By Don Maddox
The Kyrewoods
It's relatively easy to pin-point the Freeman's, Blissets
and Dew's. Their footprints are still here. There
was another family that held sway, power and influence
in the locality for 300 years. They have disappeared
without trace. The Kyrewoods are first mentioned in
Elizabethan times. By the 1790s they owned all of,
the variously described Over Letton/Nether Letton/
Upper Letton ( Whatever name it was the area from
the top of Tin Hill, down to the Brook and spreading
out to Brobury on one side and, almost, Little London
on the other) and their house was Old Letton Court.
Although lower Letton is in the parish of Staunton
on Wye it was, at one time a Manor in its own right
and owed allegiance to Letton Church. In the early
1600s the Kyrewoods built the black & white houses,
that characterise the area. They, as will have John
Freeman, John Booth, Lucy Smallman and others, have
performed one vital local function. They were the
bankers, mortgagors and money lenders for the area
at a time when there were no financial institutions.
At death the possessions of the deceased were valued
for taxation purposes. Excluded were his/her house
and the land, but not crops. "Money about the house."
was included but this rarely appears - it might be
careless of relatives to leave coinage easily accessible.
Nobody has ever loved taxation except the taxers.
The Will of Thomas Kirwood, probably of Old Letton
Court, shows the money lending facility very well,
while that of his brother, John, shows some money
lending but also that his possessions fitted very
well into what could have been a boarding/farming
establishment - perhaps the Swan Inn
There was one other direct parallel
between the Freeman/Blissets and the Kyrewoods. Both
families terminated with a son and a daughter. In
both families the son died unmarried. Margaret Jane
Blisset did marry but died soon afterwards. Anne Kyrewood
lived to an old age but died a spinster. After her
death the Kyrewood estate was sold and eventually
dismembered.
The family is almost forgotten. There
are two, decaying, table tombs outside the church
porch but it's not much of a legacy for 300 years
occupation and influence. But not untypical
At the final count it's better to be
remembered than forgotten.
