Long before Nathaniel Lister built the Gothic house that still dominates the landscape, Hawkesyard was a very different place.
For more than four centuries a branch of the Rugeley family lived beside the River Trent at the original Hawkesyard Hall. Surrounded by a broad moat, fishponds, orchards and meadows, the Hall formed the centre of a substantial medieval estate. Although the house itself has long since disappeared and its site now lies beneath the lake created during the construction of Rugeley Power Station, enough documentary and archaeological evidence survives to reconstruct much of its story.
The medieval Hawkesyard that existed between the fourteenth and early seventeenth centuries was shaped by changing fortunes, royal service and the ambitions of one of Staffordshire’s leading gentry families. Through inquisitions, charters, muster rolls, heraldic records and local tradition, it is possible to follow that story from the reign of Edward III to the beginning of the Stuart age.
The series begins by asking The Hawkesyard Mystery: Was There Ever a Hawkesyard Family?, examining the evidence behind the place-name itself and the long-held belief that Hawkesyard once gave its name to a medieval family. From there, The Lost Hall of Hawkesyard reconstructs the original house, its moat and surrounding landscape before tracing how its remains gradually disappeared beneath the waters of the former cooling lagoon.
The story then turns to Simon de Rugeley: Edward III’s Gentleman at Hawkesyard, whose remarkable career carried him from his Staffordshire estate into the service of the Crown as sheriff, Member of Parliament, royal commissioner and custodian of Shrewsbury Castle. During his lifetime Edward III granted permission to create The Deer Park of Hawkesyard, an enclosed landscape that remained part of the estate for centuries and whose higher ground would later become the site chosen by Nathaniel Lister for his new house.
The Tudor period is explored through According to Their Abilities, using Henry VIII’s Muster Roll of 1539 to show how Thomas Rugeley and his household were expected to equip themselves for the defence of the realm during one of England’s greatest invasion scares.
The medieval story concludes with According to His Degree, following the magnificent heraldic funeral of Richard Rugeley in 1623. The procession from Hawkesyard to Armitage Church marked the last great ceremonial occasion associated with the old Hall and provides a remarkable glimpse into the customs and pageantry of the Stuart gentry.
Together these articles reveal a Hawkesyard that has almost disappeared from the landscape but not from history. Although the medieval Hall has vanished and the Rugeley family eventually left the estate, their story survives in the records, allowing the original Hawkesyard to emerge once more from the shadows of the past.