Note 31 — INGESTRIE HALL, STAFFORDSHIRE.

Walter Chetwynd, Esq., of Ingestre, the celebrated antiquary, was the son of Walter Chetwynd, Esq., and married Ann, daughter of Sir Edward Bagot, Bart., August, 1658. He introduced the learned Dr. Plot, from Oxford, into Staffordshire, to write its Natural History. Dr. Plot exhibits in his work (1686) a Plan of Ingestre Hall, and gives an account of the rebuilding of Ingestre church by his patron.

The first person who undertook to write upon the history and antiquities of Staffordshire was Sampson Erdeswick, Esq., of Sandon, near Ingestre, venerandæ antiquitatis cultor maximus, as Camden describes him; i. e. an eminent encourager of venerable antiquity. He died in 1603, and was buried under a handsome monument, having his effigy, “cut to life,” erected by himself in his lifetime, in Sandon church. His MS. papers fell into the hands of Walter Chetwynd. This latter gentleman obtained in addition the collections of Mr. Ferrers, of Baddesley, and of William Burton, the Leicestershire historian, and brother of the Anatomist of Melancholy. To these he added very large collections of his own. All these MSS., upon the repairing of Ingestre Hall, were put in a box, for safety, by the Rev. James Milnes, rector, and were unfortunately lost. They were, however, subsequently found at Rudge; but continued in obscurity, till rediscovered at Ingestre, when they were placed in the hands of Dr. Stebbing Shaw, the learned and indefatigable historian of the county, whose premature decease unhappily interrupted his elaborate work. There is a good portrait of Walter Chetwynd, Esq., the antiquary, by Lely, at Ingestre Hall.