File:St Nicholas' church - hatchments above chancel arch - geograph.org.uk - 1393148.jpg

English: Church of St Nicholas, Bracon Ash, Norfolk - hatchments above chancel arch for the Berney family:

• Left shield: For death of Thomas Berney of Bracon Ash, husband of Elizabeth Jackson, third daughter and co-heiress of Sir George Jackson, 1st Baronet (1725-1822) (cr.1791), Deputy Secretary to The Admiralty and Judge Advocate of the Fleet. Quarterly of 4:
  • 1&4: Per pale azure and gules, a cross engrailed ermine (Berney);
  • 2&3: Per pale argent and azure, in the dexter half three pallets sable over all a bend or (Trench);
    

impaling:

• • 1&4: Gules, a fess between three shovellers argent (Jackson)
  • 2&3: Azure, a cross flory or (Ward);

Crest: A plume of ostrich feathers (Berney); (Source: Farrer, Edmund, The church heraldry of Norfolk: a description of all coats of arms on brasses, monuments, slabs, hatchments, &c., now to be found in the county. llustrated. With references to Blomefield's History of Norfolk and Burke's Armory. Together with notes from the inscriptions attached, Vol I, Norwich, 1887, p.159[1] , quoting Burke's Landed Gentry, p. 88).

Genealogy: John Berney (1717-1800) of Bracon Hall, Bracon Ash, Norfolk, was the son of Thomas Berney and Anne Suckling, a daughter of Robert Suckling. John Berney married firstly, in 1745, Susan Trench (1713-1753), daughter and sole heiress of Samuel Trench (d.1741), of Ducketts in the parish of Tottenham, Middlesex. (mentioned in will of Dr Edmund Trench, PROB 11/332 Penn 1-66 Will of Edmund Trench, Doctor of Physic of Saint Olave Hart Street, City of London 07 January 1670[2]) The manor of Ducketts had come into the possession of the Trench family in 1660. A portrait survives of Susan Trench and her sister painted by Robert Byng (1666 - 1720). (catalogue entry, Roy Precious Fine Arts[3]) John Berney married secondly, in 1766, Margaret Dolens, daughter and heir of Sir Samuel Dolens, Knt. Later generation: Thomas Berney of Bracon Ash, married, in 1774, Elizabeth Jackson, third daughter and co-heiress of Sir George Jackson, 1st Baronet (1725-1822) (cr.1791), Deputy Secretary to The Admiralty and Judge Advocate of the Fleet, by his first wife Mary Ward, daughter and sole heiress of William Ward, Esq. of Gisborough, Yorkshire. Born George Jackson, probably in Yorkshire, the third but oldest surviving son of George Jackson (1687/8–1758) of Hill House, Richmond, Yorkshire, and Ellerton Abbey, Yorkshire. He married firstly Mary Ward by whom he had three daughters. Secondly, on 9 September 1775 at St Margaret's Church, Westminster, he married Grace Neale (c.1750–1798), widow of Robert Neale and granddaughter of George Duckett, MP, with whom he had a son, George Jackson (born 1777). In 1797 under the terms of the will of her uncle Thomas Duckett, Sir George Jackson assumed, by Royal Licence, the name and arms of Duckett, becoming Sir George Duckett.

• Right: Berney of 6 quarters:
  • 1: Per pale azure and gules, a cross engrailed ermine (Berney);
  • 2: Gules, a chevron engrailed between three reed sheafs argent (Reedham or Redham);
  • 3: Gules, a chevron between three eagles displayed argent (Caston)
  • 4: Argent, on a canton gules a cross or (Bradeston);
  • 5: Argent, a bend ermine between six billets or (Smith);
  • 6: Per pale argent and azure, in the dexter half three pallets sable over all a bend or (Trench);

Impaling: Per pale indented argent and gules, in the dexter chief a wolf's head couped at the neck sable (Penrice). Thomas Trench Berney of Morton Hall, Morton on the Hill, Norfolk, married, in 1812, Mary Penrice (1790-1876), daughter of Thomas Penrice, Esq, of Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, and his wife Hannah Waite (1761-1829) (per her mural monument/tablet, in St Nicholas' Church, Bracon Ash[4]; See inscribed monument to their son Thomas Penrice (1789-1846) (Captain in the 16th Queen's Lancers, fought in the Peninsular Campaign under the Duke of Wellington) in Saint Mary's Church, Pennard, Swansea, Wales[5]). (See photograph of Mary Penrice (Mrs Berney) by Camille Silvy, National Portrait Gallery [6]). Thomas Penrice (1757 -1816) of Great Yarmouth was descended from a Worcestershire family. He is said to have been a musician and a collector of paintings, and was the residuary legatee of his friend w:John Howe, 4th Baron Chedworth (1754-1804), and inherited his estates in Gloucestershire and Wiltshire, which he sold in 1810 (Source: https://armorial.library.utoronto.ca/stamp-owners/PEN004)

Crest: A plume of ostrich feathers (Berney); Motto: In God is my trust.

General remarks on the church:

St Nicholas' church > 1393135 - 1393146 - 1393157 stands on the site of a much older church. The nave and baptismal font > 1393159 date from the 14th, the chancel from the 15th century. An early 19th century drawing by Robert Ladbrooke (author of ' Views of the Churches of Norfolk') depicts the church with a tower or turret which housed the bell. It was taken down for safety reasons and the church now is without, with the bell hanging in a frame > 1393143 placed at the south-west corner of the nave. The Berney mausoleum > 1393133 was added onto the chancel north wall during the 18th century. The entrance > 1393154 to the mausoleum is through the doorway of an older mausoleum (dating from the 16th century) within the church and unusually, it is neither sealed off nor locked but wide open > 1393155. The church is open every day.