Derbyshire (England) -- Antiquities; Derbyshire (England) -- History
A feature of the walling round Bradshaw is its heavy double coping. The
building of the archway and stone fence would not have been built till
after “the bulky traffic necessary during the building operations no
longer prohibited a restricted approach.” This would account for the
date of the gateway being a year later than that of the hall. Here,
then, Francis Bradshawe and his wife took up their abode, in the old
home rebuilt and modernized according to the fashion of the times. In
the year 1630–1 he served the office of High Sheriff for the county,
succeeding Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston. The accounts connected with
his shrievalty were kept with scrupulous care. They were published in
the _Archæological Journal_ for 1904, and are very quaint reading. The
board and lodging of the two judges on circuit, for all the officials
connected with the Court of Assize, and for the prisoners awaiting
their trial, as well as the expense entailed by the execution and
burial of those condemned to be hanged, are all included. Contrary
to the custom of the present day, the grand jury were fed at the High
Sheriff’s expense, and a band was provided to entertain them. Among
his personal expenses we read that £11 6s. was paid for lace, £1 3s.
10d. for twenty-six long buttons, 19s. for two dozen “silke and gould
buttons and a neeke button,” £30 for twenty-six hatbands, 10s. for
his boots, £2 3s. 4d. for his saddle, 11s. 8d. for the fringe, and £1
3s. 10d. for the “silver boole,” which may have been his buckle, but
might possibly have been a bowl to be used as a loving cup. At Kirk
Ireton he is charged for the hire of a horse, as well as for the keep
of the one he left behind, which item suggests the probability that in
riding his own horse, as would have been most likely, all the way from
Bradshaw to Derby, he had been obliged to change horses on the road,
and Kirk Ireton, being on his line of route in travelling by the old
but now disused road from Bakewell, he had elected to make the exchange
there. During this year he had the misfortune to lose his wife. The
entry of her death in the parish registers of Chapel-en-le-Frith for
the year 1631 is as follows: “Barbara, the wife of Francis Bradshawe,
of Bradshaw, High Sheriff for this Countie this yeare, was buried
in the chancell the xviiijth day.” On the 31st of July, 1632, he
married as his second wife Lettice Clarke, widow, described in the
Chapel-en-le-Frith register as “step-daughter to Sir Harvey Bagott,
Knt.” She was the eldest daughter of Sir Thomas Dilke, of Maxstoke
Castle, co. Warwick. After his death she married, as her third husband,
Sir John Pate, Bart. Francis Bradshawe died 25th March, 1635, and was
buried with his wife on the 27th. His will, made about a month after
his second marriage, left two-thirds of his residue to his brother
George, his successor in the family estates, and one-third to his
widow. She appears to have made Bradshaw her residence till about the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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