Many enclosed and consolidated quillets of large area, and a few of about normal area, unenclosed, were in 1843 still to be seen on both sides of Hillock Lane. In the same year there were 6 a. 1 r. 32 p. of open common land belonging to the township. Of this area the pool called "The Lake" contained 3 roods, and is the only part of the common which now exists. The remaining part lay on the slope of the hill, between the village and the Alyn. A portion of this was enclosed by somebody, another portion was taken by the Shrewsbury and Chester (now the Great Western) Railway, and the rest, containing 1 a. 1 r. 9 p. was conveyed in 1881 by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests for £50 to the vicar and churchwardens, in trust to provide a public recreation ground, the £50 being raised by subscription. The chief house in Gresford is that called "Pant Iocyn" (Iocyn's Hollow), but the greater part of the land belonging to it is in Acton; and I have already given a full account of this mansion and estate in my History of the Country Townships of the Old Parish of Wrexham, and shall, therefore, say nothing further thereupon here. The house known as "The Parsonage" was erected on part of the glebe land belonging to the impropriators of the rectory, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester, and is now vested in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. A part of the house is very old, and contains a most interesting oak staircase (early seventeenth-century, perhaps), and nearly the whole of the building is actually of half timber, filled in with rubble, although of late the front has been externally treated with rough-cast, and painted with broad black stripes, the actual black and white structure, which no doubt sadly needed to be repaired, being underneath. The Misses Newcome, daughters of vicar Henry Newcome, lived at the Old Parsonage many years after their father's death. They occupied the better part of the Parsonage, and, as is still the case at Pant Iocyn, a farmer occupied the other part of it. A room at the back, used as a drawingroom, is comparatively modern, but has not been added within the memory of man. The stables, which are good, resemble those built by Mr. Newcome (Mr. Chancellor Trevor Parkins tells me) at the Old Vicarage, which stables were pulled down about fifty years ago. In 1843 the rectorial glebe in the township of Gresford amounted to about 164 acres. Next, in point of size, would come, I suppose, The Old Vicarage, rebuilt soon after the Restoration by vicar Humphrey Lloyd. It was a very fine old house; and Dr. Robert Wynne, Vicar of Gresford, placed upon it subsequently the following inscription :— Reverendus Vir Humphredus Lloyd Hoc qualecunque pii Præsulis monumentum An earlier vicarage still, mentioned in 1543, stood on the same site. Vicar Lloyd's building, according to Archdeacon Thomas, was "sold, with a field, for £1,060 in 1850." It was sold, Mr. Chancellor Trevor Parkins tells me, to Major Harrison. "Part of the house was pulled down by Mr. Horsley [the vicar], who built a large addition in its place:" which addition was left “roofed in, but internally unfinished. This additional building was pulled down by Mr. [Archdeacon] Wickham [vicar]. Major Harrison lived and died in the remaining portion of the old vicarage. It was sold in 1867, after Major Harrison's death, to Mr. Ewing, who pulled it down, and built the present house called The Elms."" The old vicarage stood, as did also its successor, "The Elms," until 1884, in a small detached portion of Gresford, containing about 6 acres, and lying, like an island, between Burras and the detached portion of Marford and Hoseley, to which it has now been added. Geo graphically, this detached portion would belong to the lordship just named a manor mainly of nativi, or serfs, afterwards copyholders; and so, I believe, the vicarage and its precincts were taken from its own township of Hoseley, and attached to the free township of Gresford, just as the old vicarage and precincts of Wrexham, though lying in the heart of the town (which was made up of two servile manors), was attached to the free township of Esclusham, the object, doubtless, in both cases being the same, namely, to free the priest of the church and his lands from servile dues and obligations. The vicarial glebe in the township of Gresford amounted in 1843 to about 25 acres of land. The predecessor of the house called "Cross Farm" was of some importance. For several generations this belonged to a family which adopted the name of Allington." These Allingtons came, no doubt, from the township whence they derived their name; and in 1620 John Allington, gent., of Allington, is described as holding freely his capital messuage and lands there. He had also a tenement and lands in Gresford township, in the occupation severally of Edward and Ellis Allington, and other lands containing in all 48 (customary, or 101 statute) acres. At the same time, Ellis Allington, of Cox Lane, Allington, had in Gresford township about 15 statute acres. Where these lands precisely were is not clear, but in 1665 Edward Allington's "tenement and lands at the Cross, Gresford," are mentioned. It is, perhaps, of this Edward Allington that Edward Lhuyd, writing about the year 1699, says: "Edw. Allington, Gent., is aged 102, and yet walks about, rides, sits in company, drives," etc. I cannot, however, find from the registers any account of his burial. Nor can I connect him with any one named in the Allington pedigree given on pp. 220 and 221 of vol. iii of Powys Fadog. After 1620, in fact, the next authentic mention 1 In the Powys Fadog pedigree, the Allingtons are derived from Ithel ap Eunydd. According to this pedigree, the above-named of the Allingtons known to me is contained in a deed possessed by Mr. J. Allington Hughes, dated 2nd Jan., 1636-7, whereto Ellis Allington, the elder, of Gresford, gent., and David and Edward Allington, his sons, were parties. But the Edward Allington of 1665 was succeeded at the Cross House by Ellis Allington, who was buried at Gresford 14th August, 1728. Both of these had also a tenement, sold many years ago, in Gwersyllt, in the neighbourhood of Summerhill, where some of the Allingtons long lived. Edward Allington, of Gwersyllt (who married at Gresford, 14th August, 1730, Frances Jones) was buried at Gresford, 8th June, 1774, aged 70, and Frances his wife, 13th July, 1777, aged 75. Edward Allington, son of the above-named Edward and Frances Allington, succeeded them at Gwersyllt, and was buried at Gresford 14th May, 1783, aged 43. Ellis Allington, of Gwersyllt, who was probably another son of Edward and Frances Allington, married 2nd February, 1775, at Wrexham, Margaret, widow of Mr. Roger Owens, of Higher Berse, and soon after became tenant there at a yearly rent of £200, under a lease, with a covenant to make repairs. He was buried at Gresford, 10th November, 1786, aged 49, and was followed at Higher Berse by his son, Ellis Allington the younger, who died 25th April, 1812, aged 34. His sister Frances, daughter of Ellis Allington the elder, of Berse (baptized at Wrexham 8th December, 1775, died 29th July, 1821), married at Wrexham 14th February, 1809, John Humphreys, then of the Canal Farm, Bersham. The daughter, Frances, of John and Frances Humphreys (died 27th September, 1865, aged 54), married, at Wrexham (26th May, 1835), Thomas John Allington, living in 1620, was the son of David [ap William] Allington; while the Ellis Allington of the same date was the son of Edward Allington, a younger brother of the said David Allington. 1 It was probably this Ellis Allington who (11th December, 1702) married, at Wrexham, Mary Humphreys, of Hope Street, who, in her turn, as "Mrs. Mary Allington, of Gwersyllt," was buried at Gresford, 5th May, 1733. Hughes, solicitor, of Wrexham, whose sole surviving son is Mr. J. Allington Hughes, the present proprietor of the Cross Farm, and of the large house, close at hand, called "Bryn y groes" (Hill of the Cross). On the 23rd June, 1741, Mr. Charles Allington, of Banbury, was "admitted tenant at the Marford Manorial Court as heir to Mrs. Sara Allington, of Banbury, spinster; and Mr. Charles Allington, who was buried at Gresford 15th December, 1749, "surrendered" to the use of his daughter, Elizabeth Allington, who was thereupon "admitted" tenant. How these Allingtons were connected with the Allingtons described in the last paragraph, I cannot discover. The cross indicated in the name "Cross House" is, of course, that whose base still remains under a sycamore tree, near Gresford village, at the point where the present and old roads from Wrexham to Chester cross each other. This is the "Croesffordd," or crossway, supposed by some to have given its name to Gresford," but, as a matter of fact, this cross-road did not exist until the present highway from Wrexham to Chester was constructed about 1830. The real old cross-road was at the corner of the churchyard. The tenement afterwards called "The Clappers" was known in the early part of the seventeenth century as "The Clap," or "The Glop." Clap," "Glop," or Glopa," means a knob, head, or summit (see Silvan Evans' Dictionary of the Welsh Language), and perhaps "Clappers" is a corruption of one of these names, or of "Clapiè," the plural of "Clap," the property having long been in three holdings (each called Clap," or "The Glop "), and situate on a table land overlooking the valley of the Alyn. Or perhaps "The Clap" or "Clappers" may have been so called for some other reason, impossible now to indicate. "The Clappers" is now a large modern house, with about a hundred acres of land attached. 66 66 Dr. Daniel Williams' trustees have in Gresford nearly a hundred acres of land, appurtenant partly to the |
