Llanforda,
The residence of the Right Hon. Sir Henry Watkin Williams Wynn, K.C.B. and G.C.H., is situated one mile and a half west of Oswestry. The original estate was part of the possession of Einion Evell, Lord of Cynllaeth and Mochnant, from whom it descended, together with Llwyn-y-Maen, to Ievan Vychan, constable of Knockin, whose heiress, Agnes, carried it into the family of the Lloyds, by her marriage with Maurice Lloyd, of whom the Welsh records give the following account:—
“The said Maurice Lloyd ab Bleddyn Lloyd, finding himself much oppressed by the English Laws, did kill one of the judges and hanged divers other officers on oak trees in Uch-dûlas, upon whose conviction his lands and inheritance in Denbigh-land were escheated to the Crown, and so still remains for most part to this day, and known by the name of the said Maurice Lloyd; and he for his safeguard withdrew himself to the sanctuary of Halston, in the county of Salop, and there betook himself to the protection of John Fitz-Alan, Lord of Oswestry and Clunne, and after Earl of Arundel. By the said Earl’s commission he levied a great number of soldiers out of the said Earl’s Lordships and Hundreds in the marches of Wales, and made the said Maurice Lloyd Captain over them, and the said Earl of Arundel being then General of the English forces, the King of England sent them to assist the Emperor in the Holy Warre against the Turke, in which service, at the scaling of, and entering, the breach at the siege of Acon, the Emperor’s colours were taken by the enemies, and recovered back by the said Maurice Lloyd, and brought again by him to the Emperor, in reward of whose valour and faithful service therein the Emperor gave him the coat of the house of Austria, only changing the field for his first coat in his achievements before the parental coat of Hedd Moelwynog.”
The bearing thus acquired, and constantly used by his descendants, was the imperial eagle in a field sable. From Maurice Lloyd the Llanforda property descended to Richard Lloyd, who, dying in 1508, divided the estate, and left Llanforda to his eldest son John, and Llwyn-y-maen to his second son Edward. Llanforda eventually passed from the hands of this family, Edward Lloyd, a man of dissolute character, having sold it to the first Sir William Williams, Speaker of the House of Commons in the two last Parliaments of Charles II., about the year 1685, in whose posterity (the Wynnstay family) it has since continued. The Edward Lloyd just mentioned was father, as we have stated in our Biographical notices, of the celebrated scholar and antiquary, Edward Llwyd. There was formerly a church at Llanforda, but it was suppressed by Rynerus, Bishop of St. Asaph. The river Morda passes close to the estate.
Sir Henry Wynn is a Privy Councillor, and for twenty-five years filled the important office of Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court at Copenhagen. He is also a magistrate for the county of Salop.