Pollardine

Pollardine was until the early seventeenth century a detached part of the manor of Pontesbury and not part of the Gatten estate.

In the later Middle ages it was owned by the Greys, Lords of Powis. The ending –rdine representing the OE wrdign meaning an enclosed settlement suggests an ancient origin, despite the fact that it is first mentioned in 1526 when it was let by Edward Grey, Lord Powys to Wiliam Lingen of the Hurst in Westbury as an endowment for a chantry chapel at Westbury church ( NA E132/23/123).

In 1546 at the dissolution of chantries it was being managed as a dairy farm and was said to be a pasture carrying a stock of 24 cows and a bull (TSAS. 3 ser.,X,378-9).

Following the death of Edward Grey in the 1500s, the ownership of Pontesbury was disputed between the Vernon’s of Stokesay and Hodnet and Edward Gray his bastard son. By 1593 Henry Vernon was in possession and Pollardine was tenanted by George Powell, gentleman (SRR 665 uncat ).

Vernon sold the manor and Pollardine to William Leighton of Stretton in the 1600s. Leighton who had married Jane, daughter of the bastard Grey, was then tenant to his distant Mytton cousins at Habberley and he sold the Manor of Pontesbury and Pollardine to Sir Roger Owen of Condover Hall in 1603.

The tenants in 1603 were George Powell and John Dey. Although Pontesbury remained part of the Condover estate until the late eighteenth century Pollardine was sold at some point after 1699 to the Gatten estate (SA/D3651/B/3/3/80).

It was recorded in lease in 1699. His successor was Edward Clarke who paid an entry fine of £260 in 1709 and an annual rent of £23.50. Clarke was also tenant of Westcott and Yockes Hay by 1723 (SA/ QE/3/3/1; register of Papists estates). As on the rest of the estate the tenants of Pollardine became tenants at will and by 1751 the farm was let.

During the prosperous farming years of the Napoleonic wars the house and buildings were totally rebuilt, largely in brick and in 1818, when Lord Berwick sold the estate, it was said to be “lately rebuilt”. It was then a farm of 257 acres (Gatten estate papers ; abstract of title 1730-1857).