The Mortimer History Society

The Mortimers - A Medieval Family


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A new project has just begun to translate and publish the Wigmore Chronicle.  This is the first historical research project undertaken by the MHS and it is hoped that it will prove a great success.

All members are invited to send in proposed projects or current projects they are undertaking and with which they would like help or advice.  In the first instance please contact the chairman.


SOME MORTIMER CASTLES

An illustrated colour booklet listing 20 castles connected to the Mortimers, plus a short over-view of the Wigmore Mortimer history and family tree. Also grid references for your visits, 24 A5 pages

Price: £3.50 + 50p p&p, available from margotmiller@live.co.uk

The Mortimers and Kington

For some years I have been engaged in writing a history of Kingswood, Kington. I live at Pound Farm, Kingswood which dendrochronology indicates was built between 1452 & 1462. Some 30 metres to the south of Pound Farm is an earth platform. Pottery finds from this site have been positively identified by a ceramics expert at Birmingham University as being of 13th century origin. I have a documentary reference that there was a settlement at 'Pembers Oak' in 1299. The Pound Farm site is the core of Pembers Oak.
In 1564 Elizabeth I sold the Huntington manors to Sir Ambrose Cave. In the Charter listing the properties there is a reference to 'Mortimer's croft' lately let to Robert Stephens by copy of court roll - i.e. it was a 'copyhold' property. It would appear that this property may well be in the Kington area. There is a 'Stephens' connection with Pound Farm and I know that 'Howell Stephens' who lived here in the 17th century was born in 1594 or a little earlier.
I had speculated that either Pound Farm, or the property on the earth platform, were 'Mortimer's croft' but, apart from the tenuous 'Stephens' connection,had no evidence.
Recently I have discovered another document in the National Archives dated 1494-5 (SC6/Hen VII/1652). This is a bailiff's account for the Manor of Huntington. Under 'new rents' is the entry 'And of 14d of crofts called Mortymers crofte and Goodwal croft of Robert Stephens so of the lord by roll of court for all services...' This would indicate that the 1564 Charter merely repeats an earlier court roll entry and that the 'Robert Stephens' connection dates from 1494/5.
For reasons that I won't bother going into now, I am pretty certain that 'Godwall' & 'Mortymer's' crofts are the two property sites here. 'Godwall' is almost certainly a corruption of 'Good well'. All of which begs the question - what connection is there to the Mortimer family? The fact that Stephens appears to have become the manorial 'tenant' around 1494 of a property bearing the 'Mortimer' name may indicate that Mortimer's name was associated with the property prior to the 'main' family line becoming extinguished c1425.
All of the above begs further questions. I have researched this area extensively. The 'Mortimer' name has not cropped up locally. Faraday's recently published 'Calendar of Hereford Probate Acts' does throw up some 'Mortimers' - e.g. 'William & Isabel Mortymer of Lee' in 1445, 'John, Johan & Richard Mortimer of Bromyard' in 1445 , - hence a branch of the family was extant then. At this point I don't know which of the 2 property sites here was 'Mortimer's croft'. There is circumstantial evidence that the c1450 Pound Farm may have been built upon the site of an earlier property. This could have pre-dated the separate house platform which we know was there by 1300. One or other of these properties may have been the site of the DB manor of 'Stiuingeurdin' which we know to be in this area.
I would appreciate it if you could circulate the above within your Society. If anyone comes across anything remotely connecting the Mortimers with the Kington or Chickward area I would love to hear of it. If I discover any further references to 'Mortimer' I will let you know.
Colin Boylett