took on the additional surname of Stallard-Penoyre he was 82 and in frail health.

He never lived at the Moor and from 1886 onwards the house was let. In 1830 he had married Marianne, daughter of Admiral Evans, two of whose brothers emigrated to Australia and founded families there (see Australian section). They had two daughters, and when William died in 1889 the Estate was inherited by his oldest daughter Ann Fanny Eliza, whose husband was Slade Baker (1825-1910), Vicar of Clifton-on-Teme in Worcestershire.

SLADE BAKER ANN FANNY ELIZA

AN UNEXPECTED ROYAL VISIT

Slade Baker’s relative was Rector of Dowdeswell, just outside Cheltenham, in 1788 when George III, with his wife Queen Charlotteand three of their daughters, visited Cheltenham Spa in the hope of recovering from his first serious episode of mental derangement. William Innes Baker, who was eight, wrote the following letter to his old nurse Betty:

He went on:

“the Queen drank some Chocolate, and James handed it to the Queen first, and, as soon as he had done it, Papa ran & took it out of his hand, & handed it to the King and 3 Princesses; but the King would not have any.

Then Lady Weymouth fled up to Mama & said, Mrs. Baker, the Queen wants to go upstairs, which put Mama into a monstrous flurry and then the Queen went into all the Rooms - Just as the Queen was going away it began to rain, so the Queen staid a little longer, & then she went away.”

Slade Baker and Ann Fanny Eliza had ten children, and the oldest, Slade Raymond Baker Stallard-Penoyre (1861-1926), inherited the Estate but continued to live in his parish as Vicar of Stockton in Worcestershire.

SLADE RAYMOND BAKER STALLARD-PENOYRE (1899 - 1961)

ALICE (LILLIE) nee AUDEN (1869 - 1964)

He married Alice (Lillie) Auden, the aunt of the poet W.H.Auden and they had four children.

The Moor mansion was let to a number of tenants and during the Second World War was occupied by the Armed Forces. Afterwards it was in poor condition and had become too large for a family house. Attempts were made to rent it out for a school, nursing home, or golf club but to no avail, and with much regret the then owner Slade Baker Stallard-Penoyre (1899-1961) had the house demolished in 1951. The family have retained the land, consisting of about 2000 acres of farmland, 200 acres of woods and 22 houses and cottages.