THE LE STRANGE RECORDS (1916) A.D. 1100-1310

Only fifty copies of the Family book were originally printed. It presents a detailed study of the author’s early ancestors and was written while Hamon le Strange (1841-1918) was resident heir at Hunstanton Hall, where he had privileged access to the family archives preserved for centuries in the Muniment Room. (A comparable example of such long-recorded lineage might be found in the history of the Lords of Berkeley Castle.)

Hamon worked in collaboration with respected historians of his day, including Professor Round and Robert Eyton, who helped substantiate the family’s history with rigorous scholarship. As a result, the work has long been regarded by professionals as a reliable and respected historical source.

During the course of his research (about 1906), Hamon travelled to Shropshire to explore the sites where the early ancestors had established further residences and strongholds. I can imagine him, my x2 G-Grand-Father, embarking from Hunstanton Hall in his stagecoach on the 200 mile journey west! I remain deeply grateful to him for undertaking this monumental task in his later years. He died in 1918, just two years after completing the book.

He had made considerable use of the family Muniments which had been kept in a small vaulted chamber, originally the guard-room of the Gate-House, built in the reign of Henry VII. Its completion proved timely—coming thirty-one years before the Hall was sold out of the Family and the records dispersed and rehoused.

In 1994, a fire at the Norfolk Record Office—where the archives are now held—damaged part of the collection, destroying some documents and scorching others. Fortunately, the majority were saved and are now preserved within a storage space of approximately 11 by 13 feet. Without Hamon’s foresight in compiling the history beforehand, the full record of the family’s past might never have survived in such coherent form.