JOURNAL OF THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE RECORD SOCIETY WOOTON HALL PARK, NORTHAMPTON NN4 8BQ ORTHAMPTONSHIRE PAST AND PRESENT CONTENTS N Page Number 58 (2005) Notes and News . 5 Records of the Past: William Mellows and the Monks of Peterborough Sandra Raban . 7 Two Village Entrepreneurs in Late-Medieval Rockingham Forest M. J. Thornton . 17 Early Modern Blakesley: A Study Based on Wills 1543-1700 Carmel Biggs . 37 Seaborne Revisited: Cob Cottages in Northamptonshire 2004 Heather Bird . 54 Privateersmen at Peterborough: Controversial Captives During the French Revolutionary Wars H. J. K. Jenkins . 70 What Kind of Brewer? Andrew P.Wood . 81 Thomas Osborne Robinson OBE: A Centenary Tribute Richard Foulkes . 83 Book Reviews . 96 £3.00 Cover illustration: Number 58 2005 £3.00 ‘The Vineyard’, Peterborough (Sandra Raban) AND PRESENT PAST NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Northamptonshire Record Society NORTHAMPTONSHIRE PAST AND PRESENT 2005 Number 58 CONTENTS Page Notes and News . 5 Records of the Past: William Mellows and the Monks of Peterborough . 7 Sandra Raban Two Village Entrepreneurs in Late-Medieval Rockingham Forest . 17 M. J. Thornton Early Modern Blakesley: A Study Based on Wills 1543-1700 . 37 Carmel Biggs Seaborne Revisited: Cob Cottages in Northamptonshire 2004 . 54 Heather Bird Privateersmen at Peterborough: Controversial Captives During the French Revolutionary Wars . 70 H. J. K. Jenkins What Kind of Brewer? . 81 Andrew P.Wood Thomas Osborne Robinson OBE: A Centenary Tribute . 83 Richard Foulkes Book Reviews . 96 Index . 103 All communications regarding articles in this and future issues should be addressed to David Hall, the Hon. Editor, Northamptonshire Record Society, Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN4 8BQ. Published by the Northamptonshire Record Society Number 58 ISSN 01490 9131 Typeset by John Hardaker, Wollaston, Northants and printed by Alden Press, Oxford OX2 0EF THE NORTHAMPTONSHIRE RECORD SOCIETY (FOUNDED IN 1920) WOOTTON HALL PARK, NORTHAMPTON NN4 8BQ President: Sir Hereward Wake, Bart., M.C., D.L. NOTES AND NEWS This year we have an article about William Mellows and the manuscripts of Peterborough Abbey. The records consist primarily of several cartularies containing copies of royal grants to the abbey, land transactions, surveys, rentals, custumaries, chronicles and many other items relevant to running the abbey and maintaining its estates and income from the 12th to the 16th centuries. William Mellows set up a trust fund to enable publication of all the major archives relating to the abbey. Few volumes have been published since Mellows’ death, mainly because of the lack of editors with time or expertise to cope with the Latin texts. It is hoped that volumes will appear at more frequent intervals now that the Mellows Trust, in the care of the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough Cathedral, is due to appoint a part-time editor to oversee progress. The previous volumes have been published in Latin with brief English summaries. It is now intended to publish in English with parallel Latin for some of the early texts that would otherwise lose some of their subtle meaning. * * * * * Yet again, the future of some of the important family collections held in the Record Office is threatened, and they may not remain with us unless there is urgent action. As reported last year by Sarah Bridges, the County Archivist, the Langham of Cottesbrooke archive has been offered to the Record Office for an asking price negotiated down to £26,000 but this has to be raised by the end of the year. The Office already has an extensive archive relating to the Fermor Hesketh family and Lord Hesketh has generously deposited more 19th and 20th century estate records including a good set of rentals, agents’ diaries and estate accounts. Additionally, two maps were purchased for over £2,000 at the recent sale of the contents of Easton Neston House. One is a fine map of the manor of Easton Neston and Hulcote in 1765 by Francis Wood and the other dates from the 1870s. The 18th-century map is beautifully drawn on parchment and executed in black and green inks. Wood has adorned the corners with an elegant title cartouche, showing the family coat of arms and a landscape scene of sheep by a hedge with a gentleman on horseback talking to a tenant. Another inset shows the principal front of the mansion. The map depicts the houses, cottages and buildings of the manor. It is full of detail, showing the layout of the gardens and avenues, the course of lead pipes supplying water from a spring and two mills on the Tove. It will make an extremely valuable addition to the collection. More importantly, if one is allowed to prioritise collections, the Cartwright of Aynho collection has also recently been offered to the Record Office. This collection has been in the care of the Office since the 1960s. The archive includes a wealth of medieval and early modern material relating to parishes around Aynho where the family owned much property. The Cartwrights were also an important family on the political scene, acting as British ambassadors at various times in the 19th and early 20th century, so the collection is particularly rich in diplomatic papers that detail major events in the development of Europe as we know it today. There is no doubt that certain items would be saleable if offered on the open market. However, the County Archivist is determined to raise the £300,000 required in order that the archive may stay in the county and be kept together for researchers. An awareness-raising campaign will be starting shortly. All offers of help with this, or advice, would be gratefully received. * * * * * The Record Society has produced the first of its ‘third series’ of publications dedicated to the memory of Victor Hatley and partly paid for by the Victor Hatley Memorial Fund. The third series aims to publish, in softback, material too short to fill the biennial volumes or too detailed for NPP. This first volume presents the remarkable memoirs of John Mastin, Vicar of Naseby, written in the third person like Caesar’s Commentaries. Congratulations to Christine Vialls and Kay Collins for editing and preparing the manuscript. As well as the memoirs, the volume contains a reprint of Mastin’s The History and Antiquities of Naseby, 1792. It was launched, appropriately, at Naseby parish church and received good media coverage. 6 northamptonshire past and present Have you used the Record Society Website yet? The address is www. northamptonshirerecordsociety.org.uk and was kindly set up by our member Terry Waterfield. The first page displayed has a list of topics that when ‘clicked’ opens on to separate pages explaining the work of the Society and gives information about events, publications and contacts. Pages are updated from time to time as required. * * * * * My thanks are due to reviewers, some of whom, as so often, have undertaken their task at short notice – a feature of the editing process and printing industry! Apologies to those authors whose works have been kindly sent for review, but for reasons of space the reviews could not, unfortunately, be fitted in this year. Details of the books are given so that members may purchase them, if desired. Thanks are also due to Jean Hall and Leslie Skelton for their help with NPP production. David Hall Notes on contributors Dr Carmel Biggs is a freelance lecturer and early modern historian. She obtained her PhD with De Montfort University in 2001, undertaking the completion of a thesis entitled ‘Kinship, Inheritance, Piety and Gender – An Analysis of the Surviving Wills within Three Northamptonshire Parishes 1543- 1705’. This study analysed the wills, parish registers and hearth tax returns for Kingsthorpe, Blakesley and Castor. Heather Bird is an amateur local historian with an interest in Architectural History. She obtained an MA in Historical Studies from Leicester University in 1991 and a Post graduate Certificate in Architectural History from Oxford in 2003. She has lived in Naseby, Husbands Bosworth and Sibbertoft, all ‘cobwall villages’, hence her interest in this subject. Professor Richard Foulkes was appointed to a lectureship in the University of Leicester Department of Adult Education in 1973. He is now head and Professor of Theatre History in the Department of English at the University of Leicester. His recent publications include: Church and stage in Victorian England (1997), Performing Shakespeare in the Age of Empire (2002) and Lewis Carroll and the Victorian Stage (2005). H. J. K. Jenkins is a maritime historian whose work is published internationally. He regularly speaks at the Institut de Monde Anglophone, Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris University III. He also chairs the Fenlighter Project, based at Peterborough. Sandra Raban was born and brought up in Northamptonshire and is a longtime member of the Council of the Record Society. She is an Emeritus Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Her most recent book is A Second Domesday? The Hundred Rolls of 1279-80 (OUP, 2004). Mike Thornton is a history graduate who spent his working life in the education service. Since retirement he has taken an MA at the Centre for English Local History in the University of Leicester and was subsequently awarded a PhD for a thesis which examines aspects of rural society in late- medieval Northamptonshire. Andrew Wood was born at Kettering where he attended Stamford Road School. Employed within the trade union movement during the 1960s and 70s, he became director of an employment related UK/European training and research foundation during the 1980s and 90s. Now living in North East England, his main retirement academic interests are genealogy and social history. Records of the Past: William Mellows and the Monks of Peterborough SANDRA RABAN William Mellows, who died in 1950, was the moving force behind the publication of the records of Peterborough abbey and cathedral, a task he began himself and then, when it became evident that he would not live to see its completion, he established the Anthony Mellows Memorial Trust to ensure that the work would continue.