Hamon de Venables of West Hall

Additional Curator's Notes:

Hamon de Leigh was the son of Sir Gilbert de Venables, 3rd Baron of Kinderton, and was the great-grandson of Sir Gilbert de Venables of Normandy. Burke's Landed Gentry starts the family's genealogy with Hamon de Leigh, as does the Visitation of Cheshire in the year 1580. This gives the reader an impression of the high regard in which this family was held.

Hamon lived during the reign of Henry II. It is one of the consistent facts cited about him. Since we know those dates (1154-1189), we can safely set aside the many web-trees that give him much earlier dates of birth. Perhaps those sites confused him with his great uncle Hamon, born in the mid-eleventh century.

No exact dates for Hamon's life have been found, but there is solid evidence for an estimation of 1140 for his birth. It could have been ten years earlier or ten years later, but it's a workable number. Here is how I arrived at this date:

• If Great-Grandfather Gilbert de Venables was from Normandy and arrived in England during the Norman conquest, [likely, as he is listed on the Dives Roll, a list of those who were otherwise engaged in furthering the Conquest of England], we can safely accept dates for him of c.1030-1093.
• This Gilbert was the first Baron of Kinderton, and was rewarded with seventeen manors in all. He had two known sons, Gilbert II and Hamon. Gilbert II was born in c.1060, in Normandy. Hamon was born c.1064, in Normandy.
• Gilbert II had at least one son, Gilbert III.
• Gilbert III had at least two sons, William and Hamon.
• William inherited the barony and Hamon was known as Hamon de Venables "of West Hall." It is possible that Hamon de Venables of West Hall took the toponym de Legh, which eventually became Leigh.

Links to additional material:

• Debrett's baronetage of England: containing their descent and present state .., By John Debrett - while not mentioning Hamon by name, gives general background on the Leigh family's two competing houses. [available as google e-book at https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=iI8BAAAAYAAJ&rdid=bo...]
• Lee of Virginia, 1642-1892: Biographical and Genealogical Sketches of the . . . by Edmund Jennings Lee - http://books.google.com/books?id=DsZTOIsRnQYC&lpg=PA18&ots=ua-_OHq2.... - sketches the ancestry of this branch of the Leigh family.
• Burke's Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, by John Burke, https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=C8fTAAAAMAAJ&rdid=bo...
• http://www.rgcrompton.info/origins/cr1066.html - has side-by-side comparison of various sources of early de Venables history.

Maria Edmonds-Zediker, Volunteer Curator, 5/3/2013

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High Legh consists of two manors. They existed before the Norman Conquest. In 1086 it is recorded in the Domesday Book that both were held by Gilbert de Venables, (feudal) Baron of Kinderton under the paramountcy of Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, nephew of the half blood of William the Conqueror. The Leighs held the 1st (High Leigh) moiety whereas the 2nd (High Legh) moiety descended to the(Cornwall)-Leghs in whose possession it still is.

Thus the Leigh family in England begins with Gilbert de Venables who came to England around the time of Hastings, probably as a feudal associate of William the Bastard. He was a brother in law of one of William's daughters, Adela and his nephew was King Stephen of England who ruled from 1135 to 1154. The line continues through Hamon de Legh who probably changed his name from Venables to de Legh and then through Hamon's great grandaughter, Agnes de Legh who married three times producing children from all three husbands: Richard de Lymme, William de Hawardyn and William Venables. Descendants of the de Lymme and Venables branches came down to modern times. I have found no record of present day descendants from the de Hawardyn marriage.

The Senior branch of the Leigh family, that which descends from Agnes de Legh's marriage to Richard de Lymme, produced, among others both the Sir Egerton Leigh line who was Attorney General of South Carolina and the Ferdinando Leigh line who settled in Virginia. This is deduced because of the similarity of the armorial bearings claimed by the de Lymme descendants and by Sir Egerton and Ferdinando. Because of the DNA work I believe that the descendants of Col. William Leigh also may claim the de Lymme descent.

The Leigh family which became the Stoneleigh line came from the Junior Leigh or Venables line by way of Shropshire and first achieved prominence again in the person of Thomas Leigh, Lord Mayor of London from 1558 to 1571.Thomas Leigh and his wife's uncle, Rowland Hill, bought the Stoneleigh Abbey property before his death in 1572. Alice Leigh was Rowland Hill's heir. His second son, Thomas was created the first Baron Stoneleigh in 1643 for staunch loyalty to Charles I.The title lapsed in 1786 with the death of Edward Leigh unmarried and after his sister Mary died in 1806 the properties passed to descendants of Rowland Leigh. The title was recreated for Chandos Leigh in 1839. Chandos was a descendant of Rowland Leigh, the Lord Mayor's first son. The Lord Mayor's third son William Leigh inherited property at Newnham Regis and from this line came the Earl of Chichester.
The Junior line also produced both Sir Francis Leigh, active in the Virginia Company, and the Earl of Chichester. The earl had no sons and the title passed to his daughter Elizabeth's husband Thomas Wriothsley, 4th Earl of Southampton. It then lapsed completely with his death without heirs..

Hamon de Venables was the son of Gilbert de Venables, lord of the Cheshire barony of Kinderton, and Margery Hatton.[1]

Ormerod describes him as "apparently the same person with Hamon, ancestor of Leigh of West Hall". [2]

He was the father of William de Legh.[3]

Origins

https://venablesancestry.wordpress.com/introduction/the-first-three...

Gilbert was the father of: William de Venables, Hamon de Legh, Gilbert de Lymme, Michael de Merston, Richard de Neubold, Hugh de Venables, Maud and Amabile. The third baron, died in 1188.

References

1. WikiTree contributors, "Hamon Legh (abt.1150-)," WikiTree: The Free Family Tree, (https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Legh-34 : accessed 03 June 2024). cites
   1. George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, 3 vols. 2nd ed., revised and enlarged by Thomas Helsby (Ludgate Hill, London: George Routledge and Sons, 1882), vol. 3 p. 198. [1]
   2. Ormerod, History of ... Chester, vol. 3 p. 187. [2]
   3. Ormerod, History of ... Chester, 1:451.