The Plants of Ellsworth Hall

Barbara and I just got back at midnight Wednesday from a week in England. We headed over there with Mom and Dad to see London for a couple of days and then went to Chester, where Dad and his sisters had all been before at various times (with the sisters having done some genealogical research in the Cheshire area). Mom made the accommodations, and after striking out at a couple of locations, she found a home stay with a couple in Sandbach (pronounced sand-BATCH), a former market town about twenty miles from Chester (that’s a whole other story).

St. Mary's Church, Sandbach, Cheshire, United Kingdom

Sandbach is like a lot of other towns with an outsized church on a site dating back a thousand years, but built and rebuilt over the years. Our host led us around the town the first day we were there but only skirted the outside of the church grounds.

The next morning we went exploring on our own and stopped in at the church to look at the graveyard’s old stones. We just happened on the sexton as he was returning from feeding his cows. He let us into the very mildewy old building which was quite pretty otherwise. We looked around at the windows, listened hard to the old gaffer — who had a brogue very unlike the middle-class folks we were staying with — and then Barbara spotted this on the wall:

Plant family plaque at St. Mary's Church, Sandbach

It says:


Sacred to the Memory of ELIZABETH, Wife of

THOMAS PLANT of Ellsworth Hall, who died

May 26th. 1804, aged 57 years.

Also of ELIZABETH, Wife of EDWARD WESTHEAD of

Manchester, and Daughter of the above THOs. & ELIZth. PLANT,

who departed this Life the 19th. Octr. 1849, aged 56 years.

“Precious in the Sight of the Lord is the Death of his Saints”

Psalm 116th. V. 15th.

Also of the said THOMAS PLANT, who died

February 26th. 1828, aged 76 Years.

Also of SARAH, Wife of JOHN, Son of the above

THOMAS & ELIZABETH PLANT, who died May 29th. 1832, aged 34 Years.

Also of the said JOHN PLANT, who died

January 13th. 1849, aged 58 Years.

No idea if there’s any actual relation, but it’s a heck of a coincidence.