CROKE OF STUDLEY, ANCIENTLY BLOUNT. [Illustration] This is the eldest branch of the great family of Blount or le Blond, whose origin has been traced by the late Sir Alexander Croke to the Counts of Guisnes before the Norman Conquest. Robert le Blount, whose name is found recorded in Domesday, was a considerable landholder in Suffolk, Ixworth in that county being the seat of his Barony. Belton in Rutlandshire was afterwards inherited by his descendants from the Odinsels, and Hampton-Lovet, in the county of Worcester, from the Lovet family. In 1404, Nicholas le Blount, who had been deeply engaged in the conspiracy to restore Richard II. to his throne, changed his name to Croke, on his return to England, in order to avoid the revenge of Henry IV. The Crokes afterwards became a legal family, and seated themselves at Chilton in Buckinghamshire. The priory of Studley was purchased from Henry VIII. by John Croke, in 1539. Younger Branches. Blount of Sodington, in the county of Worcester, and of Mawley Hall in Shropshire, descended from William, second son of Sir Robert le Blount, who died in 1288, and the heiress of Odinsels. The Blounts of Maple-Durham in this county, and the extinct Lords Mountjoy, are of a still junior line to the house of Sodington. The other extinct branches are too numerous to mention. See Croke's Genealogy of the Croke Family, 4to. 1823, and "The Scrope and Grosvenor Roll," vol. ii. p. 192, for a memoir of Sir Walter Blount, who fell at the battle of Shrewsbury together with Sir Hugh Shirley and two other knights in the royal coat-armour of Henry the Fourth-- "semblably furnished like the King himself." ARMS.--For Blount. _Barry nebulée of six or and sable_. For Croke, _Gules, a fess between six martlets argent_. The more ancient coat was, _Lozengy or and sable_, which was borne by William le Blount in the reign of Henry III. Sir William le Blount of Warwickshire, (so called because he held under the Earl of Warwick,) bore the present _nebulée_ coat in the reign of Edward II. Sir Thomas le Blount at the same period _the fess between three martlets_, now called the coat of Croke. (Rolls of the dates.) Present Representative, George Croke, Esq. ASHURST OF WATERSTOCK. [Illustration] A Lancashire family of good antiquity, and until the middle of the last century lords of Ashurst in that county, where they appear to have been seated not long after the Conquest. In the reign of James II. the eldest son of a younger brother was created a Baronet, of Waterstock in this county. His daughter and eventual heiress married Sir Richard Allin, Baronet, whose daughter, marrying Mr. Ashurst of Ashurst, great-grandfather of the present representative of the family, brought the estate of Waterstock into the elder line of the Ashursts. See Burke's Extinct and Dormant Baronetage, and his Landed Gentry.