Part 31 (1/2)

One mile east is Sheldon-hall, which anciently bore the name of East-hall, in contradistinction from Kent's-moat, which was West-hall.

This, in 1379, was the property of Sir Hugh le Despenser, afterwards of the family of Devereux, ancestor of the present Viscount Hereford, who resided here till about 1710. In 1751, it was purchased by John Taylor, Esq; and is now possessed by his tenant.

The moat, like others on an eminence, has but one trench, fed by the land springs; is filled up in the front of the hall, as there is not much need of water protection. The house, which gives an idea of former gentility, seems the first erected on the spot; is irregular, agreeable to the taste of the times, and must have been built many centuries. All the ancient furniture fled with its owners, except an hatchment in the hall, with sixteen coats of arms, specifying the families into which they married.

KING'S-HURST.

Two furlongs east of Sheldon-hall, and one mile south of Castle Bromwich, is _Kings-hurst_; which, though now a dwelling in tenancy, was once the capital of a large track of land, consisting of its own manor, Coles.h.i.+ll, and Sheldon; the demesne of the crown, under the Saxon kings, from whom we trace the name.

The Conqueror, or his son William, granted it; but whether for money, service, caprice, or favour, is uncertain; for he who wears a crown acts as whimsically as he who does not.

Mountfort came over with William, as a knight, and an officer of rank; but, perhaps, did not immediately receive the grant, for the king would act again much like other people, _give away their property, before he would give away his own_.

If this unfortunate family were not the first grantees, they were lords, and probably residents of King's-hurst, long before their possession of Coles.h.i.+ll, in 1332, and by a younger branch, long after the unhappy attainder of Sir Simon, in 1497.

Sir William Mountfort, in 1390, augmented the buildings, erected a chapel, and inclosed the manor. His grandson, Sir Edmund, in 1447, paled in some of the land, and dignified it with the fas.h.i.+onable name of _park_.

This prevailing humour of imparking was unknown to the Saxons, it crept in with the Norman: some of the first we meet with are those of Nottingham, Wedgnock, and Woodstock--Nottingham, by William Peveral, illegitimate son of the Conqueror; Wedgnock, by Newburg, the first Norman Earl of Warwick; and Woodstock, by Henry the First. So that the Duke of Marlborough perhaps may congratulate himself with possessing the oldest park in use.

The modern park is worth attention; some are delightful in the extreme: they are the beauties of creation, terrestrial paradises; they are just what they ought to be, nature cautiously a.s.sisted by invisible art. We envy the little being who presides over one--but why mould we envy him?

the pleasure consists in _seeing_, and one man may _see_ as well as another: nay, the stranger holds a privilege beyond him; for the proprietor, by often seeing, sees away the beauties, while he who looks but seldom, sees with full effect. Besides, one is liable to be fretted by the mischievous hand of injury, which the stranger seldom sees; he looks for excellence, the owner for defect, and they both find.

These proud inclosures, guarded by the growth within, first appeared under the dimension of one or two hundred acres; but fas.h.i.+on, emulation, and the park, grew up together, till the last swelled into one or two thousand.

If religions rise from the lowest ranks, the fas.h.i.+ons generally descend from the higher, who are at once blamed, and imitated by their inferiors.

The highest orders of men lead up a fas.h.i.+on, the next cla.s.s tread upon their heels, the third quickly follow, then the fourth, fifth, &c.

immediately figure after them. But as a man who had an inclination for a park, could not always spare a thousand acres, he must submit to less, for a park must be had: thus Bond, of Ward-end, set up with thirty; some with one half, till the very word became a burlesque upon the idea. The design was a display of lawns, hills, water, clumps, &c. as if ordered by the voice of nature; and furnished with herds of deer. But some of our modern parks contain none of these beauties, nor scarcely land enough to support a rabbit.

I am possessed of one of these jokes of a park, something less than an acre:--he that has none, might think it a _good_ joke, and wish it his own; he that has more would despise it: that it never was larger, appears from its being surrounded by Sutton Coldfield; and that it has retained the name for ages, appears from the old timber upon it.

The manor of King's-hurst was disposed of by the Mountforts, about two hundred years ago, to the Digbys, where it remains.

COLEs.h.i.+LL.

One mile farther east is _Coles.h.i.+ll-hall_, vested in the crown before, and after the conquest; purchased, perhaps, of William Rufus, by Geoffrey de Clinton, ancestor to the present Duke of Newcastle. In 1352, an heiress of the house of Clinton, gave it, with herself, to Sir John de Mountfort, of the same family with Simon, the great Earl of Leicester, who fell, in 1265, at Evesham, in that remarkable contest with Henry the Third.

With them it continued till 1497, when Sir Simon Mountfort, charged, but perhaps unjustly, with a.s.sisting Perkin Warbeck with 30_l_. was brought to trial at Guildhall, condemned as a traitor, executed at Tyburn, his large fortune confiscated, and his family ruined. Some of his descendants I well know in Birmingham; and _they_ are well known to poverty, and the vice.

In the reign of Henry the Seventh, it was almost dangerous, particularly for a rich man, even to _think_ against a crafty and avaricious monarch.--What is singular, the man who accused Sir Simon at the bar, succeeded him in his estate.

Simon Digby procured a grant of the place, in whose line it still continues. The hall is inhabited, but has been left about thirty years by the family; was probably erected by the Mountforts, is extensive, and its antique aspect without, gives a venerable pleasure to the beholder, like the half admitted light diffused within. Every spot of the park is delightful, except that in which the hall stands: our ancestors built in the vallies, for the sake of water; their successors on the hills, for the sake of air.

From this uncouth swamp sprung the philosopher, the statesman, and tradition says, the gunpowder-plot.