The Valley of Gatten

Gatten is not mentioned in Domesday and it subsequently transpires that it was originally in the manor of Wentnor and later in the parish of Ratlinghope. In which case in Domesday it was owned by Roger Corbet of Caus Castle. However this only applies to the site of the original hamlet of Gatten which may have been Near Gatten, in the valley of the East Onny rather than Far Gatten in the headwaters of the Habberley Brook.

The “culture” of Gatten was given to Haughmond Abbey by Robert Corbet between 1176-1222 to which he later added an assart. (H. Cart.,217)

Gatten is not subsequently mentioned as part of the Haughmond estate and it was probably subsumed in Stitt. The upper valley of the Habberley brook, in which Gatten Lodge and most of the former Gatten estate stood, was part of the vast medieval Forest of the Stiperstones of which the latter estate formed a quarter (it had been detached in a family settlement in 1349). It extended in length from the forest of Huglith in Pulverbatch in the north to the land of Kinnerton and Ritton in the south, and in breadth from the royal forest of the Longmynd, to which Stitt was adjacent, in the east to the top of the Stiperstones ridge in the west.

The remaining walks of the Stiperstones forest were the later forest bailiwick of Habberley Office on the north-eastern end of the Stiperstones ridge, and the bailwicks of Upper and Nether Heath which included Hogstow and extended in length from Pennerley in the south to the outskirts of Minsterley in the north and in breadth from the Hope valley to the top of the Stiperstones ridge.

The whole of the Stiperstones forest was regarded as being in the parish of Worthen and although by the 18th century the Gatten estate was in the parish of Ratlinghope it paid a modus in lieu of tithe to Worthen and was tithe free to Ratlinghope.

In the later middle ages a forest court was held at La Logge (Gatten Lodge) and by the early 17th century there was a regular manorial court for the tenants of the Gatten Estate. It last met in the early 19th century. It was particularly important as will be seen for maintaining the bounds of the manor.

The unenclosed western side of the Stiperstones formerly part of the bailiwick of Upper and Nether Heath and part of the Vessons in Habberley Office were purchased from Lord Tankerville in 1923, and added to the Gatten estate.

From the Norman Conquest Gatten formed part of the wide-flung possessions of the Corbets of Caus Castle which extended from the Breidden and over the Long Mountain in the west and comprised Worthen and Minsterley in the Rea valley, Wattlesborough and associated manors and Cardeston , Stoney Stretton and Yockleton. To the east and south the estate butted on the Long Mynd and originally included Stitt, Wentnor, Mucklewick, Kinnerton, Ritton, Shelve and Habberley.

This list does not include manors where feudal sub-tenants were quickly established like Westbury and Pontesbury. Until 1349 this vast estate descended amongst direct male heirs.
Following the death of Peter Corbet in 1347 there was a division amongst the descendants of coheiresses and Wentnor, Shelve, Wattlesborough Stoney Stretton, Yockleton and a quarter of the Forest of the Stiperstones including Gatten fell to the lot of Robert de Harley.

Under a succession of family settlements Gatten passed in the female line and by marriage along with the other manors into the hands of the Corbets of Wattlesborough and eventually into the hands of Hugh Burgh on whose death in 1430 it passed to his son Sir John Burgh. When he died in 1471 leaving four daughters the combined inheritance remained undivided until a partition in 1501 in which his daughter Isabel, wife of Sir John Lingen, received Shelve, Wentnor, Yockleton and quarter of the Forest of the Stiperstones (for the full descent of the manor see VCH Salop.VIII,312).

Despite a brief period of forfeiture to the Crown when the husband of Mary Shelley (Lingen) was attainted for treason as a Catholic the estate was restored and on the death of Mary Shelley passed to Lingen cousins who also had a recusant background (ibid.312;Blakeway, Sheriffs, 199). 

In the Civil War Sir Henry Lingen of Sutton and Stoke Edith, Herefs. supported King Charles I and garrisoned Goodrich Castle for the King. He was fined £6342 by the Parliament in 1649 for his delinquency and came under heavy financial pressure (ibid., 201). As a result he enforced the renewal of leases in both Gatten and Shelve to raise a capital sum from entry fines in order to discharge this debt and he subsequently had permission to sell Shelve and sold it to the Parliamentarian Samuel More of Linley.

This may not have been enough to clear his debts for in 1657 he sold the manor of Gatten and quarter of the forest of Hogstow to Sir Thomas Middleton of Chirk for £3675 who settled it on his son Timothy (NLW. Chirk Castle,1417, 1418, 5671; Chirk Castle Accounts 1605-1666 ed. W.M. Myddelton,1908, p.63).

By the 1690’s the Robinson’s of Gwersyllt in Gresford near Wrexham, who were Catholics and owned land in Denbighshire, Flint and Cheshire, had acquired the lordship. Following the death by drowning in the Skerries of William Robinson in 1739 (he had had his estates surveyed by William Williams in 1734) a private Act of Parliament was obtained for the sale of his estates in 1745 to pay debts, discharge encumbrances and secure a modest annuity of £200 on his widow Elizabeth (Gatten archives; abstract of title).

After some haggling the estate passed to Thomas Hill of Tern Hall (now Attingham Park) for £5500 which his canny steward Thomas Bell reckoned was an under valuation and capable of yielding a higher rental and in any case yielding 4% on the investment (SRR 112/ / / ). As will be seen he had hopes of exploiting potential mineral resources at no risk to his master.

Hill was acquisitive and looked to his eastern boundary where Gatten adjoined the vast manor of Church Stretton. There an ancient copyhold, amounting to just over 70 acres, known as the Hollyes or New Leasowes owned by the Leighton family once of Stretton though latterly of Loton, came up for sale in 1778 (Gatten archives; abstract of title from 1716).

Although it subsequently followed the history of Gatten it was conveyed separately for £976 in 1818, £950 in 1831 and a £1000 in 1858 and was finally enfranchised in 1861 (Gatten archives; title deeds). Thomas Hill’s heir, Noel Hill, had social aspirations and became the first Lord Berwick.

Unlike his canny father he spent rather than accumulated capital, notably on the building of Attingham Park and the ruinously expensive Shrewsbury bye-election of 1796 when his brother William slugged it out with his cousin John Hill of Hawkstone.

On his death in 1789 he was succeeded by an even more spendthrift heir who had an expensive Grand Tour, maintained a London House as well as an extensive local establishment including the inevitable pack of hounds and string of hunters.

Despite the higher rental income of the boom agricultural price period in the Napoleonic wars, his expenditure severely strained his financial resources, so much so that by 1818 it was necessary to sell off outlying parts of the estate to pay debts and reduce the pressure of mortgages. A greedy and somewhat optimistic calculation valued the estate at £ with timber extra at valuation (SRR 112/ / ). More realistically it was bought by Thomas Wilkinson for £29,355 who sold it on to Samuel Smith in 1831 at the reduced price of £ 21,500 (Gatten archive abstract of title, ).

The Corbets like many aristocratic landowners made gifts of land to monasteries for the good of their souls. These were on the periphery of their estates, remote and pretty inhospitable. Stitt was given to Haughmond Abbey in and adjacent land the “cultura” of Gatten. Buildwas Abbey received Ritton and Kinnerton in Wentnor and subsequently had a grange in both. Wigmore Abbey received Ratlinghope, which became a dependent cell with a Prior. The advowson of Wentnor was held by Shrewsbury Abbey by the gift of Roger fitz Corbet in the eleventh century but reverted to the Corbets in the thirteenth. The Abbey subsequently received a pension out of the living.