Summary
Now a part of the Sansaw and Hardwicke Estates, Black Birches found its way into their shared ownership in the late nineteenth century when sold by Captain John Horner to James Jenkinson Bibby in 1871 for £8582. The house, a timber-framed medley of the seventeenth century, bears the date of 1628 and the initials of Henry Jenks on the north end of its east wing. It had, by that time, been reworked by Samuel Pountney Smith of Shrewsbury.
The Jenks family had been the owners of the property for part of the eighteenth century, with the house passing from Henry Jenks, goldsmith (d. 1706), to his son and namesake (d. 1753), who was Mayor of Shrewsbury. After the departure of the Jenks family, Black Birches, at various different times, was home to the Peel and Parr family, as well as being a residence of George Jonathan Scott of the Betton Strange family. In the early nineteenth century, ownership of the house had passed to Cheney Hart, who rented the place to a farmer named Gibbons but, by 1837, it was the residence and property of Thomas Bayley (d. 1844), a Major in the County Militia. The Bayley family heiress, Sarah Bayley, married Captain Horner of Her Majesty’s 55th Regiment of Infantry, and they sold the estate to the Bibby family.
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- Information
- The Country Houses of Shropshire , pp. 111Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021