Rural Settlement Contraction in the East Riding of Yorkshire Between
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Rural Settlement Contraction in the East Riding of Yorkshire between the mid- seventeenth and mid-eighteenth Centuries By SUSAN NEAVE Abstract Evidence of settlement contraction in the form of earthworks marking abandoned house sites is to be found throughout England, yet the tinting and causes of village shrinkage have received only limited attention from historians. This article explores the extent of settlement contraction in the East Riding of Yorkshire between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. Nationally this was a period when population stagnation coincided with urban expansion suggestingwidespread rural depopulation. Using detailed documentary material relating to individual setdements, the possible causes of contraction are explored, and a link between landownership patterns and contraction is established. N the Introduction to Deserted Medieval periods but stresses that 'a lack of detailed Villages, first published in 197 I, documentation from medieval times ... I Beresford and Hurst drew attention to usually prevents the accurate identifi- another type of settlement, the shrunken cation of many presumed examples of village. They wrote: shrinkage of that period'? This cannot be The 'shrunken' village is a phenomenon full of said of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- historical and archaeologicalinterest. Its living por- turies, yet little research has focused on the tion resembles any nomaal English village, while its shrunken village during this later period. grass-covered houses and streets resemble the One of the few exceptions is the work deserted sites. Its mysteries are open to the archae- ologist without trespassinginto cottage gardens and of Stuart Wrathmell, an archaeologist, under cottage floors. For the historian the variety of on post-medieval depopulation in causes and periods which cmtld produce a shrunken village Northumberland, which demonstrated that present a major challengc to the intelligent use of documen- the dating of certain deserted or shrunken tary evidence.' village earthworks should be reconsidered.4 Historians and archaeologists alike have Other studies, for example Mary Dobson's been slow to accept this challenge. Housing examination of south-east England, have developments are gradually eroding many drawn attention to general population shrunken village earthworks, yet the decline in the late seventeenth and eight- shrunken village continues to be one of eenth centuries, but not to its impact on the most common features of the English the physical size of individual settlements? landscape. Indeed, as Christopher Taylor In response to the challenge posed by has commented 'It is probably safe to say Beresford and Hurst some twenty years that there is hardly a village in England ago, a study was made of post-medieval which does not have at least one or two settlement contraction in the East Riding empty plots where houses once stood'? In Village and Farmstead, 3 Taylor, I/illage and Farmstead, p 166. Taylor provides S Wrathmell, 'Village Depopulation in the 17th and I8th Centuries: examples of shrinkage at many different Examples from Nordmmbedand', Post-Medieval Archaeolo~},, 14, 198o, pp i I3-Z6. ~M j Dobson, 'The last hiccup of the old regime: population ' M W Beresford andJ G Hurst, eds, Deserted Medieval Villages, 1971, stagnation and decline in late seventeenth and early eighteenth p xviii (emphasis added). century south-east England', Contimdty and Change, 4, 3, I989, 2C Taylor, Village and Farmstead, I983, paperback edn 1984, p 165. pp 395-428. Ag Hist Rev, 41, 2, pp I24-i36 24 RURAL SETTLEMENT CONTRACTION IN THE EAST RIDING Or YORKSHIRE 125 of Yorkshire. 6 This is an area where con- records survive except for these limited siderable work has been carried out by periods, s Beresford and others on medieval depopu- For the East Riding, the earliest surviv- lation, and where documentary and carto- ing assessment is for Michaelmas 167o, but graphic evidence suggested that the century the document is in poor condition. Of after the Kestoration was likely to be a key those East Priding assessments which are period in the history of the shrunken more or less complete, 1672 was chosen village. for this study as it appears to give the fullest and most legible lists of both tax payers and exempt householders. 9 Other hearth I tax assessments from the early I67OS were Two sources provided the basis for a study substituted where necessary. of settlement contraction in the raral East Although often used to estimate total Riding between the mid-seventeenth and population, the hearth tax is most reliable mid-eighteenth centuries, a set of hearth as a source for assessing the number of tax returns for I672, and returns made in households in a settlement, since no mul- response to an archiepiscopal visitation tiplier is required. If anything, it is likely questionnaire of 1743.7 that the hearth tax under-represents the The hearth tax, levied between 1662 number of households, since the lists of and 1689, was paid according to the those exempt from payment are sometimes number of hearths per household. Those incomplete. who were already exempt from paying The archiepiscopal visitation returns of church and poor rates, and others who 1743, available for the diocese of York, could obtain a certificate confirming that provide information on, amongst other they lived in a house worth £I or less a things, the number of families in each year, did not occupy land worth more than parish. ~° P..eturns survive for most East £I a year, and did not possess goods, P,.iding parishes. For a handful of larger chattels, lands or tenements in excess of parishes, the number of families is obvi- £1o in value, were also exempt. The tax ously an estimate, but in the majority of was levied at two shillings per hearth, cases a precise figure is given. There were payable in half-yearly instalments. Under sufficient single-township parishes within the original act, collection was to be made the East Riding to enable comparison with by the constables of each township, but in the hearth tax figures to be made for I664 this responsibility was transferred to individual setdements. In parishes which specifically appointed officials. From comprised two or more townships, changes I666-9, and again from 1674-84, the in the number of households/families in collection of the tax was farmed out, and the parish, rather than in each of the from 1684 until its termination in I689 it constituent townships had to be examined. was collected through a special com- In order to use the above sources to mission. Since assessments were only examine physical changes in settlement returned to the Exchequer during the per- size, it is necessary to consider whether iods when the tax was not farmed out or dealt with by the special commission, few s For further information on the hearth tax see C D Chandaman, The En~.lish Public Revem~e 166o-1688, Oxford, I975, pp 77-1o9; ~See the author's unpublished PhD thesis 'lkm,'al Settlement J D Purdy, Yorkshire Hearth Tax Returns, Centre for Ikegional and Contraction in the East Priding of Yorkshire c x66o-t76o', Univ Local History, University of Hull, I99I, pp i-I8. of Hull, 199o, on which this article is based. 9 P1LO, Ei79/2o5/5o4. 7PP-O, 179/2o5/5o4; S L Ollard and P C Walker, eds, Archbishop '°Ollard & W,'dker, Herring's Visit, i-v. The original returns are at Herrit~'s Visitation Raurns 1743, i-v, Yorks Archaeol Soc Record the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, York (hereafter Series (hereafter YASP,.S), 71, 72, 75, 77, 79, I927-3~:. BIHIk), BpVd743/Iket. 126 THE AGRICULTURAL HISTORY REVIEW 'household' and 'family' represent what will be falsely inflated. The hearth tax Laslett has termed 'houseful', that is, 'all returns probably give an under-estimate of persons inhabiting the same set of number of households; thus where there is premises,.~ a decrease between 1672 and 1743 this A number of historians studying rural may be even greater than the figures indi- areas have assumed that each head of cate. It can therefore be argued that 'house- household mentioned in the hearth tax lists hold' as used in the hearth tax returns and occupied a separate dwelling, in other 'family' as used in the visitation returns are words, a tax-payer assessed for one hearth comparable units and provide an acceptable lived in a one-hearthed cottage. Spufford, basis on which to study settlement contrac- for example, in Contrasting Communities, tion. The validity of this argument can be maps the distribution of one-and two- tested by examining a settlement where hearthed houses in Cambridgeshire from cartographic evidence of shrinkage is also the hearth tax returns. I~ In the East Riding available. other sources, for example rentals taken by 'house row', indicate that it was uncom- mon for more than one household to II occupy a property. Where a property was The East Riding village of Watton lies in joint occupation, this was made clear in some eight miles north of Beverley, in the the hearth tax returns by bracketing the valley of the river Hull. The settlement is names of the householders. split into two sections by the Bevefley- The comments of the clergy in their Driffield road. To the west of this road is responses to the visitation questionnaire in the core of the modern village, comprising 1743 suggest that 'family' was generally a single street built up with houses on both interpreted to mean a person or group of sides. On the eastern side of the main road, people living under one roof. The incum- and some distance fi'om it, stand the rem- bent at Cottingham near Hull noted that nants of a Gilbertine priory (Watton 'There are about 277 families in this parish, Abbey, now a private house), the village reckoning in every house inhabited a church, and a handful of cottages.