The Inclosure of Pitstone Common Wood in 1612 H
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THE INCLOSURE OF PITSTONE COMMON WOOD IN 1612 H. A. HANLEY An episode in the piecemeal extinction of common rights over large areas of the Chi/terns is here traced in detail. The author (who is County Archivist) shows how the defenders of immemorial customary rights were able to mount a delaying action, but no more, against a territorial magnate with the law on his side. Introduction around the thirteenth-century parish church Extensive common woods were found in all (now redundant) just off the Icknield Way. parts of the Chilterns except the north-east in However, archaeological evidence indicates medieval times. They were important in the that by the fourteenth century settlement in economies of both Hill villages and villages in this area had contracted sharply. 3 In later times the Vale below the escarpment, providing, for the village proper is found at Pitstone Green, many small landowners, the principal source of about half a mile to the north of the church, building materials and fuel. These common spread out along the bank of a small brook on woods underwent gradual inclosure after 1550, the edge of a large moor or green. Unambigu• but the process has been much less fully re• ous documentary references to settlement at corded than elsewhere, certainly in the case of Pitstone Green have not been found earlier the Buckinghamshire Chilterns. 1 than the fifteenth century. The reasons for the migration are obscure. The parish had exten• The survival of copious documentation for sive open arable fields which Jay in the Vale the inclosure of an area of common woodland and in the chalk upland part of the parish. in the Chiltern-edge parish of Pitstone in 1612 is thus of particular interest. 2 Fortunately, too, Pitstone Common Wood lay about two miles sufficient information is available for earlier south-east of the parish church on the plateau and later periods to enable the inclosure to be beyond the escarpment in an area of clay-with• seen in historical perspective. The material flint; it was accessible by a hollow way which also throws light on the complex manorial still bears marks of extensive use in times past. structure of the parish and on the social and Alongside the wood to the west was an area of economic effects of inclosure on the parish common heath, still known as Pitstone Com• community. A further feature of interest is the mon; close by were several other extensive involvement in the inclosure of James I's Lord commons and common woods belonging to the Chancellor, Lord Ellesmere. neighbouring parishes of Ivinghoe and Edles• borough in Bucks, and Aldbury and Berk• The Place: The Medieval Background hamsted in Hertfordshire. The narrow tail of In its shape the ancient parish of Pitstone, Pitstone which extended south-east of the otherwise Pightlesthorne, was a classic example Common Wood (it was transferred to Herts in of the elongated 'strip' parish of the Chiltern 1894) formed the hamlet of Nettleden, which escarpment, being fully seven miles in length Jay partly in Ivinghoe parish. From an yet little more than a mile broad at its widest. early date Nettleden possessed most of the The village of Pitstone is on the lower chalk of attributes of a separate parish, including sep• the Vale below the escarpment. For most of arate assessment to national taxes and to the the medieval period the village was grouped poor rate. Nettleden village lay at the southern 175 extremity of the hamlet. Near it was the village to fame being the possession of a relic of the of Frithsden, which was partly in Pitstone and Precious Blood of Christ given by the founder. partly in Berkhamsted. Edmund's foundation charter, confirmed by Edward I in 1285, granted his manors of Ash• The manorial structure of Pitstone was ridge, Pitstone, Heme) Hempsted and Gaddes• equally complicated. Domesday Book had re• den with other lands and privileges including corded five separate holdings totalling 171!2 rights of pasturage and pannage in the woods hides and 3 virgates, all but one stated to be called the Frith in Berkhamsted.7 Among the held 'as one manor'; they were held in chief by witnesses to the charter were Sir John Neyrnut, the Count of Mortain (three holdings), Walter Knight, and Morandus de Pichelesthorn Giffard and Miles Crispin. By the thirteenth (Pitstone). Further grants from the Earl were century these had evolved into four manors made in the following years, while Sir John which in the sixteenth century were known by Neyrnut granted additional lands in Pitstone in the names of Neyrnuts or Neirnuits, Butlers 1285, as well as rights to common pasture in (alias Beseviles) , Morrants and Erie. Of the 'park and new close of Asbridge and its old these Neyrnuts, a manor in the honour of Wall• and new hedges', and the right to fence twelve ingford named from the family which held it feet round the park. 8 before 1399, can tentatively be equated with the Domesday manor of 5 hides held of Miles Each of the five Pitstone holdings in Domes• Crispin by Roger, who was the predecessor of day Book is recorded as having had wood suf• the Neyrnut family elsewhere.4 With it went ficient for a stated number of swine, ranging the advowson of the church of Pitstone until its from ten for the one hide held by Fulcold of the alienation in 1381. Butlers, in the honour of Count of Mortain, to forty each for the Giffard Giffard, can be associated with the Domesday and Crispin manors, making a grand total of manor of 5 1/ 2 hides held of Walter Giffard by 150 swine. Ralf, whose descendants subinfeudated it to the Besevile family. Its overlordship passed to After Domesday no further explicit refer• the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury. Part of the ences to woods in Pitstone are found until the sixteenth-century manor house of Butlers still late fourteenth century. When it is found, the survives within a moated site a short distance evidence shows the existence of a common to the east of the church. Erie, a small manor wood and also of restrictions on its exploita• of obscure origins, is commemorated by the tion. The earliest relevant grant, dated 1379, present Yardley Farm, a solitary farmstead to refers to a tenement with 15 1/2 acres of land the north of Pitstone Green. 5 lying dispersed in the fields of Pitstone and four cart loads of wood to be taken at every Morrants, whose name probably derives felling. 9 Another deed of 1422 grants 21/2 acres from a tenant, may have originated in the of open field land and 'half a cartload of wood three hides held by Ralf of the Count of Mor• in the common wood of Pitstone to be taken tain. It descended in the Chenduit family to always at the half felling there' .10 Grants of the Ulian Chenduit. Ulian granted 'his manor of manor of Erie and lands in 1403, 1450, 1533 Asbridge with Pitstone' with the park of the and 1534 refer to 16 loads of firewood in manor in Berkhamsted St Peter and Pitstone, Pitstone Wood. u to Edmund, Earl of Cornwall, who used it to endow his monastery of Ashridge in Pitstone, The most important evidence concerning the founded in 1283. 6 The monastery, which stood Common Wood at this period is the document on the high ground to the south-east of known as the Wood Book which sets forth Pitstone Common Wood in Nettleden hamlet, entitlement to wood. The document is written within easy reach of the Earl's castle of Berk• in Latin and undated, but from internal evi• hamsted, was a college of Bonhommes, one of dence must have been drawn up between 1370 only two such houses in England. It was a small and 1399.12 It is endorsed in a later hand 'A house of some twenty brethren, its chief claim Book of Wood Consernynge Pychesthorne' and 176 z" ~ > - ~-.. ..... ""'I., z 0 1- 0 z a..... Fig. 1. The ancient parish of Pitstone before the boundary changes of the late nineteenth century.Fig. 1. The ancient parish of Pitstone before the boundary changes late nineteenth century. Pits tone PitsCommon and the Wood were situated within 'bulge' immediately south-east of Duncombe toneFarm. Adapted from index map to the published O.S. Book of Reference for'Pitstone parish, 1879. Scale 1 inch to mile. 177 Common and the Common Wood were situated within the 'bulge' immediately south-east of Duncombe Farm. Adapted from index map to the published O.S. Book of Reference for'Pitstone parish, 1879. Scale of 1 inch to 1 mile. 177 I \ ) ' I '~ .-1 \ I I L. \ I I \ J \ I I ,... I I / I I Beacon Hill 1 I I \ 0 -t• ~ (~···· ·-1"i )> ···,/ ~ D H~ A ~1Trrscorp =Rood ----Parish boundary ~ Woodland t Church Two milf's -------' Fig. 2. The Chi! tern area of the Bucks/Herts border around Ash ridge showing the modern parish boundaries. FroJU W. R. Mead, 'Pehr Kalm in the Chilterns', in Acta Geographica, 17. 178 has no other heading. It consists simply of a list been identified but her name suggests that she of names and amounts in terms of cart loads was tenant of the Asbridge manor of Morrants, ranging from half a load to eight loads. There or at any rate of its demesne lands. The monas• are 84 entries in all, totalling 143 loads. The tery itself is not mentioned in the Wood Book. breakdown is as shown in Table 1.