HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. 69 



20 cottages, two water-mills, one dovecote, 1600 acres of arable 

 land, 200 acres of meadow, 200 of pasture, 200 of wood, and 1000 

 of heath or furze. 



This manor continued in the Agard family till the year 167*, 

 when it was sold by the trustees of Charles Agard, Esq. to John 

 Newton, of the Island of Barbadoes, and was bequeathed in 1794 

 by Sarah Newton to her cousins, John and Thomas Lane, Esqs. 



The soil of this parish is of a gravelly and sandy nature. The 

 Grand Trunk Canal passes to the south of the village. The common, 

 comprising about one thousand acres, has lately been inclosed, and 

 is now in cultivation. At the mill, a manufactory of bar-iron, and 

 another of tin, is carried on to a considerable annual amount. 



The church, which is built at some distance from the village, is 

 dedicated to All Saints. It is a fine gothic building, with large and 

 beautiful windows, and contains several monuments of the Agards 

 and Newtons. 



Among other charitable donations recorded on a large board fixed 

 to the south wall of this church, the following are most memorable : 



" In 1692, Edward Cross, of this parish, gaveo5. a-year, charged 

 upon an estate at Bromley-Hurst, in the parish of Abbot's Bromley, 

 to the poor of this parish, to set out an apprentice yearly for ever. 



" In 1699, the Rev. Richard Cross, Rector of Baggington, War- 

 wick, erected a Free School House (John Newton, Esq. late lord 

 of this manor, contributing an acre of land whereon to build it), 

 and endowed the said school with an estate in Marchington Wood- 

 lands, in the parish of Abbot's Bromley, valued at o30. per an- 

 num, (now 0^50.), the rent to be paid to the master for teaching 

 poor children therein for ever." 



Hamstall Ridware. This manor is situated on the northern bank 

 of the Trent ; it is in the deanery of Tamworth, about a mile north- 

 west of Bromley Regis, and two miles west of Yoxall. The river 

 Blythe runs through the middle of the parish and falls into the Trent. 

 The etymology of Hamstall is derived from the Saxon word homes- 

 tall, which signified a fixed habitation. According fo a record in 

 Doomsday-book, Ridware was held in Edward the Confessor's time 

 by Edmund, a Saxon freeman, under the Earl of Mercia; but within 

 twenty years of the Norman Conquest, it had passed into the hands 

 of Walter, a vassal of the Earl of Shrewsbury. 



In the reign of Henry I. William de Ridware was lord of this 

 manor, where he resided ; it passed during successive ages to seve- 

 ral possessors, and about the commencement of the seventeenth 



