158 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE FAMILY OF LOWE. 
The name is obviously one of local origin. Hew, hlaw, or 
Jow is the Anglo-Saxon word for a small hill, of the use of 
which not a few examples are to be found in Derbyshire and 
elsewhere. About two miles from Congleton there is an ancient 
timbered mansion standing upon a gentle eminence called The 
Lowe,* .which is traditionally recognised as occupying the site 
of the original residence of the family, and as the place from 
whence the surname was derived. There is, however, no 
documentary evidence to connect the family with that place, 
and so early as the latter half of the fourteenth century, the 
Lowes are found to have resided in the neighbourhood of 
Macclesfield. 
The first of the family of whom we have any specific record 
are William del Lowe and Thomas del Lowe, both of Macclesfield, 
and presumably brothers. William del Lowe, who is assumed 
to have been the elder, was living in 1392, when a tenement 
of his in Jordan’s Gate in Macclesfield is referred to in the 
statement of a boundary. He was dead in 1398, when his 
widow, Elena del Lowe, of Bollington (a neighbouring village), 
free from all claims of matrimony, quit-claimed land in 
“le Walle gate” in Macclesfield, which was formerly held by 
Roger le Mulner, her uncle, and which she herself held by the 
gift of Thomas, son of the said Roger. In 1402, Thomas 
del Lowe, son of William del Lowe, of Macclesfield, conceded 
to John de Macclesfield, the elder, clerk, all the lands in 
Macclesfield which he had by the gift of Thomas, son of Roger 
le Mulner. Five years later, this same Thomas del Lowe, 
and Matilda his wife granted certain rents to the said John 
de Macclesfield ; and in July, 1407, they together surrendered 
lands in the Portmote Court of Macclesfield. In 1426, at a 
court of the Mayor of Macclesfield, held there before John de 
Legh, Mayor of that town, on the Friday next before the feast 
* Adam Wolley, speaks of La Lowe, in the chapelry of Witton, as the 
ancient seat of the family, and the statement has been copied by several 
subsequent writers. But there does not appear to have ever been any such 
place, and the family did not settle in that part of Cheshire until after the 
middle of the fifteenth century. 
