Early Life
Hercy Sandford was most likely born c. 1535, given that he married in 1635. His father was
Bryan Sandford of
Thorpe Salvin in South Yorkshire.
Family Life
The following article is taken from the
Sheffield Daily Telegraph1:
Thorpe Salvin - Fresh Points About the Village
Thorpe Salving - Salvin or Sylvanus - a sylvan country - near Sheffield, was formerly Rykenild Thorpe (from Rykenild Street, the Roman highway). The Norman family of Salvin were here soon after the Conquest, probably with de Busli, the overlord, owner of Tickhill, Sheffield, and scores of other manors. Ralph (de) Salvin appears in the reign of Edward II, holding Rykenildtorp, followed by Anketyne Salvin, both holding as sub-infeudatories of the Honour of Tickhill. The Salvings were followed, through marriage, by the Ughtreds, and, an heiress of the Ughtreds marrying a Sandford, carried Thorpe Salvin into the latter family about the end of the fourteenth century.
The Sandfords were an ancient knightly family, seated in Westmorland. The Thorpe Salvin branch left Westmorland in 1420 (Hunter's "South Yorkshire"), a statement taken from Hearcy Sandford's tomb in Thorpe Salvin church - a tomb, by the way, which I have not seen. Hopkinson states that Sir Edmund Sandford obtained Thorpe Salvin by his marriage with Joan, daughter of Sir Thomas Ughtred. My own investigation leads me to believe that Sir Edmund Sandford married Kateren Owtred (or Ughtred), died 1425. The Harleian MS 4630, in a somewhat doubtful pedigree as regards accuracy, states that Sir Edmund Sandford married Joan, daughter of Sir Thomas Ughtred. The point is somewhat obscure. Was this Sir Edmund Sandford the High Sheriff of York in 1410, dying in 1430?
However, the Sandfords had a long and honourable tenure of Thorpe Salvin. We find one of them, Sir Bryan Sandford, figuring gallantly at Bosworth (1485). It was, apparently, his grandson, Hearcy Sandford, who in 1570, built the manor house - locally known as the Castle, whose ruins may yet be seen at Thorpe Salvin. Only the front (complete) and the beautiful gate house now remain. The shields, very badly decayed on the latter, are Sanford impaling Copley.
Hearcy Sandford married Margaret Copley. He died in 1582, and was, incidentally, the last of the Sandfords to inhabit the Manor House.
...
The Manor House was held by the Royalists in the Civil War, and fell to the Parliamentarians. Today it stands in empty beauty - a mere façade, yet admirably preserved and well kept.
A follow-on article was published a few months later
2:
One of the oldest manorial families in Westmorland was that of Sandford of Sandford, near Warcop, which was held by them as mesne lords from the Vitinponts (and later from the Cliffords) as early as 1170 at least. The seventh lord of Sandford was a Robert de Sandford, who died in 1356-7, leaving four (and possibly five) sons. The eldest son inherited Sandford, and had an only son, who was the last of the elder line, his family consisting of two daughters only. Two of the other sons were William and Edmund. William was in Holy Orders, and in 1354 was appointed Keeper of Writs in the King's Bench. He was a prominent man at Court, and in the Issue Roll of Thomas de Brantingham, Lord High Treasurer of England, is a repayment to him on July 17th, 1370, of £20 which he had lent the king (Edward III). This would equal £500 in our money.
The other brother, Edmund, married before 1362, Idonea, sole daughter and heiress of Sir Thomas Lenglys (or English, ie. l'Englys) of Helton Flechan and Little Asby, in Westmorland. He and his wife added to the estates inherited from his father-in-law by the purchase of Askham, in Westmorland, from the Swinburnes in 1372, and thus founded a family which held Askham till the death of William Sandford in 1730, and his sister, Catherine, in 1773, when the estate passed to daughters and was eventually bought by the Earl of Lonsdale.
Amongst the interim feofees in the sale of Askham, appear Edmund's brother, William de Sandford, clerk, and a certain Thomas Daunay, of whom later. Edmund died shortly after 1382, and his widow Idonea married Sir Thomas Ughtred, who held Kyllyngwyk, Towerthorp in the Thisteles, etc. in Yorkshire, under William Lord Latymer, and Thomas Lord Mowbray. Two of her wills are in existence, and in them she names her eldest son (Sir) William de Sandford (who inherited the Westmorland lands), her son Robert de Sandford, and her son John de Sandford, leaving the last-named her furniture at York. She also left issue by her second husband.
To return to William de Sandford, the Keeper of Writs in the King's Bench. This individual obtained on November 12th 1379 a licence from the King for the alienation to him and others, in mortmain of a messuage in Thorpe Salvayn, co. Yorks, held by John Duke of Lancaster (John of Gaunt) as of the honour of Tykill, together with £10 of rents from property in London, for a chaplain for celebrating divine service daily in the chapel of St Mary in Thorp Salvayn, the others associated with him being Thomas Daunay, William de Hornby and Thomas de Hornby. Then, on Monday after St Barnabus (1380) the same people (except Thomas Daunay) founded a chantry of one chaplain in the chapel of St Mary on the north side of Thorpe Salvayn, co. Yorks, granting him 15 marks yearly from the London property referred to in the 1379 licence, to pray for the souls of various well-known people and living relatives of the founders, including William de Sandford's "brothers and sisters". This is the first mention of the Sandford family in connection with Thorpe Salvyn.
The identify of William de Sandford with William, brother of Edmund de Sandford of Askham, is pretty evident from the following:-
1) Thomas Daunay joins William de Sandford in the 1379 licence for Thorpe Salvayn, and also acts as interim feofee with William de Sandford in the transfer of Askham to Edmund de Sandford in 1372
2) He again appears in conjunction with William de Sandford and Edmund de Sandford in 1375 in a reconveyance of the manor of Askham to the last-named
3) Thomas de Hornby, who joined William de Sandford in founding the chantry at Thorpe Salvayn in 1380, leaves in his will proved PCC 8th November 1401, a vestment to each of the churches of Warcop in Westmorland (in which parish was situated the manor of Sandford, from which Edmund de Sandford came) and of Thorpe Salvayn in Yorkshire, and mentions "William de Sandford, my deceased uncle."
4) William de Hornby, who joined William de Sandford in founding the chantry at Thorpe Salvayn in 1380, held the manor of Bampton Cundale in Westmorland in 1369-70. Bampton is the next parish to Askham, where Edmund de Sandford settled in 1372.
Now in Harl MS 4630, fol. 514, at the British Museum, is a long pedigree of Sandford of Thorpe Salvyn. The earlier generations are obviously apocryphal, but the eighth generation is John de Sandford, of Thorpe Salvayn, younger son of "Sir" Edmund de Sandford and his wife "Alice", daughter of Sir Thomas English. Now Idonea Lenglys (or d'English) wife of Edmund de Sandford of Askham, in her will dated 1414 left her furniture in York to her son John, and it looks as though this John was the founder of the Thorpe Salvyn family, having obtained the lands through the agency of his uncle William. According to the pedigree he married Isabel, daughter and heiress of John Norwicke, and had a son, Sir Edmund de Sandford, Knight, who married Joan, daughter of Sir Thomas Ughtred. It will be remembered that after the death of Edmund de Sandford of Askham, his widow, Idonea, married Sir Thomas Ughtred, so it is possible that here the pedigree is more or less correct.
Sir Edmund de Sandford was High Sheriff of York in 1410. in 1405 he had a grant of lands in Wellandwells, co. Yorks, formerly the property of Thomas Mowbray, Earl Marshal of England, and in the same year is a grant for life to Edmund de Sandford, the King's Esquire, of £18 per annum from the manor of Donyngton, co. Yorks, forfeited by the rebellion of Thomas Mowbray, deceased, late Earl Marshal. He was evidently knighted between then and November 29th, 1410, when he was appointed High Sheriff of York as "Sir Edmund de Sandford, Kt.". From him the descent of the Thorpe Salvayn family is clear.
The family had several cadet branches. One of these settled at Tickhill, close by, and an offshoot of him was living at Bakewell at the Visitation of Derbyshire in 1611. Another branche settled at High Ashes and Nuthurst, co. Lancs, and recorded a pedigree of six generations in Dugdale's Visitation of Lancashire in 1664-5, showing its descent from Brian Sandford of Thorpe Salvayn. This family threw off offshoots to Gloucestershire and various other parts of England.
The Askham (Westmorland) parent family divided in the 16th century into three branches. The eldest branch continued at Askham and (as stated above) became extinct in 1773. The second brother founded a family which lived at Helton and elsewhere in Westmorland till quite recent times, and the third brother founded the family of the Sandfords of Howgill Castle, co. Westmorland, who were created baronets by King James I and became extinct in 1723.
A footnote to the
Visitations of Yorkshire3 reads as follows:
Hunter's 'South Yorkshire' says Margaret Copley married at Sprotborough 13 May, 1565, Hercy Sandford of Thorpe Salvin.
. Similar information can be found in
Dugdale's Yorkshire4:
Margaret [daughter of William Copley of Sprotborough] wife of Henry [sic] Sandford, mar. at Sprotborough, 13 May 1565, secondly, to George Cressy.
Thus we have Hercy marrying
Margaret Copley in 1565; they had:
- Bryan, b. and d. 1566,
- Mary, b. 1569/70, who married Sir Roger Portington of Barnby-on-the-Don and was bur. 3 Nov. 1635 in Thorpe Salvin9; no issue
- Ellen/Helen, b. 1575, who married Henry Neville6 of Chevet.
- Elizabeth b. 1578, who married Robert Rogers of Everton
Death
Hercy died in 1582
1,3,5,6, leaving three daughter heiresses. An epitath in
Thorpe Salvin church that is frequently mentioned online and apparently reads:
[Hercy's ancestors] came forth of Westmorland in the year of our Lord 1420
thus linking this family with the Sandford of Westmorland family which is well documented online.
From Hunter
9:
Hercy Sandford, probably, did not contemplate the early extinction of his family when he constructed this mansion [at Thorpe Salvin] for their residence. He died early in life. His only son died before him. His three daughters were left under the guardianship of his brother-in-law, Francis Rodes, a man eminent in the law, and a judge...
His last will was made not long before his death, and probably with the advice of this eminent lawyer; but the construction of it came afterwards to minister occasion to great discussion in the courts, where the cause arising out if it depended, as Sir Edward Coke says, fourteen terms, and was argued more than half fourteen times. The account of the case is as follows:
In Trinity term, 11 James I [~1614]. dame Mary Portington brought her action of trespass against Robert Rogers and Thomas Barley, for breaking of her house and close at Thorpe-Salvin, 20 June, 7 James [~1610]. The defendant pleaded that Hercy Sandford, esq. was seised of the tenements, &c. in fee, and held them of the king, as of his honour of Tickhill, in socage; and on the 8th May, 24 Elizabeth [1582], made his will, wherein he devised them to Elizabeth Sandford, his younger daughter, when she should accomplish her age of eighteen, and to the heirs of her body. Said Hercy Sandford died on the 20th July following [1582], his daughter Elizabeth being then five years of age; and on the 20th June, 37 Elizabeth [1595], she accomplished the age of eighteen years, and on the 25th March following entered on the tenements, and was thereof seised in tail, &c.; and, being so seised, took to her husband the said Robert Rogers, 1 Nov. 39 Eliz. [1597] and justified, &e. The plaintiff replied, that the said Hercy Sandford had issue, Mary, his eldest daughter, Helen, his second daughter, and the said Elizabeth, his youngest daughter, and confessed the devise of the tenements to Elizabeth; but further said, that by the same will, for want of issue of Elizabeth, the said tenements were limited to Mary, the now plaintiff, in tail, remainder to Helen in tail, remainder to the fourth, fifth, and sixth daughters in tail, the remainder to testator’s nephew, John Roads, and his heirs male, with divers remainders over in tail. And further, that the testator earnestly declared his will to be, that no party in possession should alien the property so devised; and if any party in possession entered into covenant to alien, the right should be forfeited to the next in the entail. It was further replied, that the said Elizabeth, wife of Robert Rogers, by deed, dated 13 April, 7 James [1610], willingly, apparently, and advisedly, concluded and agreed with Christopher Beadshaw and Gervase Rogers [Elizabeth's brother-in-law] to suffer a common recovery of the said tenements, to the intent to make void and put away from the said Mary the remainder of the said tenements: whereupon a writ of entry was brought against the said Robert and Elizabeth of the said tenements, and a common recovery had against them, with vouchers over, and judgment given, and execution had, against the said Robert and Elizabeth, and their heirs.
I have not had an opportunity of seeing the will of Hercy Sandford; but it is probable that the lands in question were not the manor of Thorpe-Salvin, with the capital mansion above described, but some portion of the Sandford estates within the manor, on which the descendants of Robert Rogers and Elizabeth Sandford remained for some generations. With respect to the capital mansion and the manor, they came to Francis Nevile, of Chevet, son of Henry Nevile by Ellen Sandford, the second daughter. He sold them to sir Edward Osborne in 1636.
The following description of Thorpe Salvin is from
Hunter9 page 300:
The principal feature of this small and obscure village is one of the large square mansions of the age of Elizabeth, now in ruins; near which is the church, remarkable for its antique porch and font, and the sepulchral memorials of the antient inhabitants of the hall. At this place were six carucates of cultivated land at the conquest. They were a member of the soke of Laughton, and passed with the rest from earl Edwin to Roger de Busli, and then to the crown.
The western boundary of Thorpe-Salvin is the antient highway, now called Packman’s Lane, but antiently the Street, on which, at the entrance to the county, stands Streethouses. We have already, in the Introduction to this work, and in the account given of Harthill, which is separated from Thorpe by this road, treated of the probability that it is of very high, and even of Roman antiquity; and a name by which this place is sometimes called in early records seems to favour the supposition. Our ancestors of the middle ages bestowed the name of Rykenild Street upon one or more of the great highways left by the Romans. And we find this village, now known as Thorpe-Salvin, called in
Kirkby’s Inquest, and other early authorities, by the name of Rykenild-thorpe. This is a remarkable and curious fact.
In Kirkby’s Inquest, Ralph Salvin is returned holding half of Rykenildtorp of the king as of his honour of Tickhill, for one knight’s fee, rendering 5d. sheriff's aid, 20s. wapentake fine, 10d. ward fee, and 8d. wait meat. In 9 Edward II [1315/1316] Anketyne Salvin and Thomas Chamberlayne are returned lords. The Salvins appear in the earliest catalogues we possess of the subinfeudatories of the honour of Tickhill. They must have been seated here soon after the conquest; and as they appear to have been a family of distinction, it is probable that the ancestor might be one of the two knights of de Busli mentioned in the domesday survey of Laughton. Thoroton, following as I believe Dodsworth, deduces them from a person whom he calls Toceus de Flemangh, who came in at the conquest. His son Richard had three sons: Richard, who was seated at Cuckney, and was the progenitor of a family, lords of that place; Ralph, ancestor of the Salvins; and Thomas, who founded the abbey of Welbeck. Ralph had Osbert, father of Ralph, father of a second Osbert, father of another Ralph, who by a daughter and coheir of Nicholas, son and
heir of Anketine Mallory, had Anketine, father of another Anketine, who was a knight. All these occur with the addition Salvin, or Silvanus, which Thoroton supposes to be derived from their residence in a sylvan country.
Ralph Salvin gave two oxgangs at this place to the canons of Nostel; and it was doubtless to the liberality of the same family that the house of Worksop owed their wood of Rykenildthorpe, which the prior had imparked, as appears by the Hundred Rolls. In 3 Edward II [1309/1310] Anketine Salvin had a charter of free warren here.
How Thorpe passed after the death of Anketine is not known. Hopkinson’s pedigrees represent sir John Salvin, grandson to Gcorge Salvin by the coheir of the lords Mauley of Doncaster, as lord of this place, and disposing of it, as well as of Doncaster, in the reign of Henry VI. which is scarcely consistent with what he says in his account of the Sandfords, the family who succeeded the Salvins at this place, that sir Edmund Sandford, who lived in the time of Edward III. obtained this manor by his marriage with Joan, daughter of sir Thomas Ughtred. The late Mr. Blore, the antiquary of Derbyshire, who was led to look into this question in his researches into the history of the family of
Rodes of Barlborough, who were connected with Sandford, states that sir Edward Sandford married Idonea, daughter of Peter, the fifth lord Mauley, who, surviving him, married sir Thomas Ughtred, K.G. who were both living 18 Ric. II [1394/1395]; which sir Edward was the father of sir Brian Sandford, and of John Sandford, of Tickhill, living 18 Richard II [1394/1395].
No evidence has presented itself to show how the Sandfords came to Thorpe-Salvin, or to prove the arrangement of the early members of the family in a pedigree. In the extents of the honour of Tickhill we find sir Brian Sandford returned as holding here one knight’s fee, formerly Osbert Salvin’s; and again, John Sandford as holding the same.
Brian Sandford was the most considerable person of this family. He is mentioned in the supplement to Hardyng’s Chronicle as having gone over from Richard III. to the earl of Richmond, when the latter was in Warwickshire, a little before the battle of Bosworth. Sir John Savage and Simon Digby went over at the same time. Sandford was rewarded with the office of steward and general receiver of the lordship of Castre, co. Linc. steward of the
lordship of Knoshall, and keeper of the park there. This was in the first year of the new reign. He was also one of the esquires for the king’s body.
The original of the following warrant was in the possession of Francis-Ferrand Foljambe, esq.
By the king.
We wol and charge you that unto the bringer herof in the name of our trusty and welbiloved squier for our body Bryan Sandeford ye deliver or doo to be delivered twelve quick does to be taken w[i]t[h]in our parc of Cunesburgh Hawe in our countie of York which we have geven unto hym towards the storing of his parc at Thorp in the same countie, any restraynt or commaundement made or geven to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding. And thies orlres [sic] shall be your sufficient warrant and discharge in that behalf. Geven under our signet at our paleys of Westm[inste]r the 11 day of November the VII year of our reigne [1491/1492]
We have seen that the Sandfords had a park at Thorpe. Their mansion-house, as it was re-built by Hercy Sandford, is still remaining, though reduced to a mere shell, with the three courts, according to what was the usual plan of the houses of the superior gentry erected in the early part of the reign of Elizabeth.
The situation is about a hundred yards north from the church.
We first enter a very spacious rectangular court, in which are various offices of different periods. From this we pass into an inner court, also square, each side being equal to the front of the house, which forms one side of it. The entrance to this court is through a gateway, with a chamber over it for the porter; and this gateway is decorated with shields of arms, intended to announce the ancestorial pretensions of the proprictor of the mansion.
They exhibit the arms of Sandford with several impalements, amongst which is Copley; and it is this impalement which guides us to the period when this house was erected. These shields have suffered much by long exposure to the weather; still a motto is very plainly to be read
Beo me gre, the meaning of which is very obscure.
The house is quadrangular, with circular turrets at each corner. In two of these turrets were the staircases. The others contained small circular apartments opening into the larger. The design of the interior was a passage through the centre, with two apartments at each hand. One was the dining-room, as was manifest from the marks of the daise in the wall. The second front looked into another square court, also surrounded by walls, and about the same extent with the inner court through which we approach the principal entrance.
[1] Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 3rd June 1927, page 8
[2] Sheffield Daily Telegraph, 1st August 1927
[3]
http://sandfordfamily.org.uk/theophilus-sandford/bryansandford.htm
[4]
https://archive.org/stream/visitationofyork00flow/visitationofyork00flow_djvu.txt (marriage)
[5] The Visitation of Yorkshire In the Years 1563 and 1564, by William Flower, ed. Charles Norcliffe, London (1891), page 79
[6] Dugdale's Visitation of Yorkshire, With Additions, ed. JW Clay, Part II, Exeter (1899); Copley of Sprotborough, page 51
[7]
http://www.gatehouse-gazetteer.info/English%20sites/4882.html
[8] See the footnote to the Visitation of Yorkshire 1563-1564, page 79
[9] South Yorkshire, rev. Joseph Hunter, London, 1828; Vol. 1, p310
Abt 1535 - 1582 (~ 47 years)
[1] 
