Chartley-Holme

CHARTLEY-HOLME, an extra-parochial liberty, locally in the parish of Stowe, S. division of the hundred of Pirehill, union, and N. division of the county, of Stafford, 7½ miles (N. E. by E.) from Stafford; containing 71 inhabitants. In this liberty are about 2000 acres of the Chartley estate, of which nearly 1000 are in Chartley Park, a mile and a half north from Stowe. The park is in a state of nature, inclosed within an ancient oak paling, and studded with a few aged trees and several small plantations; it is celebrated for its breed of wild cattle, the superiority of its venison, and the abundance of its black game. On the summit of an artificial hill, stand the remains of Chartley Castle, built in 1220 by Ranulph Blundeville, Earl of Chester, whose sister (he dying without issue) carried his extensive estates in marriage to William de Ferrers, Earl of Derby. The castle seems to have soon fallen into decay, and its remains now consist chiefly of the fragments of two massive round towers, partly covered with ivy, and rising amid the foliage of numerous full-grown yewtrees that have weathered the storms of many centuries. The noble owners afterwards built, a little below the old castle, a more convenient mansion in the half-timbered style, curiously carved, and embattled at the top; but it was destroyed by fire in 1781, and little now remains to mark its site but the moat by which it was surrounded. Since then, another but a smaller house was raised near the same spot, which was, till lately, the occasional residence of the Earl Ferrers. Chartley Moss, comprising about 100 acres, is prolific in cranberries.