1 6 BRADSIIAW HALL AND THE BRADSHAWES. 



theory is partly based on a pedigree now in existence at 

 Marple Hall, co. Chester, where a branch of the Derbyshire 

 Ikadshawes settled in the sixteenth century. The same theory 

 found a place in an elaborately executed pedigree on vellum, 

 fabricated about the year 1694, with each coat-of-arms 

 emblazoned in colours, and which perished in the fire at The 

 Leas, December, 1901. 



In this parchment pedigree, worthless except as an ancient 

 and beautifully illustrated work of fiction, John Bradshawe, the 

 first in St. George's visitation, was made to descend through a 

 long line of perfectly fictitious members of the Lancashire house, 

 from a Saxon ancestor, who was reinstated in his Lancashire 

 lands l)y the Norman Conqueror, and whose portrait, red-haired, 

 with bow in hand, appeared at the head of the roll, with a 

 wonderful coat of many quarterings below his feet. Far more 

 truth probably lies in the statement made by Anthony Bradshawe, 

 of Duffield, in a conference on ist May, 1603, between himself 

 and an old Oxford friend, who was also his fellow-student at 

 the Inner Temple, styled " W. N., of C, co. Sufi"olk," which is 

 quoted in Tlic Reliquary (vol. xxiii., p. 137) by the Rev. Charles 

 Kerry, a former editor r)f this journal, from a MS. said, at that 

 time, to be in the possession of Mr. Barber, of Smalley. In 

 answer to his friend's question as to " What is that, w'^'' you call 

 Bradshaugh Edge wherein your brother now dwelleth " ; he 

 replied, " I take that to be a c''ten i)art of the p'ishe of 

 Chapell de le Ffryth w*^'' the King of England in time past 

 gave unto one of my Auncestors for service done as p'tly 

 ap})ereth in some evidences of my brothers w'^'^ are with- 

 out date, afore the Conquest of England, and I fynd that 

 the p'ish conteyneth three edges vidlit Bradshaugh Edge, 

 Bowden Edge, and Cambis (Coombs) Edge, and that so 

 the said Edge called the Bradshaugh Edge conteyneth 

 Ashford p'ts of the said p'ishe, and was all graunted to my 

 auncestors though my former auncestors were of like vnthriftie 

 and have in tymes past sold away most of the same and so my 

 brother hath but a small remayncU therein." The curiosity 

 which led to this statement was occasioned by a visit they paid 

 together from Duffield " to Buxton Well, and so to Bradshaugh 



