249 



WEOBLEY. 



[By the Rev. Canon H. W. Phillott.J 



THE LEY. 



The inscription on the porch of the house records the initals of its builder, James 

 Bridges, a.d. 1589. The earliest mention of this family that I have been able to 

 discover is in A.n. 1385, in which year the name of Simon de Brugge, of Bridge 

 Sellers, occurs as the maker of a will, of which a copy exists in the Register of the 

 Diocese of Hereford. In the next century, A.D. 1428, Simon, probably great 

 grandson of Simon just mentioned, purchased of the daughters of Richard of 

 The Ley, in whose family the property had been for some time, their interest in 

 that estate. His nephew, or great nephew. Sir John Bridges, was Lord Mayor 

 of London A.n. 1521, and died 1530. Sir John's daughter married John Watkin 

 Garway, who is said to have " laid the mansion " house of his family to that of 

 Bridges. The marriage of James, son of Simon Bridges, and Ann Atwood, is 

 recorded in 1480, and Rowland, great grandson of the same Simon, lies buried, 

 together with his wife, in Weobley Church, in the place which was once the 

 Chapel of St. Nicholas, on the south side of the nave. It was perhaps the son of 

 this Rowland, James, who married Jane Tomkins, who built the porch and 

 probably the whole house at The Ley in 1589. This period was the culminating 

 one of the fortune of the family. In less than one hundred years after this, 

 A.D. 1682, Thomas Bridges, the infant and only son of William Bridges, died, 

 and in 1685 his father also died, leaving his property to his brother, and failing 

 issue from him to his three sisters, of whom the last died unmarried in 1707. The 

 arms of the Bridges family appear on the roof of the nave of the Church, and 

 appeared formerly on the screen work of the south chapel, but Mr. Simon Bridges 

 was buried on the north side of the Church. 



THE CHURCH. 

 Before the Conquest the Manor of Wibelai was held by Edwin, son of 

 Elfgar, the son of Leofric, Earl of Mercia, who died A.D. 1057. It was granted 

 by the Conqueror to Walter de Lacy, who built St. Peter's Church at Hereford, 

 and was killed by a fall from its battlements A.D. 1085. He had three sons, 

 Roger, Hugh, and Walter, of whom Walter became Abbat of St. Peter's, 

 Gloucester ; Roger took the side of Robert Courthose, and was banished by 

 WUliam Rufus ; Hugh received his brother's lands, assisted to found Llanthony 

 Abbey, died without issue, and, no doubt, lies buried in the chancel of Weobley 

 Church, where, in 1055, was to be seen "a very ancient stone, of a very ancient 

 make," bearing the following words : " Hugis, i.e., Hugonis Lascii Coenobium 

 Llanthoni." This stone, which bore witness to his foundation of Llanthony 

 Abbey, probably exists beneath another monument, of which something mil be 

 said presently, but the inscription is no longer visible. The foundation of 

 Llanthony took place about 1085, a.d., and in 1101 Hugh de Lacy made a gift 



