On 13 Aug 2013, at 20:46, Nick Wilson wrote:
Thanks to those who helped me locate Sontley; however, I still cannot
see it on a Google map of the area to the south east of Wrexham so must believe it is all
part and parcel of Marchwiel to-day. Robert Sontley was Sheriff of the County at one time
so I assume his house must have been fairly substantial ...
On 13 Aug 2013, at 21:44, WILLIAM ROBERTS wrote:
Hi Nick, have you looked at Robert Sonlli of Marchwaill on the
FamilySearch Community Trees site lots of interesting info …
… and for others' future ease of reference, here is a link to a good starting point
within the database flagged up by that last (very useful) post:
http://histfam.familysearch.org/getperson.php?personID=I62562&tree=Welsh
I cannot claim to know the area personally. But from the evidence accessible online It
does seem that when a slightly more precise name was wanted for Robert
Sontley/Sonlli's house, instances of "Plas" Sonlli occur -- which one would
normally expect to see anglicised as "Sontley Hall".
That connection is expressly asserted in a piece by the great historian of the locality
Alfred Neobard Palmer, published in "The Antiquary" in 1887, about the
development of Welsh surnames (beginning at p.144). On p.146 his section about the
locative variety of name begins with Sontley as its prime example, and states the
following (with my emphasis added):
… In other cases a man was distinguished
from others of the same name by appending
to his Christian name, not an epithet, but the
name of his estate. Thus a little before the
time of the Robert Wyn of Abenbury, just
mentioned, there was living in the neighbour-
hood another Robert Wyn, who, from the
name of his house (PLAS SONLLI, THAT IS
SONTLEY HALL), was commonly called Robert
Wyn Sonlli, or, in English spelling, Robert
Wynn Sontley. Sontley was not at first his
surname (though his father before him had
been similarly distinguished), but he was
called Robert Wynn Sontley, just as we say
John Jones, High Street. Yet so necessary
was it to distinguish him from other Roberts,
and other Robert Wynns, that the addition
Sontley was nearly always connected with his
name. When, therefore, a surname was
wanted for his children, Sontley was that
which was naturally suggested, and which
was in fact taken.
The relevant part can be found down a long webpage here
http://www.ebooksread.com/authors-eng/andrew-carnegie/the-antiquary-volum...
The inevitable follow-on question is WHICH house actually was this Sontley Hall. Well, as
already noted in the present thread by Robert Webb, there is a place marked on the modern
maps as Old Sontley -- shown (I hope) by an arrow on this link to Streetmap's
rendition of the Ordnance Survey:
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/idld.srf?x=333212&y=346352&z=115&s...
Intriguingly, other modern maps now break this site down into "Old Sontley
Farm" and "Old Sontley Hall", as will be seen if one enters the latter
name into the search field on the Old-Maps site
http://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html and
looks at the guide-map that then comes up. It certainly seems to be the name favoured by
the modern owners of the house -- evident if one puts the name into Google (whose
StreetView cameras got quite a good view of the house from the road, incidentally). The
"Hall" variant seems to have also been adopted by Cadw for its Grade II listing
-- though whether that name was used when the place was first listed back in 1952 is
perhaps less clear. See
http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/wa-1548-old-sontley-hall-marchwiel/
However, one should remain cautious about this identification until there is firmer
evidence. An examination of the series of large scale maps on the Old-Map site, starting
with the 25-incher of 1874-80, shows that they consistently label the combined property
just as "Old Sontley", with the name "Old Sontley Hall" only
appearing within the last two decades. I hope someone with much greater local knowledge
than mine can throw more light on the matter. It ought to be perfectly resolvable via
some off-line source such as the tithe map and its schedule or the detailed text of (say)
a deed.
As to the Sonlli/Sontley family more generally, and as Nick Wilson and others may already
well know, one of the fullest online accounts of them was published by J Y W Lloyd in
vol. II of his "History of … Powys Fadog" (1881-87), starting at p.140 (where
he cites Harl. MS. 4181 as his main source) and ending on p.149. This hypertext link
should take one to pp.146-7 --
http://archive.org/stream/historyofprinces02lloy#page/146/mode/2up
-- which I have selected in preference to the beginning because it is where Lloyd states
that the final Sontley heiress carried the estate into the possession of the Hill family,
after which, when her grandsons had both died without lawful issue (by 1780) and her
daughter-in-law had also died, the property was broken up and sold. Plas Uchaf was
swallowed by the immense Wynnstay estate, Burton Hall was acquired by a certain Mr
Goodrich -- and "Sonlli Hall" (that form perhaps betraying Lloyd's
well-known taste for the archaic) itself was purchased by the Yorkes of Erddig.
That latter piece of information may just be a useful pointer as to where documents
relevant for further research could have come to rest.
The left hand page describes the author's own family connection with the Hill family,
and so with the Sontleys, thereby explaining why he probably devoted so much space to
them all.
In the lower part of the right hand page Lloyd turns from the royalist branch of the
Sontleys to their virulently republican cousins of Bron Deg (sometimes written as
Frondeg). The abovementioned Alfred Neobard Palmer included them in a list of local
puritans and parliamentarians set out near the start of his "History of the Older
Nonconformity of Wrexham ..." (1888). The para about Roger Sontley of Bron Deg
reads:
Captain Roger Sontley ... was a Commissioner under the Act
of 1650 before-named, and a strong anti-Royalist until the
very eve of the Restoration. His kinsman, Colonel Robert
Sontley, of Plas Sontley, was engaged on the other side. I am
nearly certain that Captain Sontley lived in the township of
Broughton-in-Bromfield, although he seems to have also had a
house within the liberties of Holt.
See
http://archive.org/stream/historyofolderno00palm#page/6/mode/2up
I hope the foregoing at least sets out some useful contextual information, even if it is
far from decisive in identifying exactly where the mid-17th c. Robert Sontley lived.
Rol