Cylchgronau Cymru

391 Archbishop of Canterbury, at that time presiding over the See of Chester. He was now twenty eight, but in outward appearance and shaken constitution at least a dozen years older. Just six years previously, his second sister, Hester Susanna, had been married to the Rev. John Armitstead, M.A., then as now the respected Vicar of Sandbach, in this county. From him William Massie obtained his title to holy orders, being licensed to Goostrey, a small curaey suffragan to the mother church of Sandbach. Of this quiet little nook in a secluded part of Cheshire, a few historic notes may here be appropriately introduced. Goostrey, or as it was anciently spelt, Gostre,* in the Hundred of Northwich, is a township washed by a small running brook, and is situate seven miles N.N.E. from Sandbach. At the time of the Domesday Survey it was jointly held by the feudal barons of Halton and Montalt. From them it early passed by grant to the Abbey of St. Werburgh at Chester, and continued to be a portion of the immense revenues of that abbey until the general dissolution of monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. The Abbot of Chester had a manor-house in Goostrey, as well as in the adjoining township of Barnshaw, and to his annual court, for something like a period of 400 years, all the tenants of the chapelry did suit and service. The monks were empowered by a charter from one Michael de Gostre " to embank a lake for the use of their Mill at Goostrey, and also to serve them as a vivary or fishpond." There is still a mill at Goostrey ; and in all probability it occupies the site of the one built for " my lord the abbot" in the 13th century. The manor-house itself is supposed by Dr. Ormerod to have stood within the space of " the present chapel yard, which exhibits vestiges of a fortified parallelogram. The east and north sides face almost precipitously to a deep dingle below, and the other sides appear to have been strengthened by a deep fosse, which is now almost wholly filled up on the south, but may be traced along a deeply sunken highway on the west." When the royal hurricane of desolation swept over the religious houses of this country, Goostrey and Barnshaw shared the general fate, becoming vested in the family of the Mainwarings of Carincham, from whom they passed by sale to their namesakes of Peover, who are the present lords of these united manors. Goostrey Chapel had an existence prior to A.D. 12G5, as appears by a license yet preserved in the Chartulary of St. Werburgh, authorising Abbot Thomas de Capenhurst to found a chantry at Barushaw. Originally the * Goostrey is of doubtful etymology. In some parts of England Goosetree and Goslings are terms applied to the blossoms of the willow ; and perhaps our Goostrey may derive its name from the profusion of willows at one time clothing the banks of its little stream. Curiously enough, there is a Gosling Green, watered by the same brook, some three or four miles from Goostrey. 3 D