BIRTLES

Grid Ref: SJ 862 748
Dates: 15 Oct 2011 & 27 Feb 2015

St. Catherines, 9 am on a Feb morning

Birtles Hall

St. Catherine's at Birtles was built in 1840 and is distinguished by its octagonal tower. The woodwork of the interior and the stained glass were provided by Thomas Hibbert of Birtles Hall. Much of the glass is 16th and 17th century Dutch. There is a pulpit dated 1686 and a lectern that pre-dates the Reformation, thought by Pevsner to be Continental rather than English.

Birtles Hall is said to have been built in the early 19th century by Pevsner although he notes that Earwaker in his History of East Cheshire dates it to 1795. It was destroyed by fire in 1938 and rebuilt. 

In 1834, when slavery was abolished in the British Empire, the slave owners were compensated for their loss!  The total cost was £20 million, equivalent to about £17 Billion today, equivalent to 40% of the annual Treasury income.  The Hibberts were among the beneficiaries.  George Hibbert received compensation for the loss of 3671 slaves on 20 estates in Jamaica whereas George Hibbert Junior had 2034 on nine sites in Jamaica.  Among other members of the Hibbert family to benefit were John Hubert Washington Hibbert as a claimant in a chancery case, John Nembhard Hibbert as a trustee or executor, Robert Hibbert junior, Robert Hibbert and Robert Hibbert of Chalfont Park and Birtles Hall, deceased claimant who had 889 slaves in Jamaica.  Thomas Hibbert of Birtles Hall had 980 slaves on three sites while Samuel Hibbert had 2,252 on ten sites.  Full details are available on the UCL Legacies of British Slavery site by entering Hibbert in the surname search box.

Earwaker shows that the township of Birtles gave its name to one or more families with a Randal de Rodyerth described as lord of Birtles in 1324. The first detailed genealogical evidence comes from the Herald's Visitation of 1566 in which the then Birtles family claim descent from John Birtles of Birtles who married Ann or Agnes, daughter of Robert Leycester of Toft. Earwaker then gives a family tree showing one earlier generation and continues to the extinction of the main line in the early 17th century

• 1. John Birtles of Birtles living 1458 but died before 1463
• + Margery, a widow in 1463
  • 2. John Birtles, living 1466 and 1474
  • + Agnes dau of Robert Leycester of Toft, marriage settlement 1466
    • 3. John Birtles of Birtles
    • + Ellen Fitton
      • 4. John Birtles of Birtles, living 1566, buried at Prestbury 20 May 1571
      • + Eleanor dau of Thos. Somerford of Somerford, buried at Prestbury 13 May 1572
        • 5. John Birtles of Birtles son and heir in 1566 living 1596
        • + Dorothy dau of Thos. Hyde of Urmston, Lancashire, living 1596.
          • 6. John Birtles, living 1566 and buried Prestbury 30 Dec 1622.
          • + Anne dau of Roger Kynaston of Lightwich in Shropshire, living 1596, buried Prestbury on 25 Dec 1610.
            • 7. Mary Birtles, daughter and co-heiress, married Swettenham 12 Oct 1601 and buried Prestbury March 1621/2
            • + Thomas Swettenham of Swettenham Esq. and of Birtles through his wife, buried Presbury 14 Aug 1657. They had issue.
            • 7. Dorothy Birtles, daughter and co-heiress, married John Kinsey of Blackden near Sandbach, living aged 78 in 1663. Dorothy buried at Goostrey on 17 August 1624. They had issue.
          • 6. Ann, Elizabeth, Mary, Dorothy and Katherine, five daughters, all living in 1566.
        • 5. Ann Birtles married Geo. Leversage of Macclesfield and had issue
        • 5. Alice Birtles married Rich. Platt of London, beer brewer and had issue.
        • 5. Margery Birtles
        • 5. Elizabeth Birtles married Edmund Cecil
        • 5. Katherine Birtles married Gilbert Mellor of Bristol.
      • 4. Katherine Birtles, married Rich. Warren of Church Lawton
      • 4. Elizabeth Birtles
    • 3. Agnes Birtles married Ralph Longton, marriage settlement dated 1501

As a result of the marriage noted in generation 7, the Swettenhams succeeded to Birtles and used the house as their main residence as shown by many entries in the Prestbury registers. In 1783 Thomas Swettenham Willis sold Birtles to Mr. Joseph Fowden. He in turn sold it, in 1791, to Robert Hibbert, who was High Sheriff of Cheshire in 1798. It then passed to his son Thomas Hibbert, who became High Sheriff in 1839. Robert Hibbert married Laetitia the daughter of John Frederick Nembhard, Esq. of Jamaica. She died on 1 April 1854 leaving three sons and two daughters.

Earwaker reported that the old hall had been mainly demolished and the part still standing converted to cottages. About 1795, Robert Hibbert built a new residence, Birtles Hall, on pasture land in the adjacent parish of Over Alderley and created around it a park.

Sources:

The Buildings of England: Cheshire, by Nikolaus Pevsner and Edward Hubbard, first edition 1971, Yale University Press edition in 2003.
East Cheshire Past and Present by J.P. Earwaker, London, 1877.

Cheshire Antiquities
© Craig Thornber, Cheshire, England, UK.  Main Site Address: https://www.thornber.net/

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