Add MS 74644

SHELTON FAMILY OF CO. NORFOLK: Coats-of-arms of the Shelton and allied families, with watercolour view of Shelton Hall, co. Norfolk; circa 2nd quarter of 17th cent. The main body of the volume (ff. 3v-54v) depicts arms of unnamed male and female Sheltons impaling those of their respective spouses. These are listed by Francis Blomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 1806, vol. V., pp. 273-274, who describes the manuscript as having been formerly preserved at the Hall. Blazons of family coats in the windows of Shelton Church and Hall, recorded circa 1575 by Robert Kemp, occur in Harley MS 901, ff. 115v, 116. A similar series comprising some twenty-two coats is depicted among Dawson Turner's extra-illustrations to Blomefield in Add. 23040, ff. 149-150 (from copies taken about 1780 by Anthony Norris) and in Add. 23058, ff. 199-209, from stained-glass windows probably of the late-16th century that were formerly displayed in Carrow Priory, Norwich, a property granted to Sir John Shelton (d. 1558) after the Dissolution of the Abbey there. See the list, etc., printed in Mildred Campbell Whitaker, A History of the Shelton Family of England and America, St. Louis, MO., 1941, between pp. 20 and 21, along with her note, p. 22, of forty-seven Shelton coats 'all beautifully emblazoned' in the British Museum. Purchased from Messrs. Maggs Brothers, 14 Sept. 1999.

Vellum and paper: ff. v+64. 187 x 152mm. Thirty-one sheets, folded, centre-stitched and trimmed in binding, leaving traces in the lower left-hand corner of ff. 23, 27-29, 31, 43 and 53 of black ink numeration not consonant with present sequence, preceded by fold-out leaf (ff. 1, 2) measuring 190 x 310mm. Contemporary limp vellum covers with bifolia of paper (ff. i-ii, iii-iv) strengthened with vellum serving as paste-downs and endpapers. Later blazon 'or on a bend v[ert] 3 bucks heads colped a[rgent]' (for Fernley) pencilled on front endpaper (f. ii), with contemporary ink jotting 'mr Robe', or perhaps 'nor Robd', on final endpaper (f. iv) which also bears on verso bookseller's stock-number. Pencil sketch of hound sejant on f. 62.

1. ff. 1, 2. Watercolour view, circa early 17th cent., of Shelton Hall, thirteen miles south of Norwich, built by Sir Ralph Shelton (d. 1497) but a ruin by 1740. It is drawn on single sheet of vellum, irregularly folded and paginated '45' and '46' in black ink in the top right-hand corners, the first leaf of which carries pin-holes towards its centre (cf. those visible on f. 64). This view is reproduced in Maggs Brothers' Catalogue 1272, 1999, lot 132, p. 137. Another version (Add. 23043, f. 174), 'copied in 1843 from a drawing in the possession of the Rev. R. Dryer', survives among the Dawson Turner collection, while a third, executed in pen and ink, is reproduced from an unidentified source by Whitaker, op. cit., to face p. 17.

2. ff. 3v, 4. 'Shelton his Antient Coate quartered with his coate by Conquest', that is (1 and 3) azure a cross or, for Shelton, quartering (2 and 4) sable three escalops argent, for the City of Adrianople, facing a shield bearing the arms of Shelton, with crest, supporters and motto.

3. ff. 4v-28v. Forty-four coats of heads of the family down to Sir Ralph Shelton (1560-1627), followed in pencil by some blank shields (ff. 27-28v).

4. ff. 29-38v. Sixteen coats of younger sons, distinguishable by marks of cadency, with four undifferenced coats (ff. 37-38v) added later, including that of Henry Shelton (1577-1634), son of Sir Ralph, and Henry's son Maurice (1625-1666) who married Elizabeth Kemp. Added later still, on an unruled page (f. 38v), are the arms of Shelton impaling Fernley.

5. ff. 45-54v. Eighteen coats of daughters down to one who married a Southwell (f. 53v), with the subsequent addition, on an unruled page (f. 54v), of that of Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Shelton, who married a Fernley at some time after 1637.

6. f. 63. Full achievement of Shelton, showing Shelton quartering Illeigh, Burgulian, Cockfield and Barret, with underneath 'John [word erased, with subsitution in different ink, now illegible]'. Facing this is a near-contemporary blazon (f. 62v) in which the family name is rendered as 'Sheton'. A copy of the blazon (f. v), in a late eighteenth-century hand, perhaps formerly pinned to f. 64 and now preserved separately as f. ii, adds that the motto shown as 'Ghenre and Thol' had been 'found since to be Shewoonte and Tholl [ateleia in Greek]'.