The Morris men and women of Shropshire

Thank you for your response Kate and I agree. The family records that I was given start with the burial dates of John and Elizabeth Morris and the birth/death dates of their children which have all proved correct using various sources. I believe that the birth dates and places for John and Elizabeth may have been suggested by the internet site then confirmed by other sites we used, so they may not be correct and that is the problem I am facing with research in the 1700s.

 

Thanks Joy I will check it out.

 

Thank you Robert for that wealth of information. I will use that info about Upper Bent Farm. I have modern photos of The Crown Inn from their website but still go and have an ale for me! I did not know that an ale house could be in someone’s front room! Thank you for your kind offer to take photos of Kenton.
Yes, my Morris line was traced to Queensland, Australia where my maternal great-grandfather William John Morris emigrated on the “Otago” in 1884. He continued the branch with 11 children 1 deceased with his wife Eliza Pook, whom he married near Brisbane.

 

Thank you Pauline. I will try to see the original record when I am able. I have a copy of the Parish Register of the marriage of John and Elizabeth in Highley and her surname is clearly written as Francis.

 

I am not sure but I will check it again. Thank you for your suggestion.

 

Thank you for your in depth research, DeeD. This is so very interesting and promising. I don’t know what a “yearly servant” means. Sarah did not marry until 1827 so the dates fit and we may never know why she ended up in Shropshire! Also, until it was pointed out to me, I did not know that Sally and Sarah can be interchangeable. Maybe that is an English thing as I have not heard of it in Australia.

 

Thank you again Catherine - wonderful details to explore. It is certainly worth another look as I don’t know why that John was discounted.
Unfortunately there is probably not enough information to be found, to confirm things either way and I will be left with their burials
for the beginning of our Morris tree!

 

It is a wonderful photo and I have found information according to it being a Listed building.
I would like to know some of its history, including its past owners if possible. Thank you for your help.

 

Dear Gayle,
Hear are some websites which may be of help in researching historic building in England & the rest of the UK. I've specifically commented on the More Arms as I believe that both the Malt House and the building used as the Arms still exist. See the paragraph below the (hopefully useful) web addresses.

"Researching Historic Buildings in the British Isles"
This website is very good for the whole process of researching historic buildings but I suspect you might already have taken many of the steps in its recommendations. However, if you haven't, here is its website address.
https://www.buildinghistory.org/

This website provides a gateway to many other websites.
Historic England: Further Resources to Help You Research Your Home's History
https://historicengland.org.uk/advice/your-home/your-homes-history/further-resources/

This website has references to the Upper Bent farmhouse buildings, which tend to suggest that the owners have made a number of alterations to the site. It also tends to show that the best place for finding information on Historic buildings in Shropshire is the Shropshire Archives! By the way, it almost certainly also contains references to your other buildings of interest, I just happened to take a look at what it had for Upper Bent!
Heritage Gateway
https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/

I don't know how much of the Shropshire archive's resources are available online but you can at least contact them via the website and find out. Your best option might be to find a fellow Lost Cousins member who is interested in visiting the Shropshire Archives for you. I think that in the end, to get really detailed information may well need a visit to the archives but, you never know until you try!
Shropshire Archives
Discovering Shropshire's History
https://www.shropshirearchives.org.uk/

Always worth a visit for anything English heritage, possibly to join English Heritage and it may well offer a good chance of finding a researcher who might undertake a visit (or visits) to the Shropshire Archives or The National Archives for you.
English Heritage
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/

More good general advice on researching historic buildings.
Donald Insall Associates Ltd
https://www.donaldinsallassociates....rch-unravelling-the-history-of-old-buildings/

If you can get a view of the buildings via Google street view (see below), this website may be of interest.
Vernacular Architecture Group
An international organisation for all those interested in lesser traditional buildings
https://www.vag.org.uk/online-resources.htm
The Institute of Historical Research is the UK's national centre for history, dedicated to supporting historians of all kinds.
https://www.history.ac.uk/

The More Arms Inn probably does still exist as a building or buildings, as, in such isolated spots as More, buildings don't usually get demolished but merely extended/partially re-built and re-purposed.
If you use Google Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/@54.5512799,-4.4737716,5z) and type the following Latitude & Longitude into the map search box <52.51719483728808, -2.969300139262032>, you will be taken to a house now called "The Malthouse" in More and if you then use the "little yellow man" to get a street view of this house, you will see that there are a pair of very old wooden doors toward the middle of the building, above which there is an old sign (which can just about be read when zooming in to the image), which reads in white lettering on a black background, "JOHN MORRIS LICENSED MALTSTER"! This must have been the old maltings and possibly another part of this building operated as the Inn but my money would be on the "cottage" next door on the Western side, which is now called "More Cottage" having been the Inn!
One possible avenue for beginning investigation of the buildings might simply be to write to the present owners, stating your connection with the building and asking them whether or not they know any of the history of the building or whether there is someone locally interested in historic buildings who might be interested in helping you. For this you need the correct postal addresses, which, in this case is -
"The Malthouse", More, Lydham, Shropshire, England, SY9 5HH United Kingdom. (The Postcode part of the address shouldn't be omitted)
You could try this for any of the buildings you've asked about, except the Upper Bent Farm, for which I can't obtain a postcode from either the "Royal Mail" website post code finder at <https://www.royalmail.com/find-a-postcode>, or the "UK Grid Reference Finder" website at <http://www.gridreferencefinder.com/> but its Lat/Long is <52.533097779034215, -2.980153360038542> & its address ought to be "Upper Bent Farm, Upper Bent, More, Lydham, Shropshire, England, United Kingdom" but without postcode! The Google maps street view of the farm buildings is heavily obscured by the hedges in leaf from the Sep 2021 view but an alternate dated view from Dec 2009 gives a better view (with obviously no leaves on the trees/shrubs), which can be accessed by clicking the "see more dates" label in the panel, upper left of the street view window.

The Crown Inn, Wentnor, Salop, is clearly visible in a Google street view of the following Lat/Long-
Lat, Long: <52.529137294661815, -2.9091992104105917>
Postal Address: The Crown Inn, Wentnor, Shropshire, England, SY9 5EE, United Kingdom

I can't find a farm on the present day Ordnance Survey maps which is called "Norbury Farm" but it has possibly been re-named or changed to being simply a domestic building(s). However, if you care to search for it on old Ordnance Survey map at The National Library of Scotland website <https://maps.nls.uk/geo/find/>, you can find, "Brow Farm", "Hall Farm", "Freehold Farm", "Lea Farm", "Glebe Farm" & "Walkmill Farm" in Norbury Parish, "Hall Farm" being of course the largest! If you can work out which of these was "Norbury Farm", you should be able to find its address and postcode at the "UK Grid Reference Finder" website, by transferring its location from the old Ordnance Survey maps to the Google maps website where you just right click on the location, whereupon a window will appear with a Lat & Long in it, just left click on the Lat,Long which copies it to the clipboard and then paste it into the Lat/Long boxes of the UK Grid Reference Finder, which will then give you a postal address for it! If Norbury Farm was the Hall Farm, its several buildings look (from a Google street view) to have become several domestic dwellings, so finding the correct postal address for each one could be tricky.

Hardwick Hall Farm & Cottages can be found either side of the road here at Lat/Long <52.50948945211746, -2.9314824275594122> postal address (I think) "Hall Cottage", Norbury, Shropshire, England, SY9 5HS, United Kingdom. The Hall cottage itself can't be seen from the Google Street View, because it's hidden behind a high hedge and shrubs but the farm buildings and old labourers cottages are clearly visible on the western side of the road.

Since I composed this reply, I think some of the links given here have already been covered by other members, whilst I was being registered as a forum member. So, I hope you'll forgive any repetitions I've given here!

Good Luck,
Chris Morris

N.B. Although I'm also named Morris, I don't think that there's any relationship between us as my great grandfather Morris came from Presteigne in Wales and in the 1881 census, Morris was (I think if I've remembered correctly) the 14th most common surname in England & Wales. Being from the "Black Country" of the West Midlands of England, local surnames of Welsh heritage are very common e.g. Hughes, Roberts, Edwards, Davies, Williams, Evans, Lloyd, Price/Preece/Reece/Rees, not forgetting Morris etc, etc.

 

Sorry Gayle but I've just realised that the link that I sent to you for The National Library of Scotland old Ordnance Survey maps webpages doesn't work! the link should read https://maps.nls.uk/geo/.This really does work. When the webpage opens, to reach your correct place, firstly enter the search county of "Shropshire" into the County box (top lh corner of the window), which will then give the opportunity to enter the parish, so enter "More" there. You will then be presented with a modern map, which contains More and its parish church, toward the bottom right hand border of a square outlined in red. Left click within this square which will then be highlit by the red square's changing to blue and a series of old OS maps options will be presented on the rhs of the window. In the bottom left hand corner of the window, there will be a box with the options of old maps available to view. I suggest your best options are "Great Britain, Ordnance Survey" and for the most detailed view (not available for all places), choose, using the drop down box, "OS 25 inch, 1850s - 1960s". Again, left click in the square containing More, then from the map options on the rhs choose the "Shropshire LIV. 16". In this map, More will be again hard up against the lower rh border of the map, which can be zoomed in and out of, using a mouse scroll wheel. You will then be able to see that the outline of the Malthouse has remained largely unchanged from 1884, to the present day! The oldest walls and chimneys are in stone and those in brick will have been re-built/repaired. Note that in the Google Street View of "The Malthouse", that the timbers in the western part of the building are anything but straightand regular. This indates that they were "split" into beams rather than "sawn". Splitting was a much older technique to provide planks and beams from trees by the use of (originally) horn/antler then wooden and latterly iron wedges hammered into the felled tree, dividing it following the grain of the wood. This technique (as you possibly know) goes back to pre-history and indicates the truly old age of a building's construction (but not in this case pre-historic of course!).
Upper Bent appears in the map one square to the north of the one containg More and containing Heath Mynd, on the southern slope of which it lies.
Norbury is one square to the East of Upper Bent.
Wentnor is one square to the East of Norbury.
Hardwick Hall is two squares to the South of Wentnor.
The "OS six inch, 1840s-1960s" series of maps are obviously at a smaller scale than the 25 inch maps but give a better overall view and provide a wider chioce of years available but of course, less detail. By the way I've just noticed that "Partridge Farm", referred to in my reply from 15th May, wasn't actually in Norbury parish but in Linley Parish, Hey Ho!
I didn't explain how to make use of the Street View feature in Google Maps but in fact its pretty easy. Mouse drag the "little yellow man" from the botom rh corner of the map window onto a road or street of interest. If the road turns blue on the map, Street View is available, if it doesn't, its not! The view can be rotated by mouse dragging right or left, or zoomed using the scroll wheel.
Extra facilities available can be accessed by clicking on or hovering over, the map/layers square in the bottom lh corner of the map window. Clicking on "more" opens a further sub-window, with 3 sorts of facility, Map details, Map tools and Map types. Clicking Street View here turns all roads/streets where it is available in this map, blue. Measure, will measure distance between a set of clicked points and an area of a closed set of points. Single clicking adds a point to the set, double clicking a point finishes the set, double clicking the last point over the first point closes the set and measures both an area and a perimeter.
To take a screen clipping of the street view, press and hold the Windows key, shift key and S (or s), whereupon a small window will appear with tools available to clip a rectangle, uneven path, windows mode or the full screen. The clipping will be saved to the clipboard, from where it can be pasted to wherever you want. There don't seem to be any copyright problems doing this, as long as it's not for commercial gain!

 

Accents could also be problematic for people who moved from area to another. My husband has an ancestor who was born in Sunderland (then in County Durham) to parents who had recently arrived from Stourbridge (then in Worcestershire). Their surname was CHANCE, but when the birth was registered the Registrar heard it and recorded it as CHAINS. It took me an awful long time to find that birth certificate.

 

WOW! ChrisMoggy - you are a legend. Thank you so very much for all that wonderful information especially the postal addresses and map detailing which I am sure will be most helpful. I have tried in the past to use ordnance maps online and Google but have not been able to navigate my way through it or just ended up with photos of hedgerows! It will take me some time but I plan to follow your instructions to the letter - screen shots taken! and write some letters.

 

Thanks very much Gayle.
One thing I forgot to mention about moving around Google Street View is that, to move forward and backward along any of the roads visible in the view, move the pointer onto the road and if a chevron appears in the view, left click on it to move along that road in that direction. If a chevron doesn't appear, their is no Street View available for that road/street.
Secondly, if I were you, I'd hand write the letters, rather than typing the text into a computer and printing them. It's very difficult for scammers to repeat the irregularities of handwriting and so the letters will look much less likely to be any sort of a scam! Also, make things as easy as possible to reply to, so include your e-mail address to reply to but, if you would like a written reply, please remember a stamped addressed envelope or pre-paid ready addressed air mail letter!
Thirdly, please let us know via the forum how you get on. I'm sure that someone on the forum would be able to provide advice with any subsequent problems with using software, getting replies to letters etc. and very good luck!

 

Thank you again for sharing your insights and sound advice for letter writing. When I can clear my calendar a little and borrow my husband’s laptop, I will get onto it and hopefully I will be able to share some good news!

 

Did you manage to check on why the baptism of John Morris in Norbury in 1678/9 was discounted in favour of the one in Ellesmere?

 

I have been unable to find a record of John Morris baptism in Norbury in 1678, using Family Search and My Heritage. I am wondering where Pauline and Catharine found it. Also My Heritage says that Thomas Morris married Elizabeth (not Elinor)Phipps in Wentnor on 16 December 1675. I could find no birth of a John to Thomas and Elizabeth Morris nor Thomas and Elinor Morris in Norbury.

My cousin in Australia, Paula will be searching for John born 1678 in Find My Past tomorrow so she may find it there.

There is a birth for John son of Erasmus Morris and Eleanor in Norbury on 3 February 1679. The name Erasmus does not ring true for our family tree in Norbury with no marriage or birth showing up for him and no more children for them.

 

In the images of the original parish registers at FMP. It’s a baptism not a birth, and was on 3 Feb 1678/9. The parents are Thomas and Elinor - Erasmus is mistranscription, though probably an understandable one, as the name is not very clear.

EDIT: The marriage was in 1675 and the bride was Eleanor.