Arden family

Common card · No. 451847

The Arden family is an English landed gentry family that can be traced back in the male line to pre-Norman Anglo-Saxon landholders who managed to maintain status after the 1066 invasion of England by the Normans of France. It is one of few families in Britain that can trace its patrilineal descent back to a pre-Norman era Anglo-Saxon ancestor, along with the Berkeley family. Other families make the claim: the Swinton, Wentworth, and the Grindlay families; but their claims are disputed. The family held lands in Warwickshire, Staffordshire, Worcester, Cheshire and Shropshire. The family shares its name with the Forest of Arden, a culturally defined area ranging across these counties south of Watling Street which is associated with the setting of the action in Shakespeare's play As You Like It. By the 14th century, under Sir John de Arderne, the most senior line of the Arden family had their primary estate near Solihull at Park Hall, Castle Bromwich. A branch of the Arden family were in Stockport...

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