The Davenports had a more splendid home at Bramhall, the oldest portions of which were built when Edward the Third was king. The great hall at Baguley was built about the same time. The massive upright posts are cut from timber more than two feet square, and the spaces between them filled with wickerwork and plaster. The open roof is supported by a mighty 'tie-beam' and two uprights called 'queen-posts'[2]. The windows are tall and the lights narrow, and separated from one another by oak mullions.
[2] Sometimes the roof was held up by a single 'king-post' in place of two queen-posts. The 'king-post' reached from the centre of the tie-beam to the point of the roof.
Surely the men who built it had hearts of oak. The building reflects the rugged character of the men of the days when 'knights were bold' and 'might was right'. In this hall we can picture old Sir William Baggiley feasting with his family and his retainers, when the summons came from his king to follow him to the French wars.
His effigy still rests in the hall that he himself perhaps built. It is broken and battered, but enough remains to show us that the knights who fought for Edward and the Black Prince had changed the fashion of their war dress since the Crusades. A hood of mail still protects the head and neck, but the suit of mail has given way to plates of steel riveted or hooked together, so that the whole body is cased in armour.
When Edward the First completed his conquest of North Wales, and the Welsh chiefs swore fealty at Chester to the first English Prince of Wales, the fighting squires of Cheshire found themselves without any occupation. Edward the Third, ambitious of recovering the French dominions of the Norman and Angevin Kings of England, provided the Cheshire men with a fresh field of adventures, with far greater opportunities of performing deeds of valour and satisfying their thirst for warfare.
A number of Cheshire knights followed the king and the Black Prince to France. The French Chronicler, Froissart, tells us that Sir James Audley and his four Cheshire squires 'fought always in the chief of the battle' at Poitiers. One of the four squires was Sir John Delves, who built the old tower of Doddington Castle, near Audlem. In Barthomley Church is a monument to Sir Robert Fulleshurst, who also was one of the dauntless four.
