East Hendred Museum at Champs Chapel, Oxfordshire and Berkshire Heritage

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTORY

The present shape of the village of East Hendred derives from the distant past. When our Saxon forefathers overran the countryside they divided it up in such a way as to allot to each group of warriors land of different qualities. The Hundred of Wanting was cut into long strips, including the downland grasslands, the good agricultural land at the foot of the Downs, and the heavy clay further north. The parish of East Hendred is over five miles long running from north to south, and less than a mile wide at its widest point. Within the parish, the land was again divided up so that each household received land of different qualities. The head of one family might hold a dozen or more strips of land in the big common fields, and they could be miles apart. In consequence it was out of the question for homesteads to be scattered: they were all grouped in a village, from which the farmers went out to their widely scattered strips. The grazing lands too, were held in common, and the cattle were driven out to them, and the cows brought back every night to be milked.

To work such a system it was necessary for the villagers to meet from time to time to discuss the ploughing and harvesting. The village moot did more than look after farming. There were then no professional soldiers or police, and the villagers had to be responsible for each other, and to send representatives to the moot or meeting of the hundred.

This way of life was not efficient enough to meet such dangers as the Danish raids. During those terrible years there grew up a class of warriors who were rewarded by grants of land. But the land, was not freehold in our sense. The warrior received his grant of land for service done to the king and, in turn received the personal services of the men on his estate. There came to be superimposed on the free village communities the authority of the land holder. He was himself bound by oaths of fealty to follow his king, and his tenants, in turn, were bound to attend his court. Many of his tenants became unfree: since the lord depended on their labour they were not allowed to leave the village. Even those of his tenants who remained free in the sense that they did not have to work on his land had to swear fealty to him and follow him in war.

Many owners of houses in East Hendred are puzzled by the word heriot so often appearing in their deeds. The word means war gear. It goes back to the time when a man swore fealty to his lord and received sword and armour from him. When the tenant died, the war gear was returned to the lord: but, over the centuries, as life became more peaceful, the lord accepted some other form of heriot. It could be the tenant’s best beast, but sometimes became a brass pot or even a featherbed. When the tenant’s heir took up his father's land he paid a relief (from relever - to take up again), and this came to be, in some cases, a year's rent.

The village moot became the lord's court, and since his land came to be called a manor, it sometimes happened, as in East Hendred, that instead of there being one moot, each manor or estate had its own court. Even that was not the end of the story, for the lord might hold two courts, one attended by his free tenants for what was very much like a roll call. This court was called a Court Leet or View of Frankpledge, for these tenants were pledged by their oaths of fealty to their lord. The other court, usually held on the same day, was for his unfree tenants who worked on his land. This was called the Court Baron. This court did very much the same business as the old village moot, making regulations about the use of the fields. But both courts had another very important function.

There was then very little writing, so all transfers of land were made in the presence of all the tenants, and noted down in the roll of the court. All rents, dues, and fines were paid in public, and the proceedings were heard by all present. It is from this practice that our word audit comes. Accounts were actually heard.

If a man could secure a copy of the court roll in which his obligations were written down, he ceased to be a tenant at will: he became a copyholder, and this is another term which some-times puzzles people who peruse their old deeds. This development tended to work against the interest of the lord, for inflation reduced the purchasing power of a fixed rent.

Miss Dearlove of St. Josephs in Newbury Street has in her possession a letter dated 27th July, 1915. It begins as follows:

'To Albert Dearlove of East Hendred, Berks.

Take notice that if you desire the Copyhold land which you hold of this the King’s Manor of East Hendred in the county of Berks shall become Freehold you are entitled to enfranchise the same on paying the lord's compensation and the Steward's fees.'

This quit rent was ¼d a year and was bought out for the sum of 1d - four years purchase.

Miss Dearlove also has the following receipt:

'Received of Mr. William Harris the sum of 2 Pence in full for One Years Quit Rent, due to the Lord of the said Manor at Michaelmas by me John Allin, Bailiff and Collector of the said Manor.'

Such sums sound ridiculous to the modern ear; but the fact that they were paid indicated that the tenant was a dependant: that he was bound to attend his lord's court, a very important matter indeed at the time the copyhold lease was originally granted.

The shape of East Hendred derives basically from the old open field system and the resulting concentration of homesteads. Even the houses from which the five great estates were administered were built in the village: for, apart from the home paddock, each landowner had his holding scattered through the open fields just like those of his tenant. And their tenants’ homesteads were so intermixed that Miss Dearlove’s house, though it was immediately opposite the manor house of Framptons, was held of the king’s manor, and the house now occupied by Mr. A. Castle and used as a post office standing across the road from King’s Manor, was held in the manor of Framptons.

Another influence affecting the village was the wool trade. The home of the agricultural worker, - serf as he was longer back, - was a meagre affair.

There is a very accurate description of such a house in the accounts of the Parish Overseers. In 1755, they directed that a house should be built "in cheap a manner as can be done to be built with posts and hurdles plastered with durt”. In 1755, people were still accustomed to such houses. Such a house consisted of one room with an earth floor and no chimney. They have now entirely disappeared. Indeed they had only to be left vacant to fall into ruin and rot down.

Some houses were built of cob and are still remembered in the village as “mud houses". Mrs. Stoter has a photograph of Chapel Square showing two such houses, now gone. Apart from the bungalow in Cat Street, to be noticed later, the best example of cob used in building is the hut in the garden of Abbey Manor. It used to have a thatched roof which overhung and protected the wall; but the thatch was damaged recently by a boy climbing on it, and was stripped off. The roof ing-felt put in its place had not prevented the wall from breaking up and it is now easy to see the composition of the cob, and also how quickly it can return to the soil from which it was formed and leave no trace. The hut has been used, and indeed may have been built, as a summer house; but it is similar in size and shape to the huts poorer villagers built for themselves with their own hands.

I believe that the wool industry was mainly responsible for the construction of much sounder houses on the cruck principle. A suitable bent oak tree was split into two halves, which were roughly smoothed and then formed into an arch. A roof tree would then be placed in position supported by two or more such arches. As time went on, this basic unit of a house was surrounded with a framework of timbers, and gaps between the timbers filled in with wattle and daub, or with lath and plaster, or with brick. In course of time the actual roof tree became less important, the rafters being supported by heavy purlins about midway between the wall plate and the ridge.

Such a house, even the most modest in size and consisting of one bay only, was much more expensive than the cottage of hurdle "plastered with durt”, and there is some evidence that such houses were indeed occupied by wool workers. In the garden of Mr. England's house in Church Street, - itself a beautiful example of a cruck house, - a stone object such as was used by a wool dyer has recently been discovered. And it is highly possible that such a house as that of Mr. Wickens in what is now called High Street was erected as the home of one of the wealthier wool merchants.

An essential feature of the village is the way it grew out of the land on which it stands. Cob was fashioned from the soil, its vegetation and the hair of its beasts; wattle came straight from its willows, hazels and poplars; timber from its trees, and chalkstone underlies the village itself and could be had for the digging.
The importance of timber in the life of the village is illustrated by the following items in the customs of the Abbey Manor as presented to a court held in 1767:

'Also we present all Timber Trees to be the Lord’s and all Topps, Lopps and Windfalls the Tenants for the repair of their several and respective Copyhold Estates.

We also present that all Wythies and Poplars are the Tenants without leave of the Lord…

This meant that manorial tenants could take all the branches of trees felled for timber, from which they could fashion the joists and rafters of their houses, and they could cut at will all the material they wanted for wattle and hurdles. For the main beams they depended on the lord of the manor. And anyone who has seen a big timber tree felled will realise how valuable for fuel were those branches left over after suitable building material had been selected.

The accompanying illustration might, by an expert, be regarded as over-simplified. It shows:
a. The cruck construction in which the tie-beam merely ties the blades of the cruck.
b. The tie-beam extended beyond the blades of the cruck to retain a vertical wall.
c. The abandonment of the cruck and the substitution of wind-braces.
d. The provision of lofts, later to become bedrooms.
e. The development of the chimney and the placing of the stairs. (This picture is based directly on an example in Hickman’s Cottages.)

The pictures of Mr. Wickens’ shop and of the east gable of Meadow Cottages show how the timber frame was developed.

It is futile to imagine that a description of the village can be compiled without some guesswork; but I visualise the village as it was in the days of its greatest prosperity in the fifteenth century as consisting of five larger houses from which estates were administered, a considerable number of farm houses each with its barns and outhouses, a large number of hovels built of cob or "hurdle plastered with durt”, and, in addition, a number of well constructed cruck houses inhabited by families whose well-being depended on wool: all these close together in a highly inflammable medley of thatched roofs and of ricks.

The ricks have, of course, now gone; so have the worst of the cottages. The farm houses remain for the most part, but they have now generally lost their barns. Even some of the more substantial cottages have been thrown together and formed into houses better suited to modern ways of living, so that the number of such dwellings in the old village has been much reduced.

Some of the gaps left by the disappearance of such old property are being filled in by modern houses. Of these some conform to the atmosphere of the village, though some do not; but the council estates are outside the limits of the old village, - in Mill Lane, Ford Lane and White Road; their more mass-produced appearance does not affect the old village itself, in which houses were individually built over the centuries. But it is important to appreciate that upwards of half the population of the new estates are members of old East Hendred families:- Stoters, Swadlings, Kimbers, Castles and many more. Older houses are occupied in many cases by newcomers, - retired folk, business and professional people from local towns, atomic scientists, and others.

Even at the height of its early prosperity East Hendred was deeply rural. In a will proved in 1590, John Eyston, after sundry small money bequests to churches and to " the poor of Esthendred,” proceeds: "Item I give to Jane my welbeloved wife ffower hundred westhers sheepe.. Allso I give unto my saied wife three score ewes and three score sheepe.. Allso I give unto my saied wife three score ewes and three score tegges.. Item I give unto my saied wife twenty of my fatte sheepe. Allso I give unto my saied wife twentie of my milche beestes and a Bull allso fyve heyfers that have not calves and five young bullocks. Allso I give unto my saied wife ffower of my beste road geldings and theere furniture… Allso I give unto my saied wife all my corne in the barnes and ffields within the parish of Esthendred and Easthannye.. And I allso give unto my saied wife ffiftye pounds tenne shillings in money…” He leaves to his nieces and nephews one ewe each and "to Thomas Eiston my kynnesman..one quarter of barley…”

The will goes on to cover his holdings in land; but for John Eyston, money seems to have been a secondary consideration: his real wealth was in flocks, herds and lands.

The same deeply rural quality is shown again in 1720 when the overseers of the parish poor were instructed to "buy a Bull out of the money arising from the poor rate and to take tow of him till the season be over and then to be sold by them and the money put into their account for the use of the parish".

By about 1900, the day of the purely agricultural village was passing. The corn-binder, the steam plough and other machinery was reducing the demand for the labour not only of men but of their wives and children, and the number of farms was being reduced by increasing their size. William Swadling’s sons have told me what he told them about the resentment that was shown when a corn binder was introduced on the Allin estate. All their employees were up in arms about it; there were protests by torchlight and a thatched building was set on fire. This is quite understandable in the light of Mr. F.A. Smith’s accounts for fagging in 1904 which show how the wheat in such fields as Land of Trees Lower Furlong (West) was being cut by men using fagging hooks and almost certainly followed by wife and child to tie the sheaves. The binder stopped all that.

The village was saved in the first place by the coming of wealthy people who made their home here: such as Mr. Coates, Mr. Billyeald and Mr. Colt, but of even greater importance was the construction of the R.A.F. depot at Milton and the R.A.O.C. depot at Didcot, and later, the AERE which began humbly enough in a hanger of the R.A.F. station at Harwell after the second world war. Matthew Kimber worked as head carter on Coulings Farm for 47 years; but of his seven sons five found employment at these places outside the village. They must have all been lost to the village but for that. Indeed of one East Hendred family of seven sons not one remains in the village though the father who, himself still lives here; describes the family as "proper Hendred people".

More recently the population of the village has actually been increasing: there has been a steady influx of scientists; engineers and others who make their homes here at least temporarily, and some of whom have saved old property from demolition often by the work of their own hands. In addition to the Eystons, with their five centuries of continuous residence, there are old village families of long standing, for example, the Cowderys, who have been here longer than even the Eystons, and who provide a background of permanence; but they are gradually being outnumbered by newcomers, and it is interesting to see how few of the nine members of the Parish Council bear the old names.

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Home About Museum Museum History Disabled Access Heritage Trust Fire Pump Local History Places to Visit Photo Gallery Audio-Visuals Getting Here Events Diary How You Can Help? Contact Us Links	CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTORY The present shape of the village of East Hendred derives from the distant past. When our Saxon forefathers overran the countryside they divided it up in such a way as to allot to each group of warriors land of different qualities. The Hundred of Wanting was cut into long strips, including the downland grasslands, the good agricultural land at the foot of the Downs, and the heavy clay further north. The parish of East Hendred is over five miles long running from north to south, and less than a mile wide at its widest point. Within the parish, the land was again divided up so that each household received land of different qualities. The head of one family might hold a dozen or more strips of land in the big common fields, and they could be miles apart. In consequence it was out of the question for homesteads to be scattered: they were all grouped in a village, from which the farmers went out to their widely scattered strips. The grazing lands too, were held in common, and the cattle were driven out to them, and the cows brought back every night to be milked. To work such a system it was necessary for the villagers to meet from time to time to discuss the ploughing and harvesting. The village moot did more than look after farming. There were then no professional soldiers or police, and the villagers had to be responsible for each other, and to send representatives to the moot or meeting of the hundred. This way of life was not efficient enough to meet such dangers as the Danish raids. During those terrible years there grew up a class of warriors who were rewarded by grants of land. But the land, was not freehold in our sense. The warrior received his grant of land for service done to the king and, in turn received the personal services of the men on his estate. There came to be superimposed on the free village communities the authority of the land holder. He was himself bound by oaths of fealty to follow his king, and his tenants, in turn, were bound to attend his court. Many of his tenants became unfree: since the lord depended on their labour they were not allowed to leave the village. Even those of his tenants who remained free in the sense that they did not have to work on his land had to swear fealty to him and follow him in war. Many owners of houses in East Hendred are puzzled by the word heriot so often appearing in their deeds. The word means war gear. It goes back to the time when a man swore fealty to his lord and received sword and armour from him. When the tenant died, the war gear was returned to the lord: but, over the centuries, as life became more peaceful, the lord accepted some other form of heriot. It could be the tenant’s best beast, but sometimes became a brass pot or even a featherbed. When the tenant’s heir took up his father's land he paid a relief (from relever - to take up again), and this came to be, in some cases, a year's rent. The village moot became the lord's court, and since his land came to be called a manor, it sometimes happened, as in East Hendred, that instead of there being one moot, each manor or estate had its own court. Even that was not the end of the story, for the lord might hold two courts, one attended by his free tenants for what was very much like a roll call. This court was called a Court Leet or View of Frankpledge, for these tenants were pledged by their oaths of fealty to their lord. The other court, usually held on the same day, was for his unfree tenants who worked on his land. This was called the Court Baron. This court did very much the same business as the old village moot, making regulations about the use of the fields. But both courts had another very important function. There was then very little writing, so all transfers of land were made in the presence of all the tenants, and noted down in the roll of the court. All rents, dues, and fines were paid in public, and the proceedings were heard by all present. It is from this practice that our word audit comes. Accounts were actually heard. If a man could secure a copy of the court roll in which his obligations were written down, he ceased to be a tenant at will: he became a copyholder, and this is another term which some-times puzzles people who peruse their old deeds. This development tended to work against the interest of the lord, for inflation reduced the purchasing power of a fixed rent. Miss Dearlove of St. Josephs in Newbury Street has in her possession a letter dated 27th July, 1915. It begins as follows: 'To Albert Dearlove of East Hendred, Berks. Take notice that if you desire the Copyhold land which you hold of this the King’s Manor of East Hendred in the county of Berks shall become Freehold you are entitled to enfranchise the same on paying the lord's compensation and the Steward's fees.' This quit rent was ¼d a year and was bought out for the sum of 1d - four years purchase. Miss Dearlove also has the following receipt: 'Received of Mr. William Harris the sum of 2 Pence in full for One Years Quit Rent, due to the Lord of the said Manor at Michaelmas by me John Allin, Bailiff and Collector of the said Manor.' Such sums sound ridiculous to the modern ear; but the fact that they were paid indicated that the tenant was a dependant: that he was bound to attend his lord's court, a very important matter indeed at the time the copyhold lease was originally granted. The shape of East Hendred derives basically from the old open field system and the resulting concentration of homesteads. Even the houses from which the five great estates were administered were built in the village: for, apart from the home paddock, each landowner had his holding scattered through the open fields just like those of his tenant. And their tenants’ homesteads were so intermixed that Miss Dearlove’s house, though it was immediately opposite the manor house of Framptons, was held of the king’s manor, and the house now occupied by Mr. A. Castle and used as a post office standing across the road from King’s Manor, was held in the manor of Framptons. Another influence affecting the village was the wool trade. The home of the agricultural worker, - serf as he was longer back, - was a meagre affair. There is a very accurate description of such a house in the accounts of the Parish Overseers. In 1755, they directed that a house should be built "in cheap a manner as can be done to be built with posts and hurdles plastered with durt”. In 1755, people were still accustomed to such houses. Such a house consisted of one room with an earth floor and no chimney. They have now entirely disappeared. Indeed they had only to be left vacant to fall into ruin and rot down. Some houses were built of cob and are still remembered in the village as “mud houses". Mrs. Stoter has a photograph of Chapel Square showing two such houses, now gone. Apart from the bungalow in Cat Street, to be noticed later, the best example of cob used in building is the hut in the garden of Abbey Manor. It used to have a thatched roof which overhung and protected the wall; but the thatch was damaged recently by a boy climbing on it, and was stripped off. The roof ing-felt put in its place had not prevented the wall from breaking up and it is now easy to see the composition of the cob, and also how quickly it can return to the soil from which it was formed and leave no trace. The hut has been used, and indeed may have been built, as a summer house; but it is similar in size and shape to the huts poorer villagers built for themselves with their own hands. I believe that the wool industry was mainly responsible for the construction of much sounder houses on the cruck principle. A suitable bent oak tree was split into two halves, which were roughly smoothed and then formed into an arch. A roof tree would then be placed in position supported by two or more such arches. As time went on, this basic unit of a house was surrounded with a framework of timbers, and gaps between the timbers filled in with wattle and daub, or with lath and plaster, or with brick. In course of time the actual roof tree became less important, the rafters being supported by heavy purlins about midway between the wall plate and the ridge. Such a house, even the most modest in size and consisting of one bay only, was much more expensive than the cottage of hurdle "plastered with durt”, and there is some evidence that such houses were indeed occupied by wool workers. In the garden of Mr. England's house in Church Street, - itself a beautiful example of a cruck house, - a stone object such as was used by a wool dyer has recently been discovered. And it is highly possible that such a house as that of Mr. Wickens in what is now called High Street was erected as the home of one of the wealthier wool merchants. An essential feature of the village is the way it grew out of the land on which it stands. Cob was fashioned from the soil, its vegetation and the hair of its beasts; wattle came straight from its willows, hazels and poplars; timber from its trees, and chalkstone underlies the village itself and could be had for the digging. The importance of timber in the life of the village is illustrated by the following items in the customs of the Abbey Manor as presented to a court held in 1767: 'Also we present all Timber Trees to be the Lord’s and all Topps, Lopps and Windfalls the Tenants for the repair of their several and respective Copyhold Estates. We also present that all Wythies and Poplars are the Tenants without leave of the Lord… This meant that manorial tenants could take all the branches of trees felled for timber, from which they could fashion the joists and rafters of their houses, and they could cut at will all the material they wanted for wattle and hurdles. For the main beams they depended on the lord of the manor. And anyone who has seen a big timber tree felled will realise how valuable for fuel were those branches left over after suitable building material had been selected. The accompanying illustration might, by an expert, be regarded as over-simplified. It shows: a. The cruck construction in which the tie-beam merely ties the blades of the cruck. b. The tie-beam extended beyond the blades of the cruck to retain a vertical wall. c. The abandonment of the cruck and the substitution of wind-braces. d. The provision of lofts, later to become bedrooms. e. The development of the chimney and the placing of the stairs. (This picture is based directly on an example in Hickman’s Cottages.) The pictures of Mr. Wickens’ shop and of the east gable of Meadow Cottages show how the timber frame was developed. It is futile to imagine that a description of the village can be compiled without some guesswork; but I visualise the village as it was in the days of its greatest prosperity in the fifteenth century as consisting of five larger houses from which estates were administered, a considerable number of farm houses each with its barns and outhouses, a large number of hovels built of cob or "hurdle plastered with durt”, and, in addition, a number of well constructed cruck houses inhabited by families whose well-being depended on wool: all these close together in a highly inflammable medley of thatched roofs and of ricks. The ricks have, of course, now gone; so have the worst of the cottages. The farm houses remain for the most part, but they have now generally lost their barns. Even some of the more substantial cottages have been thrown together and formed into houses better suited to modern ways of living, so that the number of such dwellings in the old village has been much reduced. Some of the gaps left by the disappearance of such old property are being filled in by modern houses. Of these some conform to the atmosphere of the village, though some do not; but the council estates are outside the limits of the old village, - in Mill Lane, Ford Lane and White Road; their more mass-produced appearance does not affect the old village itself, in which houses were individually built over the centuries. But it is important to appreciate that upwards of half the population of the new estates are members of old East Hendred families:- Stoters, Swadlings, Kimbers, Castles and many more. Older houses are occupied in many cases by newcomers, - retired folk, business and professional people from local towns, atomic scientists, and others. Even at the height of its early prosperity East Hendred was deeply rural. In a will proved in 1590, John Eyston, after sundry small money bequests to churches and to " the poor of Esthendred,” proceeds: "Item I give to Jane my welbeloved wife ffower hundred westhers sheepe.. Allso I give unto my saied wife three score ewes and three score sheepe.. Allso I give unto my saied wife three score ewes and three score tegges.. Item I give unto my saied wife twenty of my fatte sheepe. Allso I give unto my saied wife twentie of my milche beestes and a Bull allso fyve heyfers that have not calves and five young bullocks. Allso I give unto my saied wife ffower of my beste road geldings and theere furniture… Allso I give unto my saied wife all my corne in the barnes and ffields within the parish of Esthendred and Easthannye.. And I allso give unto my saied wife ffiftye pounds tenne shillings in money…” He leaves to his nieces and nephews one ewe each and "to Thomas Eiston my kynnesman..one quarter of barley…” The will goes on to cover his holdings in land; but for John Eyston, money seems to have been a secondary consideration: his real wealth was in flocks, herds and lands. The same deeply rural quality is shown again in 1720 when the overseers of the parish poor were instructed to "buy a Bull out of the money arising from the poor rate and to take tow of him till the season be over and then to be sold by them and the money put into their account for the use of the parish". By about 1900, the day of the purely agricultural village was passing. The corn-binder, the steam plough and other machinery was reducing the demand for the labour not only of men but of their wives and children, and the number of farms was being reduced by increasing their size. William Swadling’s sons have told me what he told them about the resentment that was shown when a corn binder was introduced on the Allin estate. All their employees were up in arms about it; there were protests by torchlight and a thatched building was set on fire. This is quite understandable in the light of Mr. F.A. Smith’s accounts for fagging in 1904 which show how the wheat in such fields as Land of Trees Lower Furlong (West) was being cut by men using fagging hooks and almost certainly followed by wife and child to tie the sheaves. The binder stopped all that. The village was saved in the first place by the coming of wealthy people who made their home here: such as Mr. Coates, Mr. Billyeald and Mr. Colt, but of even greater importance was the construction of the R.A.F. depot at Milton and the R.A.O.C. depot at Didcot, and later, the AERE which began humbly enough in a hanger of the R.A.F. station at Harwell after the second world war. Matthew Kimber worked as head carter on Coulings Farm for 47 years; but of his seven sons five found employment at these places outside the village. They must have all been lost to the village but for that. Indeed of one East Hendred family of seven sons not one remains in the village though the father who, himself still lives here; describes the family as "proper Hendred people". More recently the population of the village has actually been increasing: there has been a steady influx of scientists; engineers and others who make their homes here at least temporarily, and some of whom have saved old property from demolition often by the work of their own hands. In addition to the Eystons, with their five centuries of continuous residence, there are old village families of long standing, for example, the Cowderys, who have been here longer than even the Eystons, and who provide a background of permanence; but they are gradually being outnumbered by newcomers, and it is interesting to see how few of the nine members of the Parish Council bear the old names. [Back to the Table of Contents]
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