Brooke of Mere Muniments

Date range: 13th-20th centuries

Medium: Archive

Family papers of the Brooke family of Mere Old Hall, near Knutsford, Cheshire.

Mere was held by the Mere family until 1652 when the estate was sold to Peter Brooke, younger son of Sir Richard Brooke of Norton. During the 18th century the Brookes expanded their estates by purchasing the Frodsham estate at Elton, the Marton estate at Holford, and other properties in Lostock Gralam, Mottram St Andrew and Plumley. In the late 18th century Peter Brooke married Maria Langford and thereby inherited plantations on the island of Antigua in the West Indies.

The collection consists of: medieval deeds, muniments of title, marriage and family settlements, mortgages, leases, wills, Chancery papers and other legal records, rentals, estate papers and correspondence. The documents primarily concern properties in Bollington, Dutton, Frodsham, Holford, Lostock Gralam, Mere, Mottram St Andrew, Plumley, Stretton, Thelwall and Walton Superior in Cheshire.

There are also papers relating to the sale of estates in Ireland in the 1750s, and records such as accounts, inventories and correspondence concerning the plantations in Antigua in the early 19th century. The archive is thus significant for studies of the slave trade and the slave economy in the West Indies.

Further information:

Outline catalogue available via Special Collections reading rooms.

Location:

• The John Rylands Library, Deansgate  [Map]
• Find out how to use the reading rooms in the John Rylands Research Institute and Library