Catalogue description Records of the Dunne Family of Gatley Park

Content: Manorial records, title deeds, estate records and personal papers.

An appendix, C.R.O. Ref: F 76/A., contains additional material which has been deposited at a later date than the original collection.

For other records of the Gatley Estate see AD4.

Dunne family of Gatley, Leinthall Earles, Herefordshire

• Eure, Sampson, fl 1646, of Gateley Park, Herefordshire, Knight
• Marten family of Worcestershire
• Gatley Park, Herefordshire
• Leinthall Starkes, Herefordshire
• Bircher Estate, Yarpole, Herefordshire
• Leinthall Earles, Herefordshire
• Martley, Worcestershire
• Earles Croome, Worcestershire
• Herefordshire
• Shropshire

Gatley Park and the manor of Leinthall Starkes, part of the possessions of the Earl of March, became Crown land on the accession of Edward IV. Early in the reign of Elizabeth I, they were granted to William Horne, merchant of the staple. From Horne they passed to the Croft family, and were conveyed in 1633 to Sir Sampson Eure, serjeant at law, and at one time President of the Council in the Marches. Follownig the death of Sir Sampson's son John Eure, his widow sold Gatley Park and the manor of Leinthall Starkes to Philip Dunne in 1678.

The Dunnes are descended from the Welsh family of Dwn, and through them from many of the early Welsh princes. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they held land mainly in the Llangarren and Welsh Newton areas, but following the purchase of Gatley they transferred their interests to Leinthall, and became active in enlarging their estates by purchase of land in Leinthall and neighbouring parishes. The estates were further increased through marriage. Property at Martley and Earles Croome in Worcestershire passed to the Dunnes through the marriage of Thomas Dunne and Marian Monten in 1739, while the Bircher Estate at Yarpole and properties of the Ward family at Harton and elsewhere in co. Salop were acquired on the marriage of Thomas Dunne and Anne Smith of Bircher in 1814.

As well as manorial records (mainly for Leinthall Starkes) and title deeds, the collection contains some estate records for both Herefordshire and Shropshire estates. There is also a quantity of personal records, including a great deal of correspondence of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a number of pedigree and genealogical notes. One of the appendices of material deposited later than the main collection contains some material relating to the Gladstone family, notably a typescript memoir of Gladstone's conversations with Lord Rendel, father-in-law of Edward Marten Dunne. (Gladstone was a close friend of Rendel and spent much of the last years of his life at Rentdl's villa in the South of France.)

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