The Leigh family of Bardon

At the end of June 2012 I was successful in two bids in Cavendish auction 752 and acquired the Dorset and Somerset lots of the Leigh family archive - a total of some 180 entires going into and out of Somerset.  I am still slowly going through the entires building up a list of dates, postal markings and who was writing to whom.

Bardon House, 1 mile SE of Washford in Somerset, the Family home

What I have found so far includes the Taunton Penny Post from 1825 onwards with Receiving House handstamps including examples of boxed No.3 from 1826 (Torre from before the Taunton Penny Post was reorganised in 1828), unboxed No.5 (Bicknoller ?), unboxed No.6 (Williton), unboxed No.7 (Washford), and unboxed No.10 (Monksilver), the Crewkerne Penny Post with boxed No.1 and boxed No.2 from Beaminster (and also Beaminster in the Bridport Penny Post), and some examples of the Minehead Penny Post handstamp (including one from Lynton and another from Lynmouth).

I think reading the contents is going to be beyond me - a few are readable but others have very difficult handwriting written across at right-angles to get as much in one one sheet as possible.

The following is a lineage of the Bardon family found on the internet - the archive relates to the William Leigh, "now of Bardon", the second son of Robert Leigh who married in 1770.

Bardon dates from the 14^th century and was once a Grange of Cleeve Abbey – one mile down the Monks’ Path – a public way.  There are many legends surrounding Bardon, and there are some facts.  Probably the most interesting of these is the Bardon Papers now housed in the British Museum and associated with the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot.  The papers were discovered in 1834 when the thatching was renewed.  The Leigh family were in residence here as early as 1595 (Burkes 1864) until the beginning of the 20^th Century.