[Illustration] The descent of this family from the ancient house of
Sheldon, of Sheldon, in this county, is a matter of doubt, but
admitted by Dugdale to be not improbable. It appears to be proved
that the Sheldons are descended from John Sheldon, of Abberton, in
Worcestershire, in the reign of Henry IV. Nash, in his History of
that county, carries the pedigree two descents higher, viz., to
Richard Sheldon of Rowley, in the county of Stafford, whose grandson
John was of the same place in the fourth of Edward IV. The manor of
Beoly, in Worcestershire, was purchased of Richard Neville Lord
Latimer by William Sheldon in the same reign, and continued till the
destruction of the mansion-house by fire in the Civil Wars of the
seventeenth century, the principal seat of the family, who were
connected with Warwickshire by the marriage of William Sheldon, Esq.
with Mary, daughter and coheir of William Willington, of Barcheston,
Esq., in the reign of Henry VIII. It was this William Sheldon who
purchased the manor of Weston, in the parish of Long-Compton, in
this county, and here his son Ralph built "_a very fair house_" in
the reign of Queen Elizabeth; but these estates have both, within
the memory of man, passed from this ancient family, who still
possess considerable properly at Brailes, purchased by William
Sheldon in the first of Edward VI.
Younger branches of the Sheldons were formerly of Abberton,
Childswicombe, Broadway, and Spechley, in Worcestershire. See
Dugdale's Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 584; and Nash's Worcestershire,
vol. i. pp. 65 and 144.
ARMS.--_Sable, a fess between three sheldrakes argent_.
Present Representative, Henry James Sheldon, Esq.