Description:

When Richard Watson Barton, Esq, of Manchester became Lord of the Manor of Ewyas Lacy, local people could have been forgiven for assuming that another absentee landlord would have little impact on a area that had slumbered as a quiet rural backwater for generations. However, all that began to change on 22nd December 1845, when the Manor of Ewyas Lacy including the Michaelchurch Estate was put up for auction in London by the Assignees of Thomas Daniell, the then Lord of the Manor of Ewyas Lacy, who had been declared bankrupt. The Manor at that time was claimed to produce rental income of £936.12s. per annum and to consist of 1217 acres of enclosed and highly productive land together with rights over many thousands of acres of commons.

The initial auction was unsuccessful at the reserve price of £24,000, but a further press announcement a few weeks later stated that the Manor and Estate had been disposed of by private contract on the 19^th January 1846 to Richard Watson Barton, Esq., of Pendlebury near Manchester for an undisclosed sum. Little is known about Barton’s Manchester background or the reasons for him seeking to acquire an Estate in Herefordshire. He evidently did not intend to take up residence there, but it would soon become clear that he intended to invest in and improve his new property by shaking it out of its historical rustic lethargy. 

Barton appointed WH Apperley of Hereford to be Steward of the Manor, and notice was given on 12^th April 1849 that the Court Leet and View of Frankpledge, with the Court Baron of Richard Watson Barton, Lord of the Manor of Ewyas Lacy would be held on 3^rd of May.

In further exercise of his rights Barton, through Steward Apperley, issued on 1^st September 1851 a notice of Perambulation of Boundaries of the Manor of Ewyas Lacy. The Perambulation was to take place on Tuesday 30^th September, commencing at a stone near the Gate at Parc y meirch in the township of Craswall at the hour of eleven in the forenoon and proceeding in a westerly direction. Interestingly, the notice was issued jointly by Apperley as Steward for Barton and by Baker Gabb as Steward for Lord Abergavenny, indicating that both principals regarded themselves as Lord of a moiety of the Manor, an arrangement dating back to the split of the Lordship in Norman times.

In 1856 Richard Barton’s progressive activities as Lord of the Manor attracted sufficient attention to merit an article in a local newspaper about his establishment of the Ewyas Lacy Manor Agricultural Society. After some rude remarks about the traditionally doltish nature of the people of Clodock the reporter noted a splendid herd of white-faced Hereford cattle grazing under the shadow of the Black Darren and crops of swedes and turnips being raised on a nearby hillside. Credit for these examples of agricultural improvements was attributed to Richard Barton of Springwood near Manchester who had transformed the Ewyas Lacy Manor from a ‘state of comparative uselessness’ by spending thousands in draining, erecting commodious buildings and in encouraging active tenants in every possible way. The article asserts that by introducing several Manchester and Scotch tenants a new and improved system of agriculture has been put into practice which has set a good example to their ‘slow-going neighbours’ who are stuck in their old ways and cannot understand how the new tenants pay their rent and save money where previous freeholders of the same land failed to gain a livelihood.

Richard Watson Barton apparently never lived full time in the Manor, although he reputedly kept private rooms at Michaelchurch Court [which was otherwise let to a tenant] for the occasions when he visited. When he died in 1862 the Manor of Ewyas Lacy including the Michaelchurch Estate was put up for sale by his heirs, and was eventually purchased in 1863 by Miss Elizabeth Rawson of Nidd Hall in Yorkshire.

Notice of a further Perambulation of the Manor was subsequently issued on 19^th September 1867 by the stewards of The Earl of Abergavenny and Miss Elizabeth Rawson, to take place on 3^rd October at 10 o’clock in the morning. On this occasion it was to start at the Pwka Gate leading out of Urishay Common and proceeding westward by the boundaries of the Manors of Ewyas Lacy and Snowdle towards the Vaga Hill.

This completed the traditional formalities of the transfer of the Lordship of the Manor from Richard Barton to Elizabeth Rawson

Observations:

Our thanks to Martin Cook of the Longtown and District Historical Society, whose researches into Richard Barton discovered the newspaper cuttings shown above and who kindly gave us permission to use his photographs of them.