Edge

A history of Edge, Cheshire

The Bakers Home Page Return to the Home Page of the Bakers Family part of the website

The Bakers of Highfields Story The Story of the Dods and Bakers and of Highfields, Fenton House and Hasfield Court. A journey through the history of Cheshire and Staffordshire, an Anglo-Saxon nobleman who retained his lands after the Conquest, pottery at Stoke on Trent, an encounter with Elgar, and the history of an Elizabethan manor house at Audlem

The Bakers of Highfields The family tree of the Bakers of Highfields

The Dod Family The Family Tree of the Dods, predecessors to the Bakers of Highfields

The Bakers of Fenton House and Hasfield Court The Family Tree of the pottery Bakers of Stoke on Trent

The Bellyse Family The Family Tree of the Bellyse Family

The Farndale Story The main part of this website tells the story of the Farndale family from Yorkshire Descendants of Arthur Baker, the story of the Farndale ancestry is told through the main part of this website You can also return to the Farndale website home page

The Hall Family The genealogy of the family of James Hall, linked to the Baker family through marriage to Arthur Baker

Headlines of are in brown.

Dates are in red.

Hyperlinks to other pages are in dark blue.

References and citations are in turquoise.

Context and local history are in purple.

This page is work in progress

The Dods of Cloverly, from whom the Dods of Highfields were descended, were in turn a cadet branch of the Dods of Edge, who had held that manor, near Malpas in Cheshire, since the reign of Henry II and, as Wolley Dod, are still seated there today (Robinson, John Martin (1991), Highfields, Audlem, Cheshire, Seat of John Bellyse Baker, Country Life 31 January 1991, page 48 see also Country Life, 21 November 21, 1985).

Marcher Lords

Linguistically and historically, marcher lords were quite literally the lords of the edge. The term march is derived from an ancient root meaning an edge, border, or frontier. In medieval Britain, Marcher Lords were Anglo-Norman barons appointed by the Crown to conquer, guard, and govern the volatile borderlands between England and Wales.

The Lords of Edge, the descendants of the Saxon thane Edwin of Poulton. and later the Dod family of Edge Hall in Cheshire, held lands situated just three miles east of the Welsh border. While they answered to the supreme Marcher Lord of their region, the Earl of Chester, they and their fellow border barons behaved with a unique, aggressive autonomy that defined the Marches.

Because the Crown required a heavily fortified buffer zone to protect England from Welsh raids, Marcher Lords were granted extraordinary powers that regular English barons did not possess. The Marches were not subject to English common law. Marcher lords ran their own courts, applied their own custom laws, the customs of the March, and enforced taxes as they saw fit. In England, building a castle required a strict royal license, crenellation. Marcher lords bypassed this entirely, raising private strongholds at strategic redoubts whenever they pleased. This turned the border into one of the most densely fortified regions in Europe. They held the right of private conquest. They routinely raised their own armies, invaded neighbouring Welsh territories, and kept whatever land they managed to seize. When violence failed, border lords acted as independent states. They regularly bypassed the king to negotiate their own peace treaties, arrange strategic marriages with Welsh nobility, and manage local cross-border trade.

Medieval Edge

Edge in Domesday appears as a small Cheshire manor held by Edwin, with two manors recorded, modest value, and typical mixed resources of a frontier county.

It was the ancestral home of the Dod family from the twelfth century, if not earlier, to the early twenty first century.

1289

In the Inquisition Post Mortem on the death of John de Sancto Petro on 21 November 1289, at Little Egge, he held a moiety of the manor held in demesne of Urian de Sancto Petro. (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Volume 2, (Edward I, 1272 to 1291), Folio 761).

Sir Urian de Sancto Petro, also known as Urian de St. Pierre. was an Anglo-Welsh knight and landowner in medieval Cheshire during the late 13th century. He belonged to the St. Pierre (Sancto Petro) family originating from St. Pierre in Monmouthshire, Wales, with roots extending back through generations of landowners named John and William. He gained significant landholdings in Cheshire through his marriage to Idonea de Malpas, daughter and co-heiress of David de Malpas. Through Idonea, he acquired a major portion (a quarter) of the barony of Malpas. By 1290, his estates included lands, burgages, and saltpits in places like Malpas, Fulwich, and surrounding Cheshire holdings held in free socage. Following the death of Idonea, Urian married a second wife named Margaret. Urian died prior to 1295 (with various records pointing to his Inquisition Post Mortem around that era), leaving his heir, grandson Urian (son of John de St. Pierre), to inherit the family lands.

During the 13th and 14th centuries, the St. Pierre family played a vital military and political role in the Welsh Marches and the Palatinate of Cheshire. Functioning as Marcher Lords and elite knights, they served as a strategic buffer between the English Crown and the independent Welsh principalities. They showed absolute loyalty to the Crown, specifically to Lord Edward, the future King Edward I. During the Second Barons' War, when Simon de Montfort briefly took control of the kingdom and sought to claim Cheshire, the St. Pierres rose up. Merely three days after Lord Edward made his dramatic escape from captivity in May 1265, Sir Urian de St. Pierre, alongside James de Audley, successfully seized and recaptured the strategically vital Beeston Castle from Montfort's loyalists. Because of this fierce loyalty, the Crown heavily favoured the family. King Edward I supported their claims and integration into the wealthy Barony of Malpas.

The family held land by serjeanty (military service in exchange for land). Sir Urian’s grandson held the critical passage of Tarporley and Kelsall, where the high road emerged from the Delamere Forest. The family was legally responsible for guarding this road and protecting merchants traveling to the Chester markets from Welsh raiders. The St. Pierres operated as elite military mobilisers on the borderland. They frequently leased out portions of their vast estates in exchange for active military support during times of conflict. For example, records show the family leasing land in areas like Malpas to local sub-tenants explicitly in return for the service of a Welsh lance for forty days whenever war broke out with Wales. This allowed them to quickly field highly effective, specialised frontier forces for the King’s campaigns.

1311

In the Inquisition Post Mortem on the death of Urian de Sancto Petro on 26 March 1311, Urian held lands in Malpas and other places, of which lands there are assigned by the king's command to Iseult, late the wife of the said Urian, in dower, a third part of a fourth part of the said barony (of Malpas) in Schokelache, Cudinton, Great Egge, and Fulwich (Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Volume 5, (Edward II 1307 to 1316), Folio 251, page 137).

1400

On 22 May 1400 there was a general pardon by Henry IV, following his usurpation of the Crown from Richard II, to all the king’s lieges of the county of Chester for all treasons, insurrections, felonies, rebellions and trespasses committed by them from Christmas last to the Purification, except murders and rapes, but a number of men were excluded from this general pardon including John Davidson leche of Malpas; David Dodde; John del Malpas; Thomas de Grene of Malpas; Robert de Sutton of Frodesham; and David Dodde of Egge. (Patent Rolls of the reign of Henry IV, 1399 to 1401, page 285 to 286).

This general pardon on 22 May 1400 was granted by Henry IV to suppress anti-Lancastrian unrest in the County of Chester following the Epiphany Rising. The named individuals, including John Davidson, David Dodde, and Robert de Sutton, were excepted because they were identified as die-hard Ricardian loyalists, former members of Richard II’s private Cheshire Guard, or primary instigators of the local revolt who were forced to sue for individual pardons.

When Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne from Richard II in autumn 1399 to become Henry IV, he inherited a deeply unstable kingdom. No region was more hostile to his new regime than Cheshire. Richard II had elevated Cheshire to a principality, showered its gentry with titles and annuities, and recruited his infamous, highly loyal personal bodyguard, the Cheshire Guard, directly from the county. When Henry's invading forces marched through Cheshire in 1399, they subjected the area to harsh retribution and violence.

In January 1400, a conspiracy of counter-revolutionary nobles launched the Epiphany Rising to assassinate Henry IV and restore Richard II. Simultaneously, an anti-Lancastrian rebellion flared within Cheshire itself. Rebels attacked Chester Castle and attempted to hold the county for the deposed king. The rebellion failed, and Richard II died mysteriously, likely starved on Henry’s orders, at Pontefract Castle in February 1400 to eliminate him as a focal point for future revolts. By May 1400, Henry IV used a mix of tactical leniency and intimidation to pacify the county: a general pardon designed to sweep up the lesser offenders, restore basic legal order, and prevent Cheshire from remaining an open hotbed of insurrection.

The Calendar of the Patent Rolls lists over 100 men explicitly excluded from this blanket mercy. They were isolated for three primary reasons. Some were core ringleaders and activists. Rather than giving a free pass to the ringleaders who orchestrated the attacks on Chester Castle, Henry's government singled them out to prevent immediate immunity. Many of those excepted were former retainers, archers, and loyalist elements of Richard II’s military affinity. Men from Malpas, Frodsham, and Edge belonged to prominent local families that had heavily benefited from Richard II's patronage. For example, the Suttons and Doddes were deeply embedded in the county’s military structures. Being excepted from a general pardon did not necessarily mean immediate execution. Instead, it meant these men were compelled to sue for individual pardons.

By forcing men like John Davidson, David Dodde, and Robert de Sutton to surrender independently, the Crown achieved two goals. It forced them to formally acknowledge Henry IV's legitimacy, and it required them to find financial sureties, large monetary bonds, from their neighbours to guarantee their future good behaviour.

See McNiven, Peter, The Cheshire Rising of 1400.

The Dods of Edge or Egge were one of Cheshire's oldest and most martial gentry families, deeply woven into the fabric of the county's military aristocracy. During the political upheaval of 1399 to 1400, their deep loyalty to Richard II and their actions during the Cheshire Rising of 1400 put them at direct war with the newly crowned Henry IV. The family's alignment with Richard II was rooted in direct royal patronage. Edge is located in the parish of Malpas (Broxton hundred), at the epicentre of Richard II's recruitment ground for his infamous Cheshire Guard. In the 1390s, Richard II bypassed traditional feudal levies to build a highly personal, 2,000-man bodyguard composed primarily of Cheshire archers and gentry. The Lords of Edge and their close kin, including John Dod and David Dod, were part of this elite, fiercely loyal military affinity. They wore Richard's personal badge, the White Hart.

When the Epiphany Rising flared in England in January 1400, the Cheshire gentry orchestrated a coordinated internal insurrection. The Dods of Edge used their regional influence to muster the local population around Malpas. Armed with their longbows, the men of Edge marched on Chester. Alongside other local commanders, they successfully seized Chester Castle, took control of the city, and publicly proclaimed that Richard II was still alive and marching to join them. For several weeks, they effectively held the county in open defiance of the Lancastrian usurpation.

When the wider national coup failed and Richard II was confirmed dead, the Cheshire rebellion collapsed. Because David Dod was designated as a ringleader, Henry IV excluded him from the General Pardon of May 1400. However, their story did not end in execution, but rather in a calculated political and financial submission.

To secure individual pardons, those excluded from general pardon had to provide immense financial sureties. They were forced to sign recognizances for debt to the King, massive monetary bonds that would be completely forfeited if they, or any of their tenants at Edge, showed a shred of future disloyalty.

The Lords of Edge survived the Lancastrian transition.

1403

The true test of their pacification came just three years later in 1403, when Henry Hotspur Percy launched a second, massive rebellion in Cheshire against Henry IV. While many of their neighbours rose up and died at the bloody Battle of Shrewsbury. The Dods of Edge, heavily restricted by their 1400 financial bonds, largely stayed out of the active fighting.

Or (to review further)

However there is an alternative view to check: Cheshire was a fierce stronghold of loyalty to the deposed King Richard II. When Hotspur arrived in the Palatinate in July 1403 to raise an army, the vast majority of local elite families and their highly skilled Cheshire archers joined his banner. The Dods of Edge mobilised alongside neighbouring families, such as the Massies of Coddington, who married into the Dod family. On 21 July 1403, the rebel forces clashed with the Royalist army at the Battle of Shrewsbury. The Cheshire gentry took catastrophic casualties during the intense longbow exchanges and subsequent melee. Following Hotspur's death and the collapse of the rebellion, King Henry IV exacted harsh penalties on the surviving Cheshire rebels. Members of the family faced the temporary forfeiture of their lands and were forced to pay steep fines or secure royal pardons to reclaim their ancestral manor at Edge.

See McViven, Peter (1979), The Men of Cheshire and the Rebellion of 1403 in Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, Volume 129.

Having successfully navigated the transition, the family retained their ancestral lands at Edge. Over the coming decades, they were fully rehabilitated into the Lancastrian apparatus. By the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI, the Dods of Edge were once again serving as local magistrates, royal commissioners, and prominent local benefactors.

1544

In the Cheshire Musters in July 1544, there was a Certificate of musters headed: "Broxton in com. Cestre. — The certificate of Sir Hugh Chomeley, Sir Hugh Calveley and Thomas Grosvenour, commissioners of musters taken afore them of the King's Majesty's subjects inhabitants within the said hundred allotted, assigned and appointed unto the said commissioners, 'w a play and speciall note of theyre able harnes and weapons and horses able to cary to the feld as hereafter ensuyth, that ys wytt.' Giving under names of places lists of persons, each described as "a billman" or "a bowman," with a note of his harness, &c.. This list included Newton juxta Malpas 6, Broxton 21 and 5 lost, Hole 7, Edge 19. Totals given on the inner side of the fly leaf, viz. 1,067 able men, of whom 65 are archers with horse and harness, 167 archers on foot, 449 billmen harnessed, and 406 billmen without harness. (Public Records of the reign of Henry VIII, Volume 19 – Part 2, Appendix Folio 9(2)).

The Cheshire Musters of 1544 were a comprehensive military census ordered by Henry VIII to assess the defensive strength, available manpower, and military readiness of England's counties. At this point in time, Henry VIII was engaged in simultaneous conflicts: the Rough Wooing campaigns against Scotland and a massive, expensive invasion of northern France, culminating in the Siege of Boulogne in the summer of 1544. Because England relied on a traditional national militia system rather than a standing professional army, the Crown required local commissioners to meticulously catalogue every able-bodied man, along with their specialized roles ("bowman" or "billman") and personal armour ("harness"). This specific record focused on the Broxton Hundred in southern Cheshire, compiled by local prominent gentry acting as commissioners: Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, Sir Hugh Calveley, and Thomas Grosvenor.

Providing 19 able-bodied men for a military muster indicates that Edge was a reasonably substantial rural community for the era. Because musters only counted adult males who were physically capable of fighting and met specific residency criteria, a contribution of 19 men suggests a total parish/manor population several times that size (including women, children, the elderly, and the infirm). In comparison to its immediate neighbours listed in the same certificate, Edge was a significant local hub.

The muster reflects the ongoing influence of the local manorial lord, the Dod family of Edge, who held the manor of Edge from the time of Henry II through the Tudor period. The ability to muster 19 men under the oversight of regional commissioners shows how effectively the manorial network could be mobilised to serve the Crown's wartime demands.

Though the exact breakdown for Edge's 19 men isn't isolated from the hundred's totals on the flyleaf, they would have been split into bowmen (archers) and billmen. Edge's fighters were equipped with classic English weaponry: the longbow and the bill (a hooked staff weapon). While continental European armies were rapidly transitioning to firearms and pikes, this record captures the manor of Edge firmly rooted in the twilight of England's traditional medieval military tradition.

Indeed, in May 1544, John Dod (probably DOD00060), was a captain of 100 men in the expedition to Scotland of 1544, who was paid 20 days wages at 4s for himself and petty captain and 6d for each man from 28 April to 18 May 1544 with deductions for victuals (Public Records of the reign of Henry VIII, Volume 19 – Part 1 561). This was an exceptionally destructive military campaign known today as the Burning of Edinburgh or the first major strike of the War of the Rough Wooing. Henry VIII had successfully negotiated the Treaty of Greenwich in 1543, which stipulated that the infant Mary, Queen of Scots, would marry his young son, Prince Edward (later Edward VI). However, the Scottish Parliament rejected the treaty and renewed their Auld Alliance with France. Enraged, Henry ordered Hertford to invade Scotland with explicit commands to lay waste to towns, loot what they could, and burn Edinburgh to the ground as a show of divine vengeance.

The invasion successfully captured the port of Leith, sacked and burned Edinburgh for three days, and laid waste to the surrounding region. However, they failed to take Edinburgh Castle, which held out using heavy artillery. Hertford's land forces marched back to Berwick in mid-May, burning Haddington and Dunbar on their retreat, which matches the end-date of 18 May 1544, in Dod's pay ledger.

1545

On 17 April 1545 in a letter from Shrewsbury to the Commissioners of Musters of Cheshire, he wrote, Whereas the King's ancient enemies, both Scots and Frenchmen, of their insatiable and deadly malice, intend to annoy this realm both by land and sea, and as the certificates of musters lately taken before you do not set forth to whom the men therein certified belong, the King commands you, within your hundreds and divisions, to put ready the said men to the number of 3,000, as many as possible to be horsemen, so horsed as to be able to serve when they reach the Borders, and the rest footmen, archers and billmen (arms described), to be ready before 12 May next. You are not to meddle with servants or tenants of the earl of Derby, who is appointed to serve in person. Those appointed to lead the men included Sir Randall Manwaryng, Sir John Massy, Sir Hugh Cholmondeley, Sir Urien Brereton, Sir Roger Brereton, Sir Richard Egerton, Sir William Brereton, Sir Hugh Claveley, Randall Brereton of Malpas and others. (Public Records of the reign of Henry VIII, Volume 20 – Part 1 Folio 538).

Edge Hall

1600

The core of the house dates from about 1600. Its architectural style is Jacobean. The house is constructed in brick, standing on stone plinths, and has a slate roof.

1721

The main part of the building dates from 1721.

1790

Additions have been made from about 1790.

Edge Hall is a later medieval and early‑modern estate built on the ancient manorial footprint, with a continuity of landholding from the Domesday period into the modern era. Edge Hall is a Grade II listed country house in the township of Edge, near Malpas, Cheshire. It served as the ancestral home of the ancient Dod family for roughly nine hundred years, from the twelfth century until the early twenty first century.

The oldest sections of the moated house are timber-framed and date back to around 1600. The structure was updated and encased in brick in around 1700, with the main front block constructed in 1721 featuring Jacobean styling, an octagonal cupola, and Corinthian pilasters. Further additions and rear bow windows were introduced around 1790 and into the nineteenth century. In the late nineteenth century, the estate grounds gained national fame for their gardens in the time of the Reverend Charles Wolley-Dod. After retiring from teaching at Eton in 1878, Charles Wolley-Dod cultivated celebrated gardens across the difficult local clay soil.

Bibliography

Edge in the Domesday Book (1086) in A History of the North in 100 Archives (2024).

Haslam, Richard (1985), Edge Hall, Cheshire, The Home of Mr and Mrs Anthony Wolley Dod, Country Life, 21 November 1985, pages 1612 to 1615.