[Illustration] A family of great antiquity, and which is said to
have been established at Gatacre by a grant from Edward the
Confessor. The pedigree, however, is not traced beyond the reign of
Henry III.
Although very ancient, this family does not appear to have been
distinguished except by "The fair maid of Gatacre," (see Blakeway,
p. 169,) and by the eminent divine of this house noticed in
"Fuller's Worthies," and who was the ancestor of the Gatacres of
Mildenhall, in Suffolk.
See Leland's Itinerary, v. p. 31; Eyton's Antiquities of Shropshire,
vol. iii. p. 86; and Morris MSS.
ARMS.--_Quarterly gules and ermine, on the second and third quarters
three piles of the first, on a fess azure five bezants_. This coat,
a remarkable exception to the simple heraldry of the period, is
supposed to have been granted to Humphry Gatacre, Esquire of the
Body to King Henry VI. The following coat, ascribed to this family,
was about the end of the seventeenth century in the church of
Claverley in this county: _Quarterly, first and fourth ermine, a
chief indented gules; second and third gules, over all on a fess
azure three bezants_. (Eyton's Shropshire, iii. p. 103.)
Present Representative, Edward Lloyd Gatacre, Esq.