The building which is now known at Eyam as the “Old” or “Bradshaw Hall”, stands on rising ground at the north-west extremity of the village, and was erected at the eastern end of the old Stafford Hall, probably by Francis, great-grandson of Francis Bradshaw, who married Ann, the daughter and co-heiress of Humphrey Stafford, some time before the breaking out of the plague; when, or just before, it is said, the Bradshaws left Eyam for Brampton, Yorkshire, and never returned to Eyam to reside permanently. Bradshaw Hall was left unfinished; it was erected in the Tudor or Elizabethan style.

The courses in the walls are of Moorland sandstone, eight inches in thickness, the masonry extremely good. The windows on the ground floor which light the principal apartments are large. There are two in either front - south and east, divided by mullions and transomes. The windows have labelled heads with knees. On a circular stone in the centre of the upper tier of windows in the south front, is carved in bold relief the crest of the Bradshaws: “a stag at gaze p.p.r standing under a vine fructured p.p.r”. The interior contains a noble fireplace, the mantels and jambs recessed and enriched with a deeply indented moulding. The whole is now greatly dilapidated and used as a barn. It was erected as a modern appendage to the old Hall of the Staffords. It was intended to be hung with tapestry. Within the recollection of the last generation the tapestry lay in a heap in certain corners where it rotted away.

The notorious Judge Bradshaw was of this family; his grandfather went from Bradshaw Hall, Chapel-en-le-Frith, to Wyberslegh, near Marple, Cheshire, where the regicide was born. It may not be generally known that the mother of Judge Bradshaw was related to Milton.

That portion of the pedigree of the Bradshaws connected especially with Eyam will be sufficient for the present purpose.^[1]

The Brays of Eyam were a family of some importance, the first now known was a Thomas Bray, of Eyam, who married early in the seventeenth century, Ellen, daughter of John Alton, M.D., Nottingham.

The only allusion to the family of Bray in the Register at Eyam is the following:

The old mansion known as Eyam Hall was in its original state the residence of the Brays of Eyam. It was purchased by the Wrights from the Brays or their representatives about the middle of the seventeenth century. A new front was erected and other alterations made about 1680. In the interior, on some wainscoting, there are inscribed the initials, F.B. and J.B., with the date 1594 or 6. The exterior contains an inverted stone with the initials M.B., besides other mementoes of the Brays of Eyam.

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