Wilford, Wilforde, Wylford, Wilsford, Wyllesford, Willesford

[PWillie]

I've also just stumbled across a "Hartridge Manor Cottage" that is just a little south of "Hartridge Manor" from my post above.  It isn't listed on the Historic England website, but Archaeology South-East prepared a 35-page Heritage Statement for it in 2010. You can page through it here: https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/43744160/2010075-4364-hartridge-manor-cottage-cranbrook-kent-hbr - and if you create a free Yumpu account you can download the full report as a PDF.  Very interesting report with photos, floor plans, maps, and detailed descriptions.  I've attached a little collage of pictures I "snapped" from the report.  Unfortunately, the PDF is too large to add as an attachment here.

I think it looks older than the structure called "Hartidge Manor," but the report suggests it is not old enough to be the Wilsfords' residence.  Still, this caught my eye:

"Hartridge Manor Cottage was built in the early-mid 17th century, and comprised a three-cell, lobby-entry house, fully-floored throughout, and with attic space designed to be used as accommodation. The house is well-built, and incorporates timbers of large scantling, though many of these timbers display redundant mortices which indicate that they are secondhand in their existing locations."

Wonder if those "recycled" timbers may have come from the original Hartridge Manor ...

Paul Williford

[Top-of-the-hill]

   I asked a local expert on the construction and archaeology of such buildings for his opinion on Ileden. This is his reply.
 Picture of house at this website
https://picclick.co.uk › Ileden-House-Kingstone-Kent-P...

[PWillie]

Thanks so much, Top!

Quite eye-opening - and such a complex history where things are added onto, torn down, reused - over centuries!  I've gone ahead and attached the image from the 1912 postcard.

[PWillie]

Finally, while I'm still not sure whether those Wilfords in Exeter are ancestors to the Wilsfords in Kent, I did find an interesting post about No 56 High Street in Exeter being the likely location of Robert Wilford's "Hospitium de le Egle."  The location is directly across the street from Exeter's historic Guildhall (built ca 1470).  A drawing, map and several photos of the property are included. 

I'm attaching the drawing by James Crocker, published in Old Exeter (1886).  The caption in the blog post says, "Crocker's illustration ... shows Nos. 55, 56 and 57 as they existed c1880. If any of these buildings was the old 'Eagle House' then it was likely to have been No. 56, whose wide plot probably retained the original footprint of Robert Wilford's prestigious 14th century mansion."

Also attaching a pic of the buildings that currently stand at Nos. 55-56 and 57-58.  The one labeled Santander is the building in question.  BTW, Santander has since moved next door to Nos 53-54, and Card Factory is now occupying the space of 55-56.  The property is also featured in a YouTube video by a real estate firm that has listed the building for sale at £710,000.

I also found The Exeter Journal and Almanack for 1853, and page 61 indicates No. 56 was the location of a public library which had perhaps been there since 1812.  (See attached screenshot.)  I've been a librarian myself for nearly 34 years now, and that bit of information warms my heart!

For those who may need a little help finding it, here's a link to Ethel Lega-Weekes' 1912 article about "The Eagle" which includes reference to the Wilfords in Exeter.

Paul Williford

[zameni]

Can anyone help me with a Wilford family whose earliest member that I can find is Major Ernest Christian Wilford RA who died in Pilton, Barnstaple 1836. In his obituary of The North Devon Journal his surname is given as Wilsford. The earliest record that I can find of him is 9 Nov 1799 Lt. Ernest Christian Wilford moves from 2nd Battalion of Argyle Fencibles to be Adjutant of the Royal Irish Artillery. No idea as to why he joined the Argyle Fencibles as that Batallion was raised in Scotland and I can find no evidence of him being in Scotland. At least 3 of his 7 children were born in Ireland ,the rest in Woolwich. His wife Ruth Cochrane was born in Ireland, no trace of her either ! She died in Pilton also. I wondered if there was a connection to the Wilsfords of Devon. The names Ernest Christian were passed down the line to another 2 generations.

[Lovely Cove]

Yes, there is at least one other party researching this family.  My wife's grandmother's maiden name was Willford and we have traced her family tree from Texas to Mississippi to North Carolina to Kent, England.  We have found many of the same names in both Devon and Kent in the same time frames but with some differences.  Our sources have been some of the same that have been referenced in this thread but some additional ones, i.e., The Genealogist, vol. IV dated 1880 by George Marshall; The Visitation of Essex of 1612, and on-line lists of Mayors of Exeter and Sherriffs of London.We have tried source a copy of Pedigrees of the Families of the County of Kent here in the States but the closest library that has a copy is not convenient and we don't want to spend $460 to buy a copy.

We have run into some of the same tangles that you seem to have but we are reasonably comfortable with the information we have on the lineage of James Wilsford (c 1460-1499 and Elizabeth Bettenham (c 1463-1540). The tangle that we have is between William Wylford (c 1321) and James.

To answer a question earlier in the thread, the connection between Devon and Exeter seems to have occurred when William Wilsford Esq (c1365-1413) traveled to London on business for the city of Exeter and became an MP.

Ironically, we retired to Kent County in Maryland a couple of decades ago.  The county was settled in the late 1600s and the paternal branch of my wife's family settled in a nearby county in the 1660's when a yeoman from Middlesex purchased a "Hundred" and named it Bollenbrooke. A creek in the s area still retains the name

Would be interested in trading notes on the family ties between 1320 and 1460 or any other period.

[PWillie]

Hi Lovely -

(Don't tell my wife I called you that!)

The Pedigrees of the Families of the County of Kent (1830) is available as scanned microfilm on FamilySearch.  You need to create a free account to access it, but here is the direct link:

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSNR-WD4Y?i=367&cat=306626

It's not searchable, but you can page through (and download) two pages at a time. 

Included on the same reel are

• Abell's History of Kent (1898) - starting on Slide 9
• Some Pedigrees from the Visitation of Kent, 1663-68 (1887) - starting on Slide 216
• May's Charlton: Near Woolwich, Kent (1908) - starting on Slide 642

Ancestry has a searchable version of Pedigrees ... here - https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/28684/ - but you'll have to be a paying member to take full advantage.

I did go ahead and attach the pages from the Pedigrees pertinent to the Wilsford line.  For offspring of the Wilsford daughters and ancestors of the Wilsford wives, you'll have to go to the indicated family names.  I had to reduce the resolution to meet the allowable upload size.  First image is actually two pages (134-135) - click on the image name to download and view both pages.  To go directly to the higher-resolution pages on the film, they are Slide 442 and Slide 623.

Hope this helps!

Paul Williford

[zameni]

It is good to know Paul that there is at least one other person in the world researching the Wilfords etc etc. We make a merry bunch !! I used a genealogist some years ago to try and unearth the background of Ernest Christian Wilford's family and she came up with the same sources as you ! I did spend sometime trying to dig deeper but became increasingly frustrated with what seemed like a total lack of any information at all between 1600 and 1750 ! I am in South Australia so a long way from where some information must be hiding. Ernest Christian's wife is just as frustrating, the 1841 census says she was born in Ireland but I have tried everything to locate her , my only success being the possible name of her sister who was mentioned in "The story of Saskatchewan and its People". Not at all promising. Anyway I will plug on. Great to hear that you are a librarian. I volunteer in a 2nd hand bookshop and probably should have been a librarian a long time ago. Instead I became a music teacher. Thank you very much for the pictures and please let me know if you find any other good leads.
Best Wishes Merrilie

[Conan-the-Barbadian]

Many thanks for the posts and the links!

A quick look suggests that the Wilford mystery remains unsolved so far: where are names, dates and documents to prove the descent of James Wilford “of London”, who died in 1526 , from William Wilford “of Exeter” , dead in 1413?

It seems to me that the gap may well require two male Wilfords. First a son of William born roughly around 1400, call him X Wilford, who if not an unrecorded child of William's second marriage to Margaret Cornu/Cornew might be adopted or illegitimate. Second, a son of his we could call Y Wilford, born in approximately 1430, who became the father of James Wilford.

Any ideas?