The following article is an initial attempt to put on record some few particulars of the Belverges, a family of minor gentry which flourished in the Sharpenho district from the early thirteenth till the late fourteenth century, after which period they would appear to have become extinct in the male line, their property passing to Agnes, daughter and heir of Nicholas Belverge who married John Wingate.

It is not a little strange that this family who lived in the same Homestead, known as ‘Belverges,’ for so long a period and clearly were of some local importance, should hitherto have escaped notice in any County History, for they were an Armigerous family, and bore “Azure a fess between 3 Gourds Or.” This is to be accounted for probably, by the fact that the printed public records are in this case peculiarly barren of information; the Patent and Close Rolls yield only an isolated reference; the Inquisitions Post Mortem, the Calendars of Ancient Deeds, and Feudal Aids, have no mention of the name. A few particulars are to be gleaned from early Subsidy lists, and an occasional mention in an Assize Roll; beyond these, the printed pedigree of the Wingate family, who, as stated, derive from a Belverge heiress, gives us the name of some half a dozen members of the family. To supplement these, there are fortunately preserved in the Wingate Manuscripts transcripts of a number of early Deeds of the Belverges, which though not of great importance in themselves, shed a little more light on their early History and enable us to extend considerably their pedigree; they furnish also a number of interesting place names of the district. These Deeds are often accompanied by trite comments of the Scribe, Francis Taverner, which together seem worthy of being placed on record, pending future research.

Francis Taverner, a family connection, and in all probability a lawyer, writing in 1634, speaks of the critical examination of “the evidences ” and of large numbers of other deeds, which he had perused from time to time. He states that Belverge is without dispute a French or Norman name, as indeed seems evident, and it appears variously in the form, “Belverge,” “Beleverge” and “Belvierge”—the last he regarded as the original spelling.