Richard Tankersley (abt. 1233 - 1278)

Tankeresleia was an 1800 acre Lordship and was held prior to the Norman Conquest by Ledwin; a Saxon Lord. William the Conqueror deprived Ledwin of his Lands, and gave the land to Earl Meriton (or Moreton) and it passed down several generations and passed to a family who assumed the name “de Tankersley”.

During the Saxon period and up to this point the Village had a church and a Presbyter, at the end of the line of Tankersley Sir Henry de Tankersley had only one son, Richard, who died towards the end of the 13th Century. He left only two daughters one of whom married Sir Hugh Eland, who created the Tankersley Park with a “Grant of Free Warren” from Edward III. The Eland family did not hold the land for long as they were passed to the Savile family as a dowry when Isabel heiress of Thomas Eland married Knight Sir John Savile in 1375. It then passed from the Savile family to John Talbot, a general in the Hundred Years war with France who was made Earls of Shrewsbury in 1442. Tankersley Park passed down through 11 Generations of Talbots until Francis Talbot the 11th Earl of Shrewsbury sold the land to Thomas Wentworth who became the First Earl of Stafford.

The ruins of the Tankersley Old Hall are about ¾ mile South West of St Peters Church in Tankersley, the ruins are almost in the centre of the former Tankersley Park, they featured in the 1969 film, Kes, based on Barry Hines book a “Kestrel for a Knave” http://www.tankersleypc.org/history-of-tankersley-old-hall/