Page 47 - Hindsight Issue 26 April 2020

BooKs
THE MYSTERY OF THE WHILTON STONE
Anthea Hiscock
Anthea is a member of the Northamptonshire Heritage Forum as well as being Chair of Whilton Local History Society. She writes here about a fascinating piece of research carried out after the discovery of a ‘lump of mud-caked stone’ in a farmer’s field in 2014. A book about the Whilton Stone is to be published this year.
In autumn 2014 gordon and Martin emery were ploughing in the field below Whilton Rectory in northamptonshire. Martin had a problem because his plough had been damaged when it hit something in the ground. His father came over and together they pulled out a large stone which they dragged to the edge of the field.
this lump of mud-caked stone proved to be carved and to depict a shield of 16 quarters with two escutcheons mounted over these. Its carved symbols are the key to a tale of norman knights and crafty lawyers, adventurers and soldiers, emigrants and slave owners, courtiers and politicians, influential women, orphan children, secret love and Victorian patronage, all part of the saga of the ancient family of skipwith.
no written record of the carved stone has yet been found, but the shield itself and the family who owned it provide much evidence of its story. It depicts the arms of sir Fulwar skipwith, first Baronet of newbold Revel near Rugby in Warwickshire. the first Baronet’s eventful teenage
years during the english Civil War are recorded in his diary. His Royalist father fought at edgehill and later died at the seige of Cranborne House. By 1643 Fulwar was living in the household of another supporter of Charles I, sir simon Clarke in Warwickshire. the diary includes details of his hazardous journey to Cornwall and his voyage to Barbados in 1645: ‘Wee mett with two Parliment ships with whome wee had a great fight, but wee beate them into the Canaries, where they laye under the Castell wales for safeguard till wee were gon.’ He returned via norway and the netherlands spending a short unsatisfactory time in Bergen: ‘This cittie and country is under the King of
A stone coat of arms of Sir Fulwar Skipwith which was found in a field near the Rectory at Whilton
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