Highnam Under the Guises: the Management of a Vale Estate, 1755–1838

Trans. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 134 (2016), 11–38 Highnam under the Guises: the Management of a Vale Estate, 1755–1838 By NICHOLAS HERBERT Presidential Address delivered at Gambier Parry Hall, Highnam, 9 April 2016 I researched and wrote about Highnam in 1970 for the Victoria County History of Gloucestershire (included as part of Churcham parish in Volume Ten of the series). Inevitably, given the experience that comes later from studying a wide range of places and the limited time (and the space within the published volume) that can be devoted to each parish in a countywide reference work, articles written for the History in earlier years of work can become a source of some dissatisfaction. With Highnam, I realized that, in particular, I had not discerned or treated adequately aspects of its story during the late Georgian period – and Highnam’s location made it a place difficult not to be reminded of in the course of many journeys from Gloucester to parts of Gloucestershire beyond the Severn. So, this study represents to some extent unfinished business on my part; but I hope that fuller historical detail, for a place that for most people today is in danger of becoming just part of a car journey to somewhere else, will be welcome. * * * For those in any way familiar with its history, Highnam, a western neighbour of Gloucester city just beyond the River Severn, will be associated most readily with its landowners in the Victorian and Edwardian years. It is they who have left what is most noticeable about the place today, the Gothic Revival church of the 1850s, paid for and richly furnished and decorated by Thomas Gambier Parry, painter of frescoes, art collector, and philanthropist, and the estate cottages, park lodges, and ornamental planting added in the time of Thomas and his son, the composer Sir Hubert Parry. Less obvious now are changes carried through in the Georgian age by their predecessors, members of the Guise family, changes that in their time were just as significant and had as much, or more, effect on Highnam’s physical and social structure.1 1. The study is based in general on the following sources, all in Gloucestershire Archives [GA]: estate accounts surviving for substantial parts of the Guise ownership (D 326/F 2, F 4–9); rent books of the same period (D 326/E 4–6); an estate survey and map of 1757 (D 326/E 2; D 2426/P 1); a survey of 1805 (D 326/E 3); sale particulars of 1838 (photocopy 888); an estate map of 1841 (D 2426/P 2); probate inventories for Highnam, and parish registers for Highnam and Lassington (in Gloucester Diocesan Records [GDR] in GA); and the Highnam tithe award of 1844 (GDR, T 1/53); for general background, see also the account in the Victoria County History of Gloucestershire [VCH Glos.] X, 11–29. My thanks are due to Heather Forbes, County Archivist, for permission to reproduce parts of the two estate maps; and to her staff, particularly the unfailingly patient Vicky Thorpe, for their friendly assistance. 12 NICHOLAS HERBERT One of oldest established of Gloucestershire landowning families, the Guises had their principal estates at Elmore where they were based from the 13th century and can still to be found today; 2 at Rendcomb, which was their chief residence from the late 17th century to the mid 19th; and at Brockworth. Those of the family who became owners of Highnam in the mid 18th century were from a junior branch (Fig. 1). In 1747 Henry Guise of Gloucester, a second cousin of the Guises of Elmore and Rendcomb, acquired a half share of Highnam manor and estate in right of his wife Mary Cooke,3 whose family had been settled there since the beginning of 17th century. Their son John Guise became sole owner in 1769 by buying out his cousin William Jones, who had inherited the other half from his mother Anne Jones (née Cooke). On the death of his kinsman Sir William Guise in 1783 John secured an interest, in remainder, in his estates and, under a new patent, a continuation of the family baronetcy. From Sir John, Highnam passed to his son Sir Berkeley William Guise, who became owner of the main Guise estates in 1807, and it was held more briefly by Sir Berkeley’s brother Sir John Wright Guise, who sold it to Thomas Gambier Parry in 1838. It is on John Guise and his son Berkeley William and their management of the Highnam estate that this account will focus. Fig. 1. Owners of the Highnam estate. A memorial inscription to Sir John Guise in the south aisle of Gloucester cathedral celebrates in sonorous phrases an ideal country gentleman, as might be expected at that period and from the 2. For the family, see J. Maclean, ‘Elmore and the family of Guise’, Trans. BGAS 3 (1878–9), 49–78; VCH Glos. VII, 221–2; XIII, 63–4, 123. 3. A connexion between the families had existed since 1712, when Mary’s brother Dennis Cooke married Henry’s sister Theodosia Guise (d. 1716): GA, D 326/E 29; P 83/IN 1/1. HIGHNAM UNDER THE GUISES 13 fact that the monument was put up by his widow. There appears to be a lack of the type of evidence (personal letters, diary entries and the like) that would help towards gaining a more objective impression, and my account of his dealings with Highnam is based almost entirely on the bland and formal information provided by rent books, title deeds, and the accounts of his estate steward. Those records do, however, provide enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that he was an able, respected, and probably generally well-liked man. He inherited his half share of Highnam, following the death of his father Henry and mother Mary in 1749 and 1750 respectively, at the age of 17 and, when he came of age four years later,4 he was the first young heir to take over for more than a century: William Cooke, Mary’s grandfather, had succeeded to the estate in 1643 and lived for another 60 years, thus telescoping the period of tenure of the next two generations of his family. So it is perhaps not surprising that John Guise found himself in possession of what in many ways was a very traditional estate, one where there was plenty of scope for improvement, for increasing its profitability and bringing it into line with current ideas of estate management and agricultural practice. Highnam in the early 18th century It would be convenient to describe Highnam in the accepted historian’s shorthand as an ‘estate village’ or an ‘estate parish’, but neither is entirely appropriate. The dwellings of the estate formed not one village but the three separate hamlets of Highnam, Linton and Over,5 and at the time it passed to the Guises it was not strictly a parish in its own right; it had some of the functions of a separate civil parish (maintaining its poor and repairing its roads), but ecclesiastically it formed part of the parish of Churcham (Fig. 2). Nevertheless, Highnam had most of the characteristics that such terminology implies: all but a few acres were in the ownership of a single landowning family, its owners were usually resident in the manor house on the estate, and they presided over a tenantry that remained almost entirely engaged in agriculture. The main element of the ‘estate village’ that it lacked (until the arrival of Thomas Gambier Parry in mid 19th century) was a parish church in the patronage of the big house: the three hamlets were served by the vicars of Churcham, though many of the inhabitants apparently attended the slightly nearer church in the small parish of Lassington, to the north of them, where many of them chose to be buried.6 A small chapel standing in the grounds of the manor house, Highnam Court, may once have served the hamlets as a chapel-of-ease, but by the 17th century was used only as a private chapel by the owners.7 During the Middle Ages Highnam had been owned by Gloucester’s great Benedictine abbey of St Peter, one of its core block of manors (including also Churcham, Maisemore and Hartpury) which, situated close at hand just across the Severn, provided the monks with not only an income from rents and other manorial profits, but also supplies in kind – agricultural produce, timber, firewood and building stone – as well as pleasant, and healthier, places of rural retreat for the abbot and senior members of the monastery. At Highnam after its manor house and demesne land came to be leased out in the early 16th century the abbot reserved the right to take up residence 4. During the remaining years of his minority he was in the guardianship of his cousin Mary Cooke, surviving daughter of his uncle Dennis: GA, D 326/F 70–1; The National Archives [TNA], PROB 11/759/409. 5. In this study ‘Highnam estate’ is used to refer only to the three hamlets, though lands in the adjoining parishes of Lassington and Rudford, owned or held on lease by the Guises, were managed as part of the estate during the period. 6. GA, P 196/IN 1/1; see VCH Glos. XIII, 129–33. 7. GA, D 326/E 1, f. 1v.; GDR wills 1708/187. 14 NICHOLAS HERBERT Fig. 2. The estate at the beginning of the Guise ownership (from a map drafted by the author for VCH Glos. X, with alterations).

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