Hilcote Hall & The Wilkinsons
- It is believed that the house was built by the Wilkinson family. Several generations of the family have been traced as residing at Hilcote since the late 16th Century, having moved here from the area of Yorkshire between Pontefract and Sheffield in the 1500s.The Wilkinson family of undertakers on Church Hill are not believed to be related.
- Stephen Wilkinson was the 3rd son of Richard Wilkinson from Yorkshire, and with his wife Mary appears to be the first Wilkinsons to have children at Hilcote. So perhaps was the first to build on the site of the present Hall.
- Their first son John and wife Anne had 9 children at Hilcote in the 1650s, and a succession of Johns and Stephens followed as heads of household, with various branches of the family occupying the Hall and being buried at St Werburgh’s for 250 years.
- One Anne Wilkinson of Hilcote married Samuel Lindley of Skegby in 1691; Samuel was another wealthy land owner. When her son died without children in 1775, Anne’s Grand Nephew John Wilkinson of Hilcote inherited the Skegby Estate, having agreed to change his surname to Lindley. In doing so he gave up his inheritance of Hilcote Hall, which then passed to his younger brother Stephen.
- It was this Stephen Wilkinson who was a major landowner in the Duke of Devonshire’s 1758 map of the parish with his properties marked “ Mr Wilkinson’s Free”. Sherwood St Newton was built on one of his fields about 240 years later
- The Wilkinsons of Hilcote Hall defended their right to use their Coat of Arms at the 1634 Visitation of Derbyshire, when the King’s Herald visited the County to approve all the nobility’s claims for arms. The Coat of Arms is very similar to that of the Wilkinson branches in Pontefract and Bolton upon Dearne, indicating common ancestry with the Hilcote family.
An amended coat of arms appears on a porcelain Sauce Boat commissioned by the Wilkinsons in 1750 and shown here. Presumably this was part of a full dinner service, demonstrating the wealth and position of the family at the time. - Three sons of the last branch of the family at Hilcote Hall emigrated to British Colombia, Canada, in the 1880s and 1890s, spreading eventually into California too. Maybe they still use the Coat of Arms on their Beach Condos!
- Between 1901 and 1909 the last Wilkinson occupiers passed away. In 1911 a curate of St Werburgh’s, Charles Henry Kirby-Turner married Edith Gertrude Bamber at the church, and they lodged at the Hall. Charles had served as Government Chaplain in the Madras Presidency of British India, from 1903 to 1905 before arriving in Blackwell. Gertude had been born in India, so there would have been quite some British Raj influence at the Hall for a few years. Charles and Gertude moved on again in 1912 to curate posts in Marston on Dove and Hardwicke Gloucestershire.
- If anyone has knowledge of later occupants of the Hall, please let us know