Shropshire's Hidden History: The Milnes Gaskell Family

Wenlock Priory, situated on the edge of the picturesque Much Wenlock, was home to the Yorkshire Milnes Gaskell family. The property had passed through various families between 1540 to 1858 when the Abbey was bought by James Milnes Gaskell. By this time, it had become a decaying farmhouse. However, with the help of his son Charles George Gaskell (a founder member for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings in 1877), the two restored the Abbey's former grandeur until it became a 'gentleman's country house'.

Note: the house had long been referred to as The Abbey, although from Norman times it was always a priory, not an abbey.

The priory.

(Photo credit: David Ross and Britain Express)

https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=3511

Various well-known literary figures visited Wenlock Priory, including American historian Henry Adams. He describes one of his visits to the Priory in the autumn of 1864, noting, 'God only knows how old the Abbot's House is, in which they [the Gaskell family] are as it were picnic-ing before going to their Yorkshire place for the winter'. He also gives us an insight into the restoration process and the historical richness of the Priory, recalling how they 'excavated tiles bearing coats of arms five hundred years old, and we laid bare the passages and floors that had been three centuries underground' (Ernest Samuels, Henry Adams: Selected Letters (1992), p. 69). Thomas Hardy, the Victorian novelist and poet, was also a guest at the Priory and he also emphasised the Priory's age: whilst staying with his wife in the oldest part of the house, he felt 'quite mouldy at sleeping within walls of such antiquity' (Florence Emily Hardy, The Later years of Thomas Hardy, 1930).




A picture of the Visitor's Book in 1893 and 1894. This picture clearly shows Thomas Hardy's name, along with others (p. 216).




P. 249 - there is a picture of the Visitor's Book from 1900 and 1901, which shows signatures of Edith H. Sichel and others.

Both of these images: Cynthia Gamble's book, Wenlock Abbey 1857-1919 A Shropshire Country House and Milnes Gaskell Family (2015).

Charles George Milnes Gaskell's wife, Lady Catherine, was an ambitious social hostess. She was the attractive daughter of the fifth Earl of Portsmouth, described by Thomas Hardy to have 'round, luminous eyes'. Around 1900, she laid out the priory's garden with lawns, topiary, shrubberies and trees. Much of this garden has survived.



Abbey church ruins.

(Photo credit: David Ross and Britain Express)

https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=3511

She took inspiration from the flowers and nature in her gardens, as well as medieval stained glass, manuscripts, and the work of the Pre-Raphaelites (a group of English painters, poets and art critics founded in 1848), many of whom she knew and admired. In her book, Spring in a Shropshire Abbey, she recounts the details of the creation of the curtain shown below: 'The picture, for it really is a picture, was drawn out for me by a very skilful draughtsman. The birds, beasts and angels have been taken from old Italian work, from medieval stained-glass windows and from old missals, and then drawn out to scale. There are Tudor roses, Italian carnations, sprays of shadowy love-in-the-mist, dusky wallflowers, and delightful half-heraldic birds and beasts, running up and hanging down the stems. It is a great work'.





Photo: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/embroidery/2.html

Lady Catherine also embroidered the following piece for the Holy Trinity Church in Much Wenlock. This piece was based on the tapestry 'Angeli Laudantes' by Sir Edward Burne-Jones (an artist associated with the later phase of the Pre-Raphaelite movement). Burne-Jone's work is described as a 'marvellously preserved tapestry representing two angels playing on harps of gold against a rich floral ground' ( https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2008.8/ ). Lady Catherine captures the essence of this original piece in her own work, featuring a detailed landscape of wild and tame animals and various flowers against the four angels in the foreground.





Lady Catherine's own version of 'Angeli Laudantes'.

Photo: http://www.victorianweb.org/art/design/embroidery/3.html





'Angeli Laudantes' by Edward Burne-Jones.

Photo and further information: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/2008.8/


Lady Catherine was a significant figure at the Priory, as she owned the manor in her own right in later life from 1919 after her husband died at Thornes House. Some insights into her character include an account from Thomas Hardy's second wife, Florence Emily Hardy. She describes on Sunday evening when she and Catherine walked until they became tired, they 'sat down on the edge of a lonely sandpit and talked of suicide, pessimism, whether life was worth living, and kindred dismal subjects, till we were quite miserable' (Florence Emily Hardy, The Later Years of Thomas Hardy).





Lady Catherine Henrietta Milnes Gaskell (née Wallop) in later life. (28th November 1927).

National Portrait Gallery: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw248765/Lady-Catherine-Henrietta-Milnes-Gaskell-ne-Wallop

Lady Catherine died in 1935. One obituary stated that 'she had many friends amonst the poor, for she loved the Shropshire folk and was much interested in the old customs and the folk-lore of the county'. The works she completed during her life are also noted - Spring in a Shropshire Abbey, Friends Round the Land and Old Shropshire Life were amongst the books she wrote about Shropshire. She also wrote other books, songs and many plays for amateurs. Lady Catherine 'felt deeply the tragedy and suffering of the War, and she worked untiringly for the wounded men in the hospitals in the West Riding of Yorkshire'. Her book, Lady Anne's Fairy Tales, raised funds for beds in the War Hospital in Etaples. The author finishes by affirming her love of needlework and her gardens: 'she spoke well and had done much public work during her life, but what she liked best was to do personal kindnesses whenever she felt that she could help and after that she took pleasure in her big dogs, her garden, her books and her embroidery' (British Newspaper Archive, Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer, Friday 23rrd August 1935 https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000687/19350823/161/0005 p.5).

After Lady Catherine's death, Wenlock Abbey was left to her daughter, Mrs Mary Ward. Shropshire Archives holds further insights into the family that inherited Wenlock Priory. For example, William Motley, the great-great-grandson of Charles and Lady Catherine, writes on May 9th 1964 about the death of Constance milnes Gaskell who 'so hated the life as an invalid'.

As for today, the priory ruins passed into the guardianship of the Ministry of Works. However, the Abbey remains in private hands. The Wenlock Priory ruins are preserved by English Heritage and can be visited - or if that's not your cup of tea, then the nearby Gaskell Arms is a pub and hotel established in the 17th century which is still running today. ( https://www.gaskellarms.co.uk/about/history/ )





Abbey church ruins.

Photo credit: David Ross and Britain Express https://www.britainexpress.com/attractions.htm?attraction=3511)


Chloe Norton

(English undergraduate at UCS)