Gerard Family Settlements (Heighley & Tyrley etc.).

The main property listed in the 1660 marriage settlement consisted of the Castles of Heighley [p. Audley] and Tyrley [p. Drayton-In-Hales]; manors of Gerards Bromley [p. Eccleshall], Winnington [p. Mucclestone], Tyrley, Audley, Ashley, Heighley and Tillington [p. Stafford St. Mary]; hundred of Pirehill; Bromley and Willowbridge Parks; and messuages, lands and courts etc. at Gerards Bromley, Rudge [p. Standon], Podmore [p. Eccleshall], Ashley, Willowbridge, Winnington, Tyrley and Blore, p. Drayton-In-Hales, Audley, Heighley, Talk-on-the-Hill, Tillington, Brandwood [p. Myddle, Salop] and Great Rowney,?; advowson of Ashley, [1614], 1655 only (D861/T/3/1,6); mines of stone and iron in Tunstall [p. Wolstantion], 1655 (D861/T/3/6); and paper mill at Tyrley, 1724, 1732/3, 1776 (D861/T/3/34-36, D861/T/3/47,48, D861/T/3/78,79).

Most of the documents from 1660-1779 had originally been numbered from 1-75, with a few now missing (for no. 53, 58 and 61 see D861/T/1/7, 10 and 6 above) and include the following:

<p>For further details see Staffordshire Historical Collections, 1945, 'The Manor of Tyrley' by F.R. Twemlow.</p>

The Gerard family estates passed to Thomas Fleetwood, brother-in-law of Charles, 6th lord Gerard d. 1707, in 1708, and thence to the Meynell family through Littleton Poyntz Meynell, his son's principal creditor, who acquired the whole estate in 1751. The Meynell title was, however, finally secured only in 1779 when the Duke of Hamilton withdrew all claim (through a female line) in consideration of £5000.