page_title: Brewood
section_title: Local magnates
hierarchical_section_title: Brewood / History / Local magnates
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir John Giffard, died 1556, with his wives Jane and Elizabeth. A notable Catholic gentleman, buried in St Mary and St Chad's church, Brewood, Staffordshire, England.
context_page_description: Brewood is an ancient market town and civil parish in South Staffordshire, England. Located around grid reference SJ883088, Brewood lies near the River Penk, eight miles north of Wolverhampton city centre and eleven miles south of the county town of Stafford. Some three miles to the west of Brewood is the border with the county of Shropshire.
context_section_description: Brewood and the area around it were dominated for centuries by families belonging mainly to the landed gentry, a social class basing its economic, social and cultural power on control over landed estates, but generally not so powerful or influential as the aristocracy. Tracing the ownership of estates in Brewood, it is apparent that there was a great influx of new blood among the landowners in the early 14th century, and that this new group begins to peter out in the 18th century. This neatly brackets the period of gentry dominance, not only in Brewood, but in England generally. The beginning of the period is marked by the end of feudalism in the wake of the Black Death, and a transition to tenant farming and wage labour. The period ends with a prolonged period of crisis, culminating in the Long Depression, that creates the modern countryside.
  The only major landowning dynasty to survive in Brewood through all these transitions of the medieval and modern periods were the Giffard family, whose main local seat was, and still is, Chillington Hall, about three miles south-west of the village centre. Their connection with Chillington has been traced back to before 1175: around that date, the then lord of the manor, Peter Corbesun, transferred it to his wife's nephew, Peter Giffard. By the 17th century, the Giffards held the manor of Brewood itself and land in most other parts of the parish. Politically, the family's influence reached a peak with Sir John Giffard, who died in 1556. He was five times Sheriff of Staffordshire and was appointed Ranger of the Seven Hays of the Forest of Cank, i.e. Cannock Chase. For some years a member of the household of Henry VIII and he accompanied the king to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. After Sir Thomas, his son, died only four years later, Recusancy impeded the family's political ambitions, but less so their financial acumen.
  The Giffards were major donors to Brewood's large parish church of St Mary and St Chad, although they had little control over it because of the power of the deanery. The choir of the church contains a number of elaborate alabaster tombs, surmounted by effigies of important family members of the 15th – 17th centuries. One of these, Sir John Giffard, built a substantial mansion at Chillington, probably in the 1540s. Some improvements were made in the early 18th century, to the design of Francis Smith of Warwick, and around 1786 work began on the present Chillington Hall, designed by Sir John Soane – a large Neo-Classical structure, which incorporates Smith's earlier work. At the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII, the Giffards purchased the buildings and lands of both Blackladies, a Benedictine convent just west of Brewood, and White Ladies Priory, an Augustinian convent, about three miles west of the village, in Shropshire. Both were adapted for residential use. On the land of White Ladies, a short distance north of the former priory buildings, they adapted a farmhouse into a hunting lodge, which they named Boscobel House. The name signifies "beautiful woods", and originally stood in woodland, although it is also reminiscent of the family's Norman ancestor. The Giffards also held lands in other parts of the parish, sometimes intertwined with those of other important local landowners.
  The Lane family of Bentley Hall had considerable holdings and influence in the Brewood area, starting in the early 15th century. At Broom Hall, north-west of Brewood town, they held land from the early 15th century. By the 16th, the Giffards also held land here and let some of it to the Careless family. In 1715, the Giffards and Lanes agreed to an amicable re-allocation of land so that they could exploit it more efficiently. Another important Lane family holding was at the Hyde, between Brewood and Chillington, which they acquired at the same time as Broom Hall and owned until the late 18th century. They also acquired land at Coven from the 1430'3, gradually replacing the Coven family, the original Norman landowners, but selling to the Wrottesley family, fro
caption: Sir John Giffard, who died in 1556, during the reign of Queen Mary, when Catholicism was temporarily restored. He is flanked by his wives, Jane and Elizabeth.
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