From Banastre, now Beneter, near Etampes. Camden, however, “derives the name from Balneator, Master of the Bath, which conjecture is countenanced by the old Banastre arms of two water buckets.”—Bains Lancashire. It still survives as Bannister. An ancient pedigree of this family, preserved in a petition on the Rolls of Parliament, begins with Robert Banastre, who came over at the Conquest, and held Prestatyn, one of the hundreds of Flintshire, under Robert de Ruelent. “Here a tower was built on the coast, whereof the foundations are still distinguishable. It was destroyed by the Welsh when they regained possession of that district in the time of Henry II. Robert, the son of Robert Banastre, withdrew with all his people into Lancashire, where they are found holding extensive possessions under the Earls of Chester, whose palatinate extended over the South of that county.”—Sir Bernard Burke. Robert left three sons, Richard, Warin, and Thurstan, of whom the two elder died s. p. Warin, about the time of King John, was Baron of Newton (one of the palatinate baronies), and was succeeded either by his brother Thurstan, or Thurstan’s son Robert, whose heiress was his grand-daughter Alice. She carried his barony to the Langtons: but several collateral branches of the family remained. “Bank Hall was for centuries the manorial residence of the Banastres or Banisters, Lords of the manor of Bretherton. In 34 Ed. III. a mandate was issued from the Duchy court, on the death of Thomas Banastre, directing the Escheator to seize his lands for the King and the Duke. A Thomas Banastre is mentioned in the Lansdowne Feodary, 23 Hen. III., as the son and heir of Sir Adam Banastre, whom Dr. Whitaker conjectures to have been of this family, and who was beheaded temp. Ed. II. by Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, for his active opposition to that powerful and factious baron. The descent of the Banastres of Bank is not satisfactorily traced before the reign of Henry VIII., in whose second year died Henry Banastre of Bank.”—Bain's Lancashire. The last heir male, Christopher Banastre, was High Sheriff in 1669.

The family was very numerous elsewhere in England. In Shropshire, Richard Banastre “was Lord of Munslow and Aston-Munslow in 1115, holding the same in capite under Henry I., and standing high in provincial importance. I think however that Richard Banastre was a greater man in Cheshire than in Shropshire. A deed of Richard, Earl of Chester, and the Countess Ermentrude, his mother, of the date of 1106, names Richard Banastre as one of the Barons of Cheshire: and in 1128 he is a prominent witness to a charter of Robert de Meschines.

“The successor of Richard Banastre, both in Cheshire and Shropshire, was Thurstan Banastre, probably his son, whose line ended either with himself, or his successor of the same name, and I think in the time of Henry II. He left two daughters his co-heirs, Margery, wife of Richard Fitz Roger, and Matilda, wife of William de Hastings.”—Eyton's Shropshire. Nigel Banastre, in the twelfth century, acquired by marriage Hadnall in the same county, which his grandson, about 1230, held of the fee of John Fitz Alan, doing the service of one knight at Oswestry in war time. Another descendant is mentioned in 1316, “I will not attempt,” continues Eyton, “to give any later or connected account of the Banastres of Hadnall. In the fourteenth century there were three families of Banastre, styled respectively of Hadnall, Smethcott, and Yarton. I cannot say how they were related, nor, indeed, which was the elder line.” William Banastre, of Wem, was Sheriff of Shropshire in 1402. He, or one of his immediate descendants, obtained Lacon through the heiress of Hussey; and Ralph Banastre of Lacon was the faithless servant “From this relation of servant, we are not to infer anything derogatory to his character as a gentleman. In effect he was of an ancient family and plentiful estate; but it was deemed no disparagement in that age for esquires, and even knights, to wear the livery of a lord, and the Duke of Buckingham was the greatest subject of the realm.”—Owen & Blakeway's Shrewsbury. who betrayed the Duke of Buckingham to Richard III. See Toesni. The Duke is said to have been “disguised and digging a ditch at the time of his arrest; and on the approach of Thomas Mytton the sheriff, who came to apprehend him, he knelt down in the orchard wherein he was taken, and solemnly imprecated vengeance upon the traitor and his posterity, which curses are said to have been signally fulfilled.” Hall writes, “Sure it is that shortlie after he had betrayed the duke his master, his sonne and heyre waxed mad, and so dyed in a bore’s stye: his eldest daughter, of excellent beautie, was sodainly stricken with a foule leperye; his second sonne very marvellously deformed of his limmes and made decrepit; his younger sonne in a small puddel was strangled and drowned; and he, being of extreme age, arraigned and found gyltie of a murder, and by his clergye saved: And as for his thousand pounds, kyng Richard gave him not one farthing, howbeit some say he had a small office or a ferme to stop his mouth.” —Owen and Blakeway's Shrewsbury. That he received the manor of Ealding (now Yalden) in Kent as the reward of his perfidy is beyond all question; but the appalling list of domestic calamities called down upon him by his master’s curse is hard of belief; and it should be borne in mind that the benefit of clergy was never extended to murder. “The family to which he belonged grew ashamed of this disgraceful member, and his name appears on none of their pedigrees.”—Ibid.

“If ever wight had cause to rue A wretched deed, vile and untrue, Then Banister with shame may sing, Who sold his life that loved him.”

The Banastres also continued in Cheshire, where they have left their name to Mollington-Banastre, near Chester. Redacre Hall, in the parish of Prestbury, was their residence in the seventeenth century; and mention is made of a contemporary Hugh Banaster of Riding. Sulhamstead-Bannister, in Berkshire, commemorates another line of collaterals, of whom three were Sheriffs of the county; Alan Banastre, in 1169; Alard, in 1173, and Thomas, in 1203. One of the early Knights of the Garter is derived by Beltz, in his Memorials of the Order, from Englefield in Berkshire. Again, there were Banastres seated at Gnosall in Staffordshire. “Philip, son of Sir Philip, of that house, held Bosworth and Upton in Leicestershire in 1280. They ended early in the seventeenth century.” —Nicholls. Dorothy daughter and sole heir of Sir Robert Banastre of Passenham, in Northamptonshire (perhaps their representative?), married William, second Lord Maynard, to whom she brought a great estate. She was the mother of Banastre, third Lord, and died in 1649.