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Lot Essay
Amanda Severne's direct ancestors, the Meyseys were granted Shakenhurst outright by Edward III in 1349 for services rendered overseas. They had held the estate as vassals of the crown long before that and the Meyseys, a Norman family who fought at Hastings, were first recorded in Worcestershire as early as 1110. In 1906 the estate was left away from the family but in 1961 Shakenhurst, the surviving contents and the sadly denuded estate passed back to Michael Meysey Wigley Severne, the great-great-great grandson of Anna Maria and Edmund Meysey Wigley who had rebuilt the Hall in the 1790s. Michael Severne married Rachel Fitzgerald, daughter of the 28th Knight of Glin and a renowned model in the 1950s. Together they restored the mansion, estate and gardens. The Meysey-Wigley Severne occupation of Shakenhurst that stretches back over three-quarters of a millennium came to an end following the tragic and untimely death of their only child Amanda, some 55 weeks after her father.