"In depth" Bennet’s Hall, Pride Hill, Shrewsbury

Bennet's Hall, Pride Hill, Shrewsbury (image) [+]
The remains of the medieval building traditionally called Bennet’s Hall can be found incorporated in the shops at 2-3 Pride Hill.

The remains of the medieval building traditionally called Bennet’s Hall can be found incorporated in the shops at 2-3 Pride Hill. Who had it originally belonged to, and what was its tenurial history in Tudor and Stuart times? The answers to these questions can be answered by looking first at the history of the lower plot, 1 Pride Hill, which lies on the corner of Pride Hill and Roushill. This property has been identified as a property belonging in 1378 to Sir John Ludlow of Stokesay Castle.(1) The ultimate Shropshire heirs of the Ludlows were the Vernons who were still paying a ‘fee-farm’ rent to the corporation, i.e. as the ultimate lords of the soil, for a property in Corvisors Row (Pride Hill) in the borough rentals of 1580, 1610, 1657 and 1686. Was this the old Ludlow property? The evidence suggests that the fee-farm rent was actually paid for nos. 2-3, but that no. 1 was also a Vernon property though belonging to a different branch of that family. Given that the Vernon family had inherited the Ludlow estates by marriage, there is an obvious implication that the whole site, 1-3 Pride Hill, must once have belonged to the Ludlows. Evidence to support this belief can be laid out as follows.

In 1582 the merchant Robert Ireland senior, of Shrewsbury and Lythwood, devised his dwelling house in Shrewsbury to his wife Elizabeth for 21 years, she paying £4 p.a. to his son Edward, and 26s. 8d. to the chief lord.(2) From suit lists, recording the names of male householders, it is known that Ireland was at that date living in Corvisors Row. He had moved there from the High Street between 1550 and 1554.(3) In 1572 when his opponents on the town council tried to get him thrown off the bench for living at Lythwood outside the liberties, Ireland protested that his 'chief dwelling house' was still in town, and details in this dispute show that Ireland's house was located in St. Chad's parish.(4) Now the only part of Corvisors Row (Pride Hill) which is situated in St. Chad's parish is the property on the corner of Pride Hill and Roushill Lane (1 Pride Hill), as shown by a map made in 1725 at the time of a boundary dispute between St. Chad's and St. Alkmund's parishes.(5) As Ireland was living in both Corvisors Row and St. Chad's parish, it is clear that his dwelling house must have been the one on the corner.

That is consistent with evidence provided in the will of Ireland's widow Elizabeth in 1587, proved the same year.(6) In it she bequeathed to her son Edward the house in Shrewsbury left to her by her late husband. It was held on a long lease from Mr. Henry Vernon of Stokesay, paying 26s. 8d. p.a. (as in her husband's will). The shops and cellars, however, were left to another son Thomas. Clearly, this was the old Ludlow property of 1378, now in the possession of the Stokesay Vernons and rented out to the Irelands of Lythwood.

But if 1 Pride Hill was a Vernon property (inherited from the Ludlows), what about nos. 2-3 which contain the remains of the old stone building known as Bennett's Hall? It has been argued that strictly speaking the 1378 evidence, which mentions Bennett's Hall, appears to indicate only that it was the corner property, i.e. 1 Pride Hill. Might therefore the present identification of Bennet's Hall as the remains at 2-3 Pride Hill be a mistake? Certainly it would be convenient if nos. 2-3 had been a Ludlow property as the Ludlows were among the richest inhabitants of 13th and 14th century Shrewsbury.(7) However, on topographical grounds J.T. Smith has argued that nos. 1 3 Pride Hill must once have comprised a single large plot. The remains now known as Bennet's Hall comprised a hall with undercroft, entered from a courtyard on the west or Roushill Lane side, which would have incorporated 1 Pride Hill.(8)
The evidence provided by later deeds (below) suggests that Smith's view is correct: 2-3 Pride Hill was also a Vernon property in the 16th and 17th centuries – one which again must have been inherited from the Ludlows.

The first clue is provided by the map of 1725 mentioned above. This shows that the site of Bennett's Hall, and the shut or passage driven through it, was then occupied by a Mr. Dawes, and no. 1 was occupied by a Mr. Philips. John Dawes, a baker, had first leased nos. 2-3, then an inn called The Golden Fleece, in 1710 from the butcher Richard Studley.(9) Later in 1721 he bought the property outright.(10) Abutments in the deeds show that the Mr. Philips shown on the 1725 map as living in the adjacent messuage was the draper Robert Phillips. Studley himself had a release of this property in 1708 from Sir Richard Vernon bart.(11)

Sir Richard came from the Hodnet branch of the Vernons, and the Hodnet Hall evidences also contain deeds relating to this property. They show that it was actually sold to Studley in c. 1694.(12) An extent (c. 1597) and a survey (1598) show that the Hodnet Vernons had earlier possessed one messuage in Shrewsbury, evidently the same property. At that time in the tenure of William Fawkener, it was ultimately held of the corporation in free burgage.(13) It was Fawkener's grandson, the baker Richard Fawkener, who was described in the 1657 borough rental as one of the tenants of the Vernon property in Corvisors Row, i.e. Pride Hill.(14) At that date, and in the previous rentals of 1580 and 1610, it was listed as an inn or tavern called The Bull.

Further confirmation of the identity of the Vernon property as Bennet's Hall comes from the inquisition post mortem of George Vernon of Hodnet taken in 1555.(15) On that occasion the Shrewsbury property was said to be tenanted by one Robert Hobby. The local Shrewsbury chronicle, known as the Taylor MS, has an entry for the civic year 1556-7 which describes how Hobby’s house caught fire: ‘This year Hobby’s house, the baker of Pride Hill in Shrewsbury, to say the stone house where his faggotts did lie, was by mischance set on fire, the which was a very great and fearful fire which did mount through the top of the same stone house being open of a huge height, and if the said stone house had not kept the force thereof in it, had burnt the whole street. But God be blessed, it went no further but consumed within itself.’(16) Evidence for this fire was indeed discovered at Bennet's Hall by archaeologists investigating the site.(17)

The evidence given above indicates that the Ludlow property on Pride Hill had originally included all the present plots 1-3 Pride Hill. It may have been sub-divided when the two Ludlow heiresses married into the Vernon family. Alice, daughter and co-heiress of John Ludlow married Humphrey Vernon of Hodnet, father of George Vernon (d.1554) mentioned above. Alice's sister and co-heiress Anne married Thomas Vernon who thereby acquired the Stokesay Castle and the estate there. Thus, 2-3 Pride Hill passed to the Hodnet branch of the Vernon family, and 1 Pride Hill to the Stokesay branch, although it seems that it was nos. 2-3 which actually paid the fee-farm rent to the corporation. By the 17th century the latter was an inn or tavern known first as The Bull, and later as the Golden Fleece – ironic, if appropriate, given that the Ludlow fortunes had been founded on the wool trade between England and Continental Europe.

Although we can now be sure that the Ludlows owned 2-3 Pride Hill in 1378, as well as the corner property, there is as yet no evidence that they actually built the substantial house there. Certainly, the earliest information about the site suggests that it was not in Ludlow hands in 1254.(18) Details of carving, surviving or otherwise, suggest that Bennet's Hall was built about 1250-60.(19) Given the obvious commercial significance of the site at perhaps the most important crossing in the town, and the exceptional quality of some of the recorded carving (e.g. capitals of 'cathedral quality'), it is at least plausible that the site was acquired by a Ludlow soon after 1254, with a fine town house being erected shortly afterwards on the spot. If so, a candidate for the builder would be Nicholas Ludlow whose son Laurence obtained Stokesay in 1281.(20) By the 16th century the whole of this substantial plot had been subdivided and was in the occupation of various tradesmen, and the part in which the surviving stonework of Bennet’s Hall survives was associated in particular with the baking trade.

(1) Trans. Shrop. Arch. and Historical Soc. (T.S.A.H.S.) lxviii, 19. The belief that this building once housed the mint set up by Charles I is unsubstantiated: ibid. 9-10
(2) National Archives (NA) Prob 11/65, 40 Rowe. Robert Ireland senior is not to be confused with his nephew and name-sake who built Ireland’s Mansion in the High Street.
(3) Shropshire Archives (SA) 3365/1842, box 1, no. 5.
(4) SA 3365/1912.
(5) SA 1048/4508, fo. 26r.
(6) NA Prob 11/71, 80 Spencer.
(7) T.S.A.H.S. lxviii, 1993, p. 19.
(8) Ibid. 10-11.
(9) SA 6002/284.
(10) SA 6002/249-50.
(11) SA 6002/263.
(12) Hodnet Hall MSS, box 2, bundle 15, no. 29.
(13) Hodnet Hall MSS, box 3, bundle 10, no. 1; box 1, bundle 14, no. 27.
(14) Brit. Lib. Add. 30,317, fo. 103r.
(15) NA C142/104/70.
(16) Trans. Shrop. Arch. Soc. iii. 265.
(17) T.S.A.H.S. lxviii. 14, 16.
(18) Ibid. 18-19.
(19) Ibid. 16.
(20) For an archaeological assessment of the building, see T.S.A.H.S. lxviii. 9-28.