Along the Moors - Eyton upon the Weald Moors

The Birdman of Eyton

TC Eyton (courtesy of Shrewsbury Museum Services)

Half a century after the Eytons moved back to the Weald Moors, the ancestral home was extended again to incorporate — somewhat improbably — a museum, considered at the time to be among the finest private collections of its kind! The enterprise belonged to TC Eyton, a distinguished naturalist and friend of Charles Darwin, who inherited the estate in 1855. He enjoyed fame throughout Europe as an ornithologist, publishing several books on the subject, including A History of the Rarer British Birds (1836). His museum was housed in a specially built wing of the hall and said to contain a series of ornithological skeletons that ranked with the best in the world; while it was also home to an ‘almost unequalled’ library of books on natural science and field sports. Indeed, sporting pursuits formed an important part of Eyton’s life and his village cricket club is thought to be one of the oldest in the county — earning him the title ’Father of Shropshire Cricket’.

Sadly, much of Eyton’s collection was dispersed following his death in 1880, although a Sotheby’s catalogue containing an array of items from a sale of his effects survives as a testament to its owner’s eclectic tastes. TC Eyton was not the only family member to achieve fame as an author, as his cousin Rev Robert Eyton, in addition to his ecumenical duties, was a noted historian. His masterwork, Antiquities of Shropshire — which dealt with the feudal and judicial history in the two centuries following the Norman Conquest — continues to be a vital resource in understanding the county’s medieval past. Such was Eyton’s reputation that, upon his death in 1881, The Times newspaper remarked ‘the country lost in Mr Eyton an antiquary who, for accuracy and fulness of research, could hardly be surpassed’.