CLIFFORD OF FRAMPTON-ON-SEVERN

Deeds, estate and family papers of the Clifford family of Frampton-on-Severn

Manorial

Hundred of Whitstone

Manorial

Deeds (calendared series)

Avening - Frampton Mansell

Frampton-on-Severn

Gloucester - Rodborough

Stroud (Ruscombe and Paganhill)

Shipton Moyne - Stonehouse

Stroud

Tetbury - Wotton-under-Edge

Deeds (second series)

Arlingham - Cirencester

Eastington

Frampton-on-Severn

Fretherne - Stonehouse

Spillman cartulary

Stroud

Tirley - Out-county

Maps

Estate

Surveys

Rentals

Leases

Agreements, bonds, etc.

Sale particulars

Inclosure

Roads

Canals

Tax assessments

Agricultural improvement

Estate correspondence

Household

Family

Clifford family

Clutterbuck family

Winchcombe family

Nathaniel Winchcombe alias Clifford

H. C. Clifford

Clifford family

Gardner family of Ruscombe and Stroud

Packer family of Painswick

Purnell family of Dursley

Wallington family of Stinchcombe

Other families

Accounts

Estate accounts

Household accounts

Legal

Clifford and related families

Other families

Business

Attornies: John Clifford

Attornies: Giles Gardner

Cloth trade

Official

Clifford and Clutterbuck families Nath. Winchcombe alias Clifford, including Frampton Volunteers (X 15-25) and Napoleonic War defences (X 27-29)

H. C. Clifford

Giles Gardner

Miscellaneous

Parish and Charity

Parish

Charity: Bisley Blue Coat School

Charity

Miscellaneous

Drawings of old Frampton Court

Literary and printed

The records reflect the long connection of the Cliffords with Frampton and the numerous links with other families. The Frampton deeds date from the late 12th century, and are in two series with the first deposit fully calendared. They include one from Godstow Nunnery of Frampton Mill (1304), which had been granted to the nunnery by Walter de Clifford, father of 'Fair Rosamund' the mistress of Henry II, for the benefit of the souls of himself, wife and daughter, Rosamund being buried at the nunnery. The deeds throw light on the field system of the village, with evidence of piecemeal enclosure about 1710, and consolidation of strips by the Clutterbuck family, especially in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The deeds also produce evidence of building developments, and a few refer to the "borough" of Frampton (T 1029, 1080, 1097). The name Rosamund's Green occurs only from 1651 but becomes the increasingly common alternative for Frampton Green, which is found from 1639 to 1763. The exceptionally fine penmanship, possibly of Joseph Haynes (see the handwriting of T 1042), in the second half of the 17th century is particularly remarkable. Attention may also be drawn to the final concords of 1655 still rolled and tied with their original parchment strips (T 1045, 1046). The collection also contains a small 15th-century private cartulary of the Spillman family estates in Rodborough (T 1165), fully described in C. E. Watson, "The Spillman Cartulary," Transactions of the Bristol & Glos. Arch. Soc., Vol. LXI, (1940), 50-94.

Other classes of records include notably the Hundred of Whitstone court rolls, 1709-1864, (M 1-11), and a small drawing of old Frampton Court, built 1650-2 by John Clifford but demolished or completely transformed in 1733 when the present Court was built by Richard Clutterbuck (Z 1); some of the building accounts of the 1650 house have survived (A 2), but only a few specifications for the present house (A 8). Amongst the estate papers there is much correspondence relating to early 19th century agricultural improvement. The official papers include the correspondence of Nathaniel Winchcombe about the Frampton Volunteers (during the Napoleonic War) (X 15-25), whose musical instruments are now in the Gloucester Regimental Museum; see G. B. Michell, Some account of the Frampton-on-Severn Volunteers, 1798-1802, 1928. [G.R.O., MI 19]. Nathaniel Winchcombe was also trustee of the Bisley Blue Coast School, and the records include applications of candidates for the mastership in 1810 (R 38).

The family tree above explains the presence of the archives of the Clutterbuck, Winchcombe, Packer and Wallington (with Adey and Purnell) families. The group of Gardner family deeds and papers may be accounted for by the ownership of Stratford House at Stroud passing from that family to the Winchcombe family in 1782 (T 1185); both families were related by marriage through the Colbourne family of Stroud (T 1183, F28). The records of the families of Packer, Winchcombe, Adey and Wallington are particularly important for the history of the cloth trade in the Stroud Valley in the 18th century. They have been used to some extent in E. A. Moir, "The Gentlemen Clothiers," Gloucestershire Studies, 1957, and include minute but unfaded samples of 'Stroud scarlet' (B 10).

The archives have been deposited at different times. The first series of deeds has been calendared in full; these include some family and estate records which have been left undisturbed as calendared. There is a running number for the reference to each document, which should be quoted as D 149/T 1, T 2, T 3, etc. [In the original numbering of the calendar, e.g. 149/29/1, 2, 149/31/3, 4, the middle set of figures representing an abortive parish enumeration of about 1939 should be ignored].

Later accessions have been catalogued in summary form, and references are straightforward. Wherever possible cross-references have been given between the Calendar and the Summary Catalogue, and the Summary Catalogue describes the whole collection.

The Clifford family has been associated with Frampton-on-Severn since the Norman Conquest. The manor was granted in 1081 to Drogo fitz Ponz, grandson of Richard, Duke of Normandy. Later it was settled on Drogo's nephew Walter fitz Ponz, who died about 1190, after taking the name of Clifford from his own lordship of Clifford in Herefordshire. Isabel Clifford married Robert fitz Pain (who died in 1315) and the manor passed by marriage through Sir John Chideok, who married their grand-daughter, to the Arundel family in the late 15th century. In 1634 it was sold by John Arundel to Sir Thomas Hooke of Bristol, but purchased from his heirs, the Grove family, about 1790 by Nathaniel Winchcombe, heir to the Cliffords. Manor court rolls, 1572-1603, and account rolls, 1465-1532, among the Chideok archives, are in the Dorset Record Office (see EL 182).

The Clifford family retained other estates in the parish. John Clifford, a Puritan and Parliamentary supporter, died in 1684, "the name of Clifford in this County dying with me for want of issue male after 600 years continuance in the same place" (D 149/F 5). However, his estates descended through the female line and have continued to do so directly to the present day, with husbands sometimes assuming the surname of Clifford.

There is a Calendar in the Gloucestershire Records Office of the detailed pedigree, c.1050-1680, at Frampton Court, and a fuller pedigree of the family may be traced in the Visitation of Gloucestershire, 1623 and Burke's Landed Gentry.