Description:The document featured above is taken from Thomas Smith’s Accounts for the Lilleshall Estate for February and March 1670. Smith was an estate agent working for Sir Thomas Gower. The Accounts provide a great deal of information relating to the running of the Lilleshall estate in the late seventeenth century.
The Accounts include Smith’s charges for travelling by horse to the Leveson-Gower family’s estate in Stittenham in Yorkshire. Smith also travelled to the Trentham estate in Staffordshire, reflecting his central role in co-ordinating in the management of the family’s estates. The Accounts tell us that Smith was responsible for overseeing building work and repairs on the Lilleshall estate, with payments made to him for going to Kynnersley ‘to meete ye Plumber & Carpenter to view the Dilapidations there’.
Between February and March 1670 one shilling was spent on the ‘postage of letters’ and a further one shilling and sixpence was spent on ‘hedginge about ye orchard’ at Lilleshall.
Payments are listed for nails, soap, locks and paper. One shilling and ten pence was paid ‘for veale at Newport’ and two shillings and sixpence ‘for six pound of candles’.
The Accounts also tell us about philanthropy on the Lilleshall Estate. On 11th March monies were paid out in donations ‘for prisoners & maimed souldiers & for ye Poore’.