Heytesbury Estate, Isle of Wight

These papers largely relate to the Holmes family of Yarmouth and Westover. They played a leading role in the politics of the Isle of Wight in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, controlling the boroughs of Yarmouth and Newport, and with an interest in the rotten borough of Newtown. Although little political material survives this does include one important letter book, 1782-90 which shows the extent of the family's influence and patronage on the island.

The Holmes family also had extensive estates in Ireland, and a small number of leases and deeds for Irish properties are included in this archive, principally in Limerick and Waterford.

The collection also includes a good set of early 19th century accounts.

Note on personal names

All personal names in the catalogue entries have been transcribed just as they appear in the documents. Certain individuals were known by different names and titles at different stages in their lives and, for the sake of convenience and consistency, each of these is referred to in the following headnotes by one form only. These are as follows:-

Thomas, the eldest son and heir of Henry Holmes of Yarmouth and later created first Baron Holmes of Kilmallock - Thomas Holmes

Leonard, third son of Rev. Thomas Troughear of Northwood and later second Baron Holmes - Leonard Troughear

Henry, third son of Robert Worsley of Pidford and later seventh Baronet of Appuldurcombe - Henry Worsley

Leonard, eldest son and heir of the above Henry Worsley and later eighth Baronet of Appuldurcombe - Leonard Thomas Worsley Holmes

William Henry Ashe, eldest son and heir of first Baron Heytesbury, later second Baron Heytesbury - William Henry Ashe a'Court

System of classification

By the time work was begun on the current list all trace of the natural pattern of classification of the documents was lost and the whole lot had been rendered down into a disordered mass of individual pieces. Great trouble has been taken to re-create the "natural" relationships between the documents as faithfully as possible but some errors must inevitably have occurred.

As the sub-group table below shows, the documents have been arranged in nineteen classes, with blocks of numbers, rather than individual numbers, assigned to the various classes. These numbers also correspond to the bundles in which the papers are physically grouped. Classes marked with an asterisk in the table are further divided into sub-classes. For additional information on classification see headnotes to individual class and sub-class lists.

Sub-group list, Jerome/Heytesbury

Class Dates Bundle nos.

Title deeds* 1556 - 1895 JER/HBY/ 1- 67

Counterpart leases* 1605 - 1894 JER/HBY/ 68-100

Court rolls* 1615 - 1892 JER/HBY/101-103

Wills and settlements 1692 - 1913 JER/HBY/104-131

Grants of annuity 1789 - 1818 JER/HBY/132-135

Accounts and rentals 1769 - 1889 JER/HBY/136-155

Correspondence, accounts for payment, receipts, etc. 1763 - 1888 JER/HBY/156-169

Maps and surveys* 1648 - 1857 JER/HBY/170-185

Legal papers 1662 - 1864 JER/HBY/186

Estate management papers 18th - 19th centuries JER/HBY/187-210

Out-conveyances 1835 JER/HBY/211

Papers relating to sale of estate 1835 - 1920 JER/HBY/212-225

Papers relating to railway matters 1852 - 1912 JER/HBY/226-231

Political papers 1790 - 1824 JER/HBY/232

Official and military papers 1669 - 1853 JER/HBY/233

Personal papers and miscellania 1673 - 1881 JER/HBY/234

Papers of Thomas Dickonson, Gent. 1726 - 1794 JER/HBY/235

Papers of John Delgarno, Esq. 1764 - 1817 JER/HBY/236

Documents received from Wiltshire C.R.O. 1895 - 1913 JER/HBY/237

Photocopies of documents held elsewhere 1825 - 1860 JER/HBY/238

Deposited by Jerome and Co., (formerly Gunner, Wilson and Jerome)

1. Creation of the archive

The documents described here were kept to record the ownership and management of a substantial agricultural estate on the Isle of Wight, founded by Sir Robert Holmes, Privy Councillor and Governor of the Island from 1670 to 1692. By 1873 the property ran to some 5,195 acres, placing it in second position amongst the Island's estates. In addition to the Isle of Wight material there are large numbers of documents relating to three estates in Ireland and a smaller quantity of items for fee farm rents in Wales and some properties in Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey. There is a small, distinct group of records derived from the management of local political interests on the Isle of Wight in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The sub-group title given to these documents comes from the Barony created in 1828 for Sir William a'Court of Heytesbury, Wilts., whose son and heir William Henry married Elizabeth Worsley Holmes, descendant of Sir Robert Holmes and ultimate heiress to the estate in 1833. See headnote to the Wills and settlement for a simplified family tree.

2. Custodial history of the documents since 1913

The greater part of the Heytesbury estate on the Isle of Wight was sold at auction in 1913 and a large accumulation of records, including extensive series of title deeds, leases and family settlements, were left in the hands of the Newport solicitors Gunner, Wilson and Jerome. A further quantity of records, chiefly 19th century material dealing with the management of the estate, remained on the mainland with another firm of family solicitors, to whom Gedge & Fiske of London had evidently become successors by 1960. Documents from both of these two sources first reached the Record Office in the early 1960's. At first treated separately, as witness two brief "3rd Stage Reports" for the N.R.A., they were soon combined into a single sequence under the references HBY/1-1506. Regretably it has not proved possible to re-isolate the Gedge & Fiske documents with any great certainty so for the purposes of this current list the earlier amalgamation has been maintained and a large quantity of further documents received from Jeromes in 1982 has been added. Documents not properly forming part of the Heytesbury papers but erroneously catalogued as such in the early 1960's have, however, been removed. Full comparative lists showing all old and new numbers and locations are available at the Record Office. As an aid to identification the obsolete HBY/ references have been carried forward to the present list where they appear in square brackets at the foot of the relevant entries. Further information about the Jerome deposit as a whole will be found in the Jerome file.