Meonstoke's "glittering" past by Carolyn Hughes

All the historical novelists I’ve met seem to enjoy researching their books almost as much as writing them – some even more so. Documentary sources are manifold, and what you need to use depends of course on what you need to know. Some authors need to pore over original ancient documents in libraries or archives. If you are writing a novel that depends on the accuracy of the history, or demands insight into the life of a real person, then such delving into original sources is obviously an essential part of ensuring the novel, albeit fiction, can be judged as a good, authentic representation of the times and the people.

For my own novels, The Meonbridge Chronicles, recorded history is not, for the most part, a fundamental aspect of the stories but rather a background against which they are set. Neither my setting nor my characters are real, so I am at liberty to make up everything about them. But that is not to say I don’t strive for authenticity in the way I write about the people and the time – of course I do. Research into the medieval way of life is still very important for me. And I have dozens of books to help me, acquired over the years I have been writing historical fiction. But I do use online resources too, with a suitable degree of circumspection about their likely veracity.

But one online source I do return to time and time again, not because it tells me much about my characters’ “way of life”, but because it gives access to a wealth of fascinating documents that offer all sorts of snippets of information that can feed your imagination as a novelist, is British History Online (BHO).

I first posted a version of this on The History Girls blog back in July 2017, but I thought the idea was worth reprising, for those readers who don’t know about BHO, but also because what I learned about the history of the nearby village of Meonstoke I continue to find deeply fascinating and hope you might too. Alternatively, you might want to explore what BHO has to tell you about the history of your own village, county, town or city.

Browsing the British History Online website can while away many a happy hour in a fascinating, sometimes surprising, experience. If you don’t know of it, BHO is a digital library of key printed primary and secondary sources for the history of Britain and Ireland, with a primary focus on the period between 1300 and 1800.

The website offers an astonishing number of documents. To pick at random from the catalogue index, just to show the sort of documents available…

EXAMPLE 1: Feet of Fines, Sussex

Feet of fines are court copies of agreements following disputes over property. In reality, the disputes were mostly fictitious and were simply a way of having the transfer of ownership of land recorded officially by the king’s court. The records in this series relate to the county of Sussex for the period 1190-1509. I’d need to brush up on my Latin to make sense of the Edward I volumes, although those for Edward III are in English…

‘Sussex Fines: 21-25 Edward I (nos. 1072-1118)’, in An Abstract of Feet of Fines For the County of Sussex: Vol. 2, 1249-1307,
ed. L F Salzmann (Lewes, 1908), pp. 159-169.
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

‘Sussex Fines: 11-15 Edward III’, in An Abstract of Feet of Fines For the County of Sussex: Vol. 3, 1308-1509,
ed. L F Salzmann (Lewes, 1916), pp. 88-102.
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

EXAMPLE 2: Calendar of Close Rolls - Edward III (14 volumes)

The Close Rolls record “letters close”, that is, letters sealed and folded because they were of a personal nature, issued by the Chancery in the name of a particular king or queen. They usually contained orders or instructions. These “calendars” provide summaries full enough, for most purposes, to replace the original documents. However, these particular documents are designated on the BHO as “premium content” and require a subscription to access that I don’t have, but would surely be of great interest to anyone researching into the lives of a particular monarch.

EXAMPLE 3: The Medieval Records of A London City Church St Mary At Hill, 1420-155

Edited by Henry Littlehales, these records were first published by the Early English Text Society in 1905. They are churchwardens’ accounts for the St Mary At Hill parish. The records are at their fullest for the period from 1480 onwards. The volume also has an extensive introduction, detailing the history and liturgical practice of the church, and the impact of the Reformation. Looking at this page, you’d clearly need to understand the notation used for the accounts, but it’s potentially fascinating stuff!

The Medieval Records of A London City Church St Mary At Hill, 1420-1559,
ed. Henry Littlehales (London, 1905),
See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

Anyway, the part of BHO that I generally head for is the Victoria County History for Hampshire. A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3: Edited by William Page. This covers eastern Hampshire, including Portsmouth, Southampton, Petersfield and Havant, and was originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1908. See British History Online [accessed 7th May 2023].

The Victoria County History was begun in 1899 and dedicated to Queen Victoria. Organised by county, it provides a vast and detailed record of England’s places and people over many centuries. It has been described as the greatest publishing project in English local history, and it certainly does provide a wealth of information.

The entries I return to in the Victoria County History are those for the Hundred of Meonstoke in the Meon Valley, and the Parishes of Meonstoke.

If you'd like to look them up, see: 'The hundred of Meonstoke: Introduction', in A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3, pp. 245-246. British History Online and ‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, in A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 3, pp. 254-257. British History Online.

The information IS old, of course, written in the nineteenth to early twentieth century. It isn’t brought up to date, as far as I know. But, if the information you are looking for is about the fourteenth century or earlier, as is true for me, that really doesn’t matter.

A “hundred” was a division of the shire. Hundred boundaries were independent of both parish and county boundaries, though they were often aligned, so a hundred could be split between counties, or a parish could be split between hundreds. The Meonstoke Hundred contained a number of parishes and some tithings that were part of other parishes.

The setting for my Meonbridge Chronicles is not actually Meonstoke, but I have a sense that “Meonbridge” lies broadly in the area occupied by Meonstoke and its neighbouring villages, so I was interested to read what the History could tell me about these villages and their development over time. I don’t necessarily use much if any of what I’ve learned in my novels, but research is a thrill in its own right, isn’t it? Just reading this kind of stuff can be a delight.

Various things drew my interest…

For example, the way the structure of the hundred changed over time. At Domesday, Meonstoke consisted of ten parishes, and a tithing from another parish/hundred but, by 1316, it was down to four parishes – Meonstoke, Soberton, Warnford, and Corhampton – plus three tithings from three other and different hundreds (‘The hundred of Meonstoke: Introduction’, Paragraph p3).

Then there is the way that the names of places changed over time, or perhaps were simply recorded with different spellings. So, for example, Meonstoke was Menestoche in the 11th century, Mienestoch or Mionstoke in the 12th; Manestoke or Menestoke in the 13th; Munestoke, Munestokes, Maonestoke or Moenestoke in the 14th (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p1).

But perhaps what really drew my attention about Meonstoke were the names of some of the owners of its manors – including both illustrious and notorious individuals – which give Meonstoke a seemingly glittering past that sits somewhat strangely with the rather peaceful, out-of-the-way, “backwater” it might appear to be…

The “glitter” derives perhaps from the fact that Meonstoke was always part of the king’s demesne. It formed part of the lands of King Edward the Confessor, and, at the time of the Domesday Survey, being part of the crown’s demesne, it was not assessed. But, in the reign of Henry III, it was divided into three portions and, from then until the 14th century, there were three manors of Meonstoke – Meonstoke Tour, Meonstoke Ferrand and Meonstoke Waleraund (later Meonstoke Perrers), each with a distinct history (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p4).

Effigy of William Edington in Winchester Cathedral.
By Ealdgyth [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Meonstoke Tour was land granted by Henry III to one Geoffrey Peverel but, in 1240, it was back again in the hands of the king, who then granted it to his serjeant Henry de la Tour. The manor remained in the hands of the de la Tour family from then until 1353, when it was sold to no less a personage than William de Edendon (or Edington or Edyngton – medieval spelling was not consistent!), the Bishop of Winchester. In 1366, the then king, Edward III, wanting to reward William for his long service, tried to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury, but William was already in failing health and he declined the honour. He died in the October in nearby Bishop’s Waltham, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral. The new bishop was William of Wykeham (a Meon Valley man, born in Wickham, and one of the area’s most illustrious sons), who bought the manor from de Edendon’s executors and merged it and the other two manors back into a single “Meonstoke” manor (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p7).

Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain and Bishop of Winchester, William of Wykeham (1320-1404).
Engraving by Charles Grignion (1754-1804).
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. 

Meonstoke Ferrand’s land was granted by Henry III to his Gascon crossbowman Ferrand in about 1233. A Ferrand then held the land until 1305, when it was sold to John de Drokensford, who was bishop of Bath and Wells. For the next fifty years, Drokensfords held the manor, until it seems to have been sold as part of a larger transfer of messuages (dwellings with their adjacent buildings and lands), other land and mills by one Maurice le Bruyn. The buyer we have met already – William de Edendon (Edyington, Edington…), the bishop of Winchester. After his death, Meonstoke Ferrand was also bought by his successor, William of Wykeham, who merged it with the other manors (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p6).

And so we come to Meonstoke Waleraund, or Meonstoke Perrers, as it later became. And this is the story in the BHO that particularly intrigued me because of its second name… It is first mentioned as a separate manor in 1224, and was held briefly by a de Percy but, in 1229, Henry III granted it to one Fulk de Montgomery. But, two years later, Fulk sold it to Sir John Maunsell, who obtained a grant of a weekly Monday market in Meonstoke and a yearly fair on the “vigil, feast, and morrow” of St. Margaret, and, two years later, also a grant of free warren (permission from the king to kill certain game within a stipulated area) in all his lands in Hampshire.

Sir John was a favourite of the young King Henry III and is thought to have obtained vast numbers of benefices all over the country, perhaps more than any other clergyman, including the provost of Beverley, in 1247, the livings of Howden, Bawburgh and Haughley, the prebendaries of South Malling, Tottenhall, Chinchester [sic – I assume Chichester], the dean of Wimborne, the rector of Wigan, and the chancellorship of St. Paul’s, London, as well as papal chaplain and chaplain of the King. He also served as the Lord Chancellor of England. A powerful man indeed!

Statue of Simon de Montfort on the Haymarket Memorial Clock Tower in Leicester.
By NotFromUtrecht [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons

But when Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, grew in power, King Henry was forced, apparently against his will, to deprive Sir John of his possessions, granting them to Simon in 1263. Although, another story says that it was after the battle of Lewes in May 1264, when de Montfort defeated Henry and took power, that he deprived Sir John of all his lands. Whether the “deprival” included Meonstoke I am not clear, but perhaps it was at one time owned by the notorious de Montfort.

However, after the battle of Evesham in 1265, when de Montfort himself was defeated, Sir John was already dead, and Meonstoke passed to another de Percy. But, only three years later, he sold it to Robert Waleraund, and the manor remained in the hands of Waleraunds or their descendants until perhaps 1370 or thereabouts, when the manor escheated (was returned) to the king, Edward III. And he then granted it to trustees for the use of his mistress, the famous, or infamous, Alice Perrers, at which point the manor came to be called Meonstoke Perrers.

Detail of an imagining of Alice Perrers and Edward III by Ford Madox Brown (1868),
showing Chaucer reading to the king’s court.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Whether or not Alice ever visited her new manor of Meonstoke Perrers I have no idea, as I believe she had many manors to choose from to rest her head, but it is nice to imagine that she might have spent a night or two at least in the lazy backwaters of the Meon Valley…

However, in 1376, the “Good” Parliament banished Alice and deprived her of her possessions, although in the following year, the “Bad” Parliament reversed the decree and she regained them. But then, in the first Parliament of Richard II, the sentence against her was reconfirmed, and Meonstoke escheated once more to the crown. The manor was put into the hands of stewards until 1379, when the sentence against Alice was yet again revoked, and the manor was granted to her husband, William de Windsor. But, only months later, he sold it to our friend William of Wykeham, bishop of Winchester (and also chancellor to both Edward III and Richard II), who merged it with the two other Meonstoke manors and eventually granted it to his foundation, Winchester College (‘Parishes: Meonstoke’, Paragraph p5).

This must have been the lot of hundreds of manors throughout the country – this toing and froing between owners as their status soared and dived at the whim of those in power. One wonders what the tenants thought of it all? Probably nothing. It was no concern of theirs. They undoubtedly just kept their heads down and got on with their work. I suppose, in many cases, tenants scarcely knew their “lord”, if he or she was of the absentee type, as I am sure all of those I have mentioned here must have been. As far as tenants were concerned, their masters were the reeve and steward or bailiff, and their own lives were lived with no connection to the, possibly illustrious, person who actually benefited from the results of their labours.

Most of this information is pretty “random” and, as it happens, has proved of no use to me in my novels. But that doesn’t stop me finding it hugely fascinating. I have explored the histories of other villages around this part of Hampshire, with some equally intriguing, if not necessarily such “glittering”, results.

If you are interested in the history of old England, you might too find something to intrigue you in British History Online.

Inspirational homes (2) by Carolyn Hughes

“Inspirational homes” might suggest a strapline blazoned across the front of a glossy décor magazine. But the sort of inspiration I’m talking about here is where real-life ancient buildings “inspire” me in my descriptions of the homes of the characters in my novels, which are set in 14th century southern England.

Last month, I discussed two buildings, found at the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum in West Sussex, that are my inspiration for the homes of rural peasants. Today, I am going to discuss two houses of somewhat higher standing: one the home of a well-to-do farming family and the other that of a wealthy Southampton merchant.

Both of these wealthier homes have two storeys, with a main “hall” downstairs and a “solar”, a private area for the family, upstairs. Both have additional rooms and, by comparison with the cottages, are really very spacious. Yet such homes would still be draughty and cold underfoot, the hearth might still be in the middle of the floor (though chimneys were beginning to be installed in wealthier homes), and the windows might still be pretty small and were almost certainly unglazed.

The Bayleaf Farmstead, again at the Weald and Downland Museum, is a reconstruction of an early 15th century hall-house, and is typical of “Wealden” houses, common in the Weald of Kent and East Sussex, which were mostly built by prosperous yeoman farmers or well-off craftsmen and tradesmen in towns.

Keith Edkins / Bayleaf wealden house / CC BY-SA 2.0

Bayleaf comes from Chiddingstone, about 10 miles (16 km) north-west of Tunbridge Wells in Kent. The house is timber-framed with a tiled roof, and is constructed with four bays, two of which form the central hall, full height to the rafters. The outer bays are both two-storey, and the upper rooms have “jetties” to the front of the house. To one side of the central hall is what is referred to as the “parlour”, with a solar upstairs. On the other side of the hall are ground floor service rooms, with a large chamber on the first floor.

The main door of the house opens into a cross passage, which separates the central hall from the service rooms, and has a door at its other end leading to the rear of the house.

The central hall is significantly bigger than the two peasants’ cottages I described last month. It is open to the rafters, and has a rather grand double-height – but unglazed – window, with hinged and folding internal shutters, that provides good light for the dining table. Overall the effect is impressive. Nonetheless, this hall does still have a central hearth, shown as a rectangle of bricks more or less in the middle of the floor. Because, I suppose, the room is bigger than the halls in the peasant cottages, the smoke from the fire – which was burning nicely when I visited – did not seem quite so unpleasant. The smoke was rising upwards (rather than billowing), escaping perhaps through the small gabled opening in the roof ridge, although, as I have read elsewhere, it is possible that much of the smoke simply finds its way out through gaps between the roof tiles.

While this central hall is still the main living area, there are other “living rooms” (in contrast to the peasant cottages): the parlour to one side of the hall and the solar above it. The family was not obliged to spend their whole lives in this one room, grand as it is. It would certainly be the dining room, and where the family would receive guests, and where everyday domestic tasks might be carried out. But sleeping would be done elsewhere – probably upstairs – and perhaps family members could escape from each other occasionally to the parlour.

It is thought that initially some cooking may have taken place on the fire in the hall but, by the 16th century, the kitchen, used for brewing and baking as well as cooking meals, would have been in a separate building, for safety’s sake.

The furniture and furnishing in Bayleaf’s hall reflects the relative wealth of the occupants. The wide trestle table is laid with a cloth, the bench and stools are well made. There is a decorated cupboard, with pewter ware displayed, and a solid storage chest. Curtains hang on the walls behind the table, presumably for decoration but also to combat draughts.

On the other side of the cross passage, doors lead into the service rooms: the buttery, used mainly for storing vessels and utensils, and the pantry, used for storing food. A stairway at the back leads up to the chamber above, its original use being unknown, but perhaps used as a bedchamber for servants and/or the older children of the family.

At the other side of the hall, an opening by the high table – closed with a curtain rather than a wooden door – leads to the “parlour”. The downstairs room may have been used for sleeping, storage and work, such as spinning for the lady of the house and accounts for the master. The room upstairs, the “solar”, was probably where the family slept, that is, the master, his wife and their younger children. Older children might have slept in the parlour or perhaps in the service chamber at the other side of the house.

Interestingly, the upstairs solar is shown with its own privy. The museum says that the reconstruction of this privy is conjectural, but it is not unlikely. A small jetty at the back of the room indicates where the privy might have been. Typically, the latrine emptied onto the midden heap or into an open cesspit or a covered conduit. Sometimes such privies were installed in a room referred to as a “garderobe”, essentially a wardrobe, on the principle that the odour of urine kept pests away from valuable clothing. This doesn’t seem to be the case here. However, if the reconstruction is anything to go by, this privy was exceedingly draughty, but perhaps preferable to finding your way outdoors to the privy in the garden!

   

Oast House Archive / Jettied Toilet of Bayleaf House / CC BY-SA 2.0

Oast House Archive / Toilet of Bayleaf House / CC BY-SA 2.0

The furniture in the parlour and solar reflects the rooms’ most likely use, with beds and storage chests. The “best” bed in the solar chamber is a wonderful robust four-poster, with a ceiling (a “tester”) and curtains for privacy and to keep out draughts. The bed in the parlour is of a simpler design without the posts or hangings. The principal bed is shown with a truckle, a bed on wheels that slides underneath the larger bed, often used by the younger children.

Bayleaf is a beautiful house. I often have it in my mind when I’m thinking about the homes of the more well-to-do in my novels.

I also love the late 13th century Mediaeval Merchant’s House in French Street, Southampton, managed by English Heritage. The shape and style of this house sometimes merges with that of Bayleaf in my head when I’m thinking about the homes of my wealthier characters, although this merchant’s house is clearly more of a town house than Bayleaf.

Medieval Merchant's House, Southampton
By Geni - Photo by user:geni, CC BY-SA 4.0

The house was built in about 1290 by John Fortin, a prosperous merchant, and has survived largely intact. The main walls of the house were built of limestone but the overhanging bay at the front of the house is timber-framed. The roof is of Cornish slate.

This house does have some similarities with Bayleaf: it is spacious, has private family rooms and its furniture is well-made and relatively elaborate. But this house also acted as business premises for the owner, for it has a shop at the front and a room at the back that was probably used as an office, as well as an undercroft beneath the house for the storage of the merchant’s goods: barrels of wine! A wooden sign in the shape of a wine barrel hangs from the projecting upper chamber, alerting potential customers to the goods on offer here.

The front door beside the shop front leads into a narrow passage, with a door off it into the shop, and a door ahead leading into the private accommodation. The shop has unglazed windows but also shutters which can be let down to form a shop counter to the street. The shop itself is kitted out as a wine store, but I think that customers probably did not enter the shop, making their purchases from the counter.

Beyond the inner passage door, the passage leads on to an opening to the central hall, which, as with all the other houses, was the main living room, where the family ate and entertained, and carried out their everyday tasks. As with all the houses, the room is open to the rafters. It has relatively large windows, unglazed but protected by shutters. It has a 14th century chimney, although when the house was first built it would have had a central hearth. But wall fireplaces were becoming more common by the mid-14th century, perhaps particularly in towns. Relatively spacious as this room is, one cannot help but wonder at the inconvenience of having a fire in the middle of the floor, especially for the mistress of the house, as she swept past it with her long skirts, never mind the unpleasantness of the smoke! The arrival of chimneys must have seemed a wonderful innovation.

Medieval Merchant's House - HallBy Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

The passage continues on to a private room, probably used by the merchant as his office, which also has a fireplace. It is thought that a door led from this room to an external latrine.

The furniture in the hall consists of a long trestle table, a grand, painted throne-like chair for the master of the house, and a bench for his family. There is an elaborately carved and, surprisingly perhaps, brightly painted, cupboard, together with a couple of storage chests, hangings on the walls and an array of jugs and utensils on display. In the “office” is another table with stools, and yet another decorated cupboard and a chest.

Medieval Merchant's House - "Office"By Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Rising from the central hall, a substantial staircase takes you upstairs to the solar, where there are two chambers, located either side of the open hall and connected by a gallery that overlooks the hall below. The room at the back of the house is probably the bedchamber for the family, the one at the front for guests and perhaps also used as a day room by the women of the family, where the light from the relatively large window would be good for spinning or sewing.

The back bedchamber is furnished as a place for the whole family to sleep. The beds have testers and curtains, like the principal bed in Bayleaf, there is a very sturdy rocking cradle, a stool and elaborately carved and painted storage chests. There might have been a door leading to the external latrine tower.

Medieval Merchant's House - BedchamberBy Hchc2009 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

So Bayleaf and the merchant’s house in Southampton represent the homes of comparatively wealthy mediaeval people. They afforded a little more privacy for their occupants than the peasant cottages, although children still slept with their parents, or perhaps with servants, so privacy remained limited. These two houses are also much lighter than the peasant cottages, with their larger windows, but the windows were still unglazed and therefore draughty until the shutters were closed, plunging the rooms into gloom. Heating in the merchant’s house, with two fireplaces downstairs, would no doubt have seemed a great improvement over the smoky central hearth of Bayleaf. But there was no heating in any of the upstairs rooms and I assume that all the downstairs rooms would have had floors of beaten earth so I am sure these houses must have been pretty chilly for all their relative sophistication. 

Nonetheless, they surely represented luxury compared to the peasant cottages we saw last month. Next month, I will look at one house that represents the homes of the gentry – a manor house, if a fairly grand one. True luxury, perhaps?

Inspirational homes (1) by Carolyn Hughes

“Inspirational homes” might put you in mind of a strapline blazoned across the front of a glossy interior décor magazine, but that’s not the sort of inspiration I’m going to talk about. In this post, and my next two, I thought I’d reveal a little about the real-life buildings that “inspire” me as I write about the homes in which my characters spend their lives.

In my novels, set in 14th century southern England, my characters are peasants, artisans of various sorts, and the gentry. The peasants might be poor or wealthy, and free or unfree, so some are on the lowest rung of village society, whereas others, even if they owe service to their lord, are well off enough to be the equivalent of a middle class.

Depending on their station in life, these people would have lived in:

• One-roomed cottages, barely better than hovels, in which every part of life for a family was spent in the same space;
• Bigger two- or three-roomed cottages, perhaps with a platform for sleeping and possibly small storage spaces;
• Houses with two storeys, a hall downstairs, and a solar upstairs for sleeping accessed by a narrow staircase;
• Large manor houses with several rooms, but still centred on a main great hall, and with a solar perhaps divided into chambers. Some manor houses might be fortified. 

Above and beyond the manor houses there were of course great castles, but I have none of those kind of aristocratic folk in my novels, so I need no castles to inspire me!

To get some idea of what 14th century homes might look – and indeed feel – like, I am very fortunate to have quite close by, in West Sussex, the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, a living museum, whose mission is to rescue and conserve historic buildings from across the south of England. Buildings are saved from being demolished, or from simply falling down, by being carefully dismantled and rebuilt on the museum’s site. The museum has more than fifty buildings, spanning nine centuries. Most are open for you to go inside, so that you can get a real feel for what it was like to live and work in them. The museum is a wonderful resource.

As also is English Heritage, which manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and other places of historical interest, including both some modest homes and wonderful castles.

The buildings I am going to discuss in these posts can be visited either at the Weald and Downland Museum or at an English Heritage site.

Today I am going to discuss the homes at the bottom end of the scale, peasants’ cottages. Because they were the homes of the poor, and were often built of materials that were given to decay – timber, wattle and daub, thatch – few such buildings survive to the present day. Of course some houses with origins in the Middle Ages are still standing, but they were likely to have been constructed of stone, and presumably will have been maintained and refurbished over the centuries to keep them structurally sound.

Two of the five mediaeval houses re-erected at the Weald and Downland Museum are the 13th century cottage from Hangleton in Sussex and a house from Boarhunt in Hampshire that dates from the 14th century. These are both small peasant houses.

Some peasant houses might have been designed to accommodate animals in one end of the building, but that is not the case with either of these. It must be presumed that animals would have been kept in a separate byre or barn.

The two-room cottage from Hangleton is a flint cottage reconstructed using archaeological evidence from excavation of the mediaeval village. The cottage was probably built in the 13th century and abandoned in the 14th. Hangleton itself, which is about 4 miles (6.5 km) north-west of Brighton, seems to have been already in decline by the middle of the 14th century as a result of the climatic and economic upheavals of the early part of the century. The arrival of what we call the Black Death in 1348-1350 might have been the last straw.

Oast House Archive/Mediaeval Cottage at Weald & Downland Museum,
Singleton, West Sussex/CC BY-SA 2.0

Although this is an entirely flint-built cottage, other cottages from the area were built with a framework of wooden posts, and the spaces between filled with wattle and daub, though later this was replaced with flint. The walls of this cottage are about three or four feet (one to one and a half metres) high. Above the eaves is the timber framework of the roof, which is covered in thick straw thatch, although apparently the roof could have been wooden shingles or turf, some other type of thatch, or possibly even clay tiles.

The cottage has two rooms. The main room is where the family – on average five people – would have lived their entire lives: cooking their food, eating it, sleeping and carrying out all the essential tasks of everyday life. It must have been very cramped! I don’t have the exact dimensions, but I don’t think it can be much more than 15 feet (3 metres) square.

The second room has an oven, which is not usual for an ordinary cottage at a time when villagers were expected to have their bread baked in the lord’s oven, but perhaps the occupier of this house was a baker...

Most of the homes at this time (even relatively wealthy ones) would have had a hearth in the middle of the floor of the main (or only) room, and this is true of the main room here. A circular stone hearth has been laid on the floor, not quite in the middle but somewhat to one side. The room is open to the rafters, and the smoke from the fire would have risen and found its way out through the thatch. Most people assume that there would have been a hole of some sort in the roof’s ridge through which the smoke escaped, but I have read that the gaps in the thatch would have provided sufficient egress. It is also said that the smoke was good for keeping the thatch insect free, though I daresay creepy-crawlies were pretty abundant in mediaeval cottages.

The museum has dressed the room with a couple of small tables, a bench and a few stools, a fairly strong-looking chest, perhaps for storing linen, clothes and any valuables, and an array of baskets, tubs and cooking and eating utensils. Tools and other items are shown hanging from the rafters, or stored on the top of the wall, but there is clearly little space for much in the way of furniture or possessions. No bed is shown here, so we must assume that the family would lay down their pallets when they were ready for bed, at a suitable distance from the open hearth.

There is just one small window and, of course, it is not glazed. It has vertical struts offering a measure of security, and a sort of blind – oiled cloth perhaps – has been installed to keep out the weather. I suppose that a shutter might have been added for greater protection, but one isn’t shown here. It must have been very dark indoors, even with the blind open, and exceedingly gloomy with it closed. Given that these poor folk’s only source of light after sundown was the fire and smelly tallow candles or feeble rushlights, one presumes that, as soon as evening came there was no point trying do anything other than rolling out their straw pallets and seeking sleep!

I have spent a day (well, more like a few hours) in this little cottage, dressed in medieval clothes, learning how to spin, crouching round that central hearth, making soup (“sowpys dorry”) and cheese pottage. I discovered how very hot and smoky it was inside, and thought that maybe I wouldn’t have much enjoyed being a 14th century peasant...

The author, enjoying being "mediaeval" for the day

The “hall house” from Boarhunt, 7 miles (11 km) north of Portsmouth, in Hampshire, dates from the late 14th century (1355–1390). It is a bit larger than the Hangleton cottage, having three bays, and is built with a cruck frame over the middle of the central hall. In the museum’s view, this building was particularly well constructed for its size.

Keith Edkins / Boarhunt Hall / CC BY-SA 2.0

The central bay is the main living room – the “hall” – again with the hearth in the middle of the floor. The hearth is shown as a rectangle, taking up a surprisingly large portion of the space available. The roof timbers in this central hall show the blackening effects of smoke from the open fire. Although this is a somewhat larger house than Hangleton, the main living area is still quite small, say 20 feet (just over 6 metres) square. The furniture used to dress the hall is much the same as for Hangleton, and again there is no sign of a bed.

It is thought that the bay to the right of the main entrance was probably a service or storage room, while the third room accessed by a door to the left of the hall is thought to be a “solar”, a private room. This inner room has no windows, so perhaps it was simply used for sleeping. It was also completely sealed off from the smoke-filled hall, whereas the service room was only separated from the hall by a screen below cross-beam level.

I have spent time in both these buildings so, when I am writing about peasant cottages in my novels, I can recall what it felt like to be inside them and I try to replicate that feeling in my descriptions of domestic life. Some of my peasant characters do live in one- or two-room cottages, while others' houses might be a little larger. I have seen it conjectured that some people might have constructed sleeping platforms under the rafters and, liking that idea, I have given one or two of my families that arrangement. It would seem to me to be a safer place to sleep than clustered around the hearth, though it would presumably be quite unpleasantly smoky up there!

I think it would be true to say that, for mediaeval peasants, their homes would mostly be cramped from lack of space, dark from a lack of windows, smoky from the central hearth and, in bad weather, cold, draughty and damp. But I suppose that, if you know no different, you would accept that level of discomfort as simply normal, and be grateful that at least you had a place of your own in which to eat and sleep and spend time with your family.

Next time, I will discuss homes of a somewhat higher standing: one belonging to a wealthy farmer and another built by a Souhampton wine merchant.

Warnford: a village of two halves? by Carolyn Hughes

After last month’s excursion into the topic of language in historical fiction, today I am continuing my series of blogs about the history of the Meon Valley in Hampshire.

I have mentioned the little village of Warnford in previous posts, in particular my post, Lost worlds, changed lives: life beyond the Black Death. Discussing how the shape of the countryside changed in the centuries following the Black Death, I referred to the creation of parks on great estates – “emparking” – and showed how some estate owners, seeing a great country house and a fashionable park to set it in as a visible expression of their wealth, were more than willing to evict their tenants to realise their ambitions. Although some owners simply evicted their tenants and expected them to fend for themselves, others built their tenants a new village outside the estate. And Warnford is an example of a village where it is thought that the existing settlement was moved to a new site, to enable the creation of the landscaped park, though exactly when it happened isn’t clear. The still standing church and the ruins of the medieval manor house are evidence of the location of the original village.

I was interested to explore Warnford a little further, and in particular some of its buildings...

The parish of Warnford lies between West Meon and Exton, mainly along the main south-north road (the A32), which follows the line of the River Meon, though outlying areas of the parish climb up to the downs. Warnford Park lies to the east of the road and has the river running through it, whilst the village pub, the 17th century George and Falcon, and the majority of the village’s houses lie on the north and west side of the road.

The parish is now very small, with a population of around 220, but is well-known for its extensive watercress beds, which are fed from the waters of the River Meon. At the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, Warnford was relatively large. It consisted of two manors, both held from St Peter’s Abbey (Winchester) by Hugh de Port, an Anglo-French Norman aristocrat who amassed a great number of properties throughout the south of England, and in particular in Hampshire, possibly as many as fifty-three all told at the time of Domesday.

One manor had eight hides (1 hide=120 acres) and a mill, and its population consisted of eight villagers and six smallholders and their families, and six slaves. The other manor had seven hides, two mills and the church, and was inhabited by the families of 31 villagers and nine smallholders, and six slaves. This is presumably the manor that eventually became the Warnford Park estate, as it had the church and two of the mills.

Those population numbers for Warnford might equate to roughly 250 people, which made it actually quite a large place for those times – bigger in the 11th century in terms of its population than any other Meon Valley village except East Meon, in contrast to the present day, when it is one of the smallest.

The four buildings I am going to discuss all lie in the Park: the Church of Our Lady, the 13th century ruin of King John’s House which stands close to the church, the long-demolished Warnford Park House, and the Paper Mill building.

Paper Mill

Domesday claimed three mills for Warnford. Today there seems to be evidence of the locations of two of them. One is the remains of a water wheel at a small weir a short distance from the church in the middle of the Park. The other is a restored paper mill building, also in the Park, presumably built on the site of one of the mills referred to in Domesday. This mill was one of the earliest, if not the earliest, paper mill in Hampshire. It was built around 1618 by the then owner of Warnford, Sir Thomas Neale, and paper was made at Warnford for at least 170 years, though by 1816 it had stopped working, perhaps due to the technical changes in the industry that led to the establishment in the country as a whole of far fewer but much larger mills. Currently the building has been restored and is available as a bed and breakfast.

Paper mill at Warnford © Ashok Vaidya
https://catalogue.millsarchive.org/watermill-warnford-park-2

Church of Our Lady

Warnford’s parish church, the Church of Out Lady, stands in the middle of Warnford Park, isolated for centuries from the village it once served. It is presumed that this isolation occurred, as already mentioned, when the owners moved the village to its present location outside the park, though exactly when this happened isn’t clear.

The Church of Our Lady in Warnford Park. Hampshire.
© Simon Burchell

It has been suggested that the original church in Warnford was founded by Saint Wilfrid in the 7th century, during the years when he was bringing Christianity to the heathenish people of the Meon Valley. When the original church was built in Saxon times, the people who came to worship here would have belonged to the Jutish Meonwara tribe who, according to Bede, were “ignorant of the name and faith of God”.

In 1190, when Adam de Port, son of Hugh, decided to rebuild the church, he must have believed that it had a particular association with the saint, for he had a stone tablet inscribed in Latin to record the fact. Today, the tablet sits below what is thought to be a Saxon sun dial. The words on it are:

“Brethren, bless in your prayers the founders of this temple: Wulfric who founded it and good Adam who restored it”

The circular sun-dial is set on a square stone, with leaves carved at the corners, similar to the dial at Corhampton (described here). It is probably also of Saxon date. One presumes it was once on an outside wall which was at some point covered by the 13th century? porch.

Within the church itself is a monument to the family of Sir Thomas Neale, the man who built the paper mill referred to above. The monument has alabaster effigies of Thomas and his two wives lying beneath a panelled canopy. Around the base are the kneeling figures of two sons and seven daughters, four of whom are, somewhat gruesomely, holding skulls, showing that they died before their parents.

© Copyright Mike Searle under Creative Commons Licence.

There’s also a rather grisly gravestone in the churchyard. In the 19th century, George Lewis was the estate carpenter, and used to cut down trees on a Sunday even though he was apparently warned against the ungodly practice. But in 1830, George, persisting in felling trees on the Sabbath, was hit by a tumbling branch and died. His gravestone illustrates his foolhardiness!

© Copyright Basher Eyre under Creative Commons Licence.

King John’s House 

Close by the church are the ruins of what is variously called St John’s or King John’s House. This is a very rare example of a 13th century hall, built in 1210 by a member of the St John family who had married into the de Ports.

Image from British History Online, Parishes: Warnford.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/hants/vol3/pp268-273

The ruin consists of a hall 52 ft. long by 48 ft. wide, divided by 25 ft high columns into a central span and north and south aisles, and a two-storey building attached at the hall’s west end. The two-storey section seems to have been divided into two rooms on the ground floor, and on the first-floor level are traces of a doorway opening to a staircase or perhaps a gallery at the west of the hall. One imagines this structure might have been part of a larger house though there is no evidence of any other remains adjoining it.

The building appears to have been already in ruins by the 17th century, and was later incorporated into the landscaping as an interesting feature of the pleasure park. In 17th and 18th century documents, the building is referred to as The Old House.

(c) Anthony Brunning / St John's House, Warnford Park, Hampshire / CC BY-SA 2.0

Warnford Park House

Little is known of the early history of the Warnford estate. The earliest park enclosure was possibly a deer park that stretched between Beacon Hill and Old Winchester Hill. In the late 1500s, the estate was owned by William Neale, an auditor to Queen Elizabeth, who built a house near the site of the later mansion. One presumes that King John’s House was either already a ruin by then or perhaps considered by William as unfit as a residence for his family.

William’s son and heir, Thomas, was later knighted and became auditor to King James I. He was the man who built the paper mill. On his death in 1621 – it is his grand monument that lies in the church – Warnford passed to his son, another Thomas, and this Thomas built the later mansion that was apparently referred to as The Place House. His son, yet another Thomas, sold Warnford in 1678 and it moved out of the Neale family, passing through the ownership of several different families until, in 1754, John Smith de Burgh, the 11th Earl of Clanricarde, bought the estate. In 1752, John had changed the family name from Burke to the earlier form of de Burgh, to reflect their Norman-Irish origins. He called his new house Belmont, and the park Senfoy (Saint Foin). 

In the 1770s, the earl hired Lancelot “Capability” Brown to improve the landscape of his Warnford estate. An estate map of 1811 shows that the River Meon was diverted as it entered the park and a long tear-shaped lake was created in a loop, and the river’s exit from the park was arranged via a series of sluices. A walk was created encompassing a sequence of garden buildings including a grotto, a hermitage and a bath-house, the design of which closely resembles an unexecuted Brown design for a lakeside pavilion at Rothley, Northumberland. The old hall, King John’s House, was also apparently deliberately incorporated into the landscape design as a “scenic ruin”.

An illustration from the 19th century shows the house in a landscaped park typical of Brown’s style, with the River Meon forming a lake to the south.

Image from http://www.capabilitybrown.org/garden/warnford

In 1865 the estate was purchased by Henry Woods, a colliery owner and the MP for Wigan, who carried out further alterations to the house, created a formal garden and undertook considerable ornamental planting in the pleasure grounds.

Image from http://www.lostheritage.org.uk/houses/lh_hampshire_warnfordpark_info_gallery.html

During the Second World War, the house was requisitioned by the military, but the troops apparently “severely damaged” it and, after a long decline, the house was demolished in 1956, though the park and pleasure grounds remained in private ownership and a new house was built.

There is, I suppose, nothing very extraordinary about what happened in Warnford over the centuries since it was recorded in the Domesday survey. Estate owners have always done whatever took their fancy to create the environment that met their private and public ambitions. If that meant moving a few tenants out of the way, well so be it. At least, in Warnford, though we don’t know exactly when it happened, the tenants were not entirely displaced. Despite further development in the past century or so on the south side of the road, it is interesting to see to what extent Warnford is, geographically, still a village of two halves and to understand what brought it about.