.

Here, gathered in our beloved South Dakota, are a few members of our Williamson / Mattson Clan. Charles and Luella are to be blamed (be kind, they didn't know what they were doing). We're generally a happy bunch and somewhat intelligent (notwithstanding our tenuous grasp on reality). I'm also proud to say that most of us still have our teeth.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Sir Sampson De Strelley. Our 17th Great Grandfather.

From the Fortress of Solitude
Overlooking the Valley of the Pleasant Grove

Dear Clan,
We pause in our journey into the past to reflect on our 17th Great Grandfather and Grand Mother, Sampson and Elizabeth De Strelley.

Both lived in the early 1300's. They founded the village of Strelley just outside Nottingham England.


This is All Saint's Church how it looks today. It was built by Sampson in 1356. Of the building Sampson wrote that he
"had licence that he and the rest of the parishioners of that village, might hear sermons for the space of a year in the Chappel scituate within the Manner of the said village, because the Parish church was not then fully built".
The lower stage of the tower is all that remains of the earlier church.

This is the orginal lay out of the village of Strelley with the church and the homes.

Sampson de Strelley died in 1390

Sampson de Strelley's wife, Elizabeth, died in 1405

Sampson and Elizabeth are buried in the church. You can see their tombs above. In the top picture you see Sampson's effigy in white alabaster. He lies holding the hand of his wife whose tomb is beside his in the church. Visitors to the church could not fail to be impressed by its beauty. It is one of only two alabasters in the country where the couple are holding hands.

Sampson was evidently a somewhat highhanded individual, as the note in the Cartulary refers to his having seized lands in Cossall to which he had no right, and having calmly moved a road some distance from its original position, and claimed that it belonged to Strelley instead of to Cossall.