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Celtic Cumbria (Celtic Nations)
NORTH MORETON Mortun, Moretune (xi cent.); Morton, Moretone (xiii–xv cent.); Northmorton (xiii–xvii cent.). This parish extends from the high road above Wittenham on the north to the Moreton Brook on the south. The soil and subsoil are chiefly Upper Greensand, and there are some rubble-pits. The village lies on low ground in the south part of the parish, about half a mile off the Wantage road. The village is on the line of the Roman road, now called Broadway, which enters it from the north, disappearing at the corner of the churchyard, and reappearing in a lane at the southern end of the parish. The road from Brightwell to Didcot, crossing the middle of the parish, is the Portway. Former tenements were Chetwodes, Hulbeye, Hylmans, Pymmes (xv cent.), and Beakes Place, Beckinghams, Court, Pykynge, Panninge, Walys (xvi cent.).
NORTH MORETON / HAGBORNE 'Moreton' appears among the boundaries of Hagborne in a spurious charter of king Alfred contained in the 12th-century chartulary of St. Swithun's, Winchester. By the time of Henry III the overlordship had passed with William's other estates in Berkshire to Thomas of Newburgh, Earl of Warwick, who died in 1242. The next mention of the overlordship is in 1419, when the manor was held of the Abbot of Dorchester by service unknown, but afterwards by service of 1 lb. of pepper annually. After the dissolution of the abbey it was held of the king in chief by knight service.
NORTH MORETON ALL SAINTS No portion of the present structure is anterior to the 13th century, but a single richly carved voussoir, of a late 12th-century semicircular arch, now preserved in the south chapel, is, with the 12th-century font, testimony to the existence of a 12th-century church on this site.
PEAKES and HEADBOROUGH, BOURCHIERS HALL recorded in 1403, both in Tey Road, have developed from early 17th-century lobby-entrance houses. The manor of LITTLE FORDHAM or BOURCHIERS HALL seems to derive partly from the 40 a. in Fordham held by Wisgar in 1066 and by Richard son of Gilbert de Clare in 1086, and partly from land held of Eustace of Boulogne, perhaps the 1½ hide berewick of Great Tey.
POTTERELLS (Potterells Grove) was held at an early date of the manor of North Mimms by John Firth. The land which bore this name was acquired by the family of Lord Scales. The manor of BROOKMANS (Bruckmans or Mymmeshall) was held as of the honour of Clare in socage.
RIDGE parish contains 3,615 acres and consists of two long and narrow parallel strips of land running north-west and south-east, and lying on either side of the parish of Shenley. The larger of these strips, which is about three times the size of the smaller, lies to the east of Shenley, and is partly bordered on its eastern side by the county of Middlesex. Place names in the parish are Conyngere, le Hoke, Wrobleylane, Leverych, Arkelelane, Neyfeld, Ampsheth, Nodycroft, Astmerlond, Bremelnelde, Cobbis, Sheyscotfield, and Palmersgrove.
RIDGE or TYTTENHANGER the manor (Tidehangra, Thederhanger, xiii cent.; Titenhangar, xiv cent.) is not mentioned in Domesday, but it is probable that that part of Shenley which is set down in the Survey as lying in Cashio Hundred and belonging to the abbot of St. Albans became afterwards the manor of Ridge, or Tyttenhanger as it is always called. The holding in Tidburst held at the time of the Domesday Survey by Geoffrey de Bech of the abbot of St. Albans may refer to the strip of Ridge between ALDENHAM and SHENLEY. The manor of Tyttenhanger was held from an early date by the almoner of St. Albans Abbey, and remained in the possession of the abbey till the Dissolution.
ROSE COTTAGE, now one of a range of three houses, incorporates part of a small 15th- century hall with massive down-bracing. The population rose in the late 16th century and the 17th, baptisms usually exceed- ing burials except in the famine years 1598, 1599, and 1601, and in 1666, when at least 10 people died of plague. The main range of Aldham Hall contains a substantial early 15th-century hall of three bays, its crown- post roof with simply moulded posts, and a one- bay storeyed north-west end.
ROWNEY GRANGE Rowney apparently formed part of the original grant of Walter Espec to Warden Abbey, consisting of those woodlands which overlapped from Old Warden into Southill, for ROWNEY GRANGE was named among the possessions of Warden Abbey in 1198 in the second confirmation charter of Richard I. The rabbit warren in Rowney was granted in 1519 to Michael, afterwards Sir Michael Fisher and John his son for life in survivorship, by Augustine, Abbot of Warden, the reversion of which was granted in 1544 to Francis Pigot.
SHENLEY is situated in the south of the county on the Middlesex border; there is a detached portion of the parish on the west side separated by a long strip of the parish of Ridge. The old main road from London to St. Albans and the Midlands runs through the parish from north to south, and the existing main road to London goes through the northern portion of the parish. There are two or three cross roads connecting these main roads, and others connecting the old London road with Watling Street, which lies to the west. The houses are mostly of a yellow or light red brick, many of them being plastered and painted white. The hamlets in this parish are the portion of London Colney on the east side of the River Colne, Rowley Green (la Rouwell, xiii cent.) and Green Street lying to the south. The right to hold a market on Mondays and a fair on the vigil, feast, and morrow of St. Botolph was granted to Adam de Stratton on 15 May, 1268, but there is no record of a market or fair ever having been held.
SHRIVES In 1285 Thomas Sherreve had an interest in the manor, which was later called SHERIVES or SHRIVES. Uxbridge is not included by name in the Survey although it was almost certainly in existence by 1086. Uxbridge is not included by name in the Survey although it was almost certainly in existence by 1086. A chapel of ease was built in the town in the early 13th century, and in 1275 Uxbridge was one of the two Middlesex townships represented in Edward I's first parliament. The vills of Colham and Uxbridge are mentioned in 1316. By the 14th century the population of Uxbridge had probably outstripped that of rural Hillingdon. The London- Oxford road was an important national route by the 14th century.
SOUTHILL In 1086 Hugh de Beauchamp held 2 hides 1 virgate of land which later became known as SOUTHILL MANOR. This land appears to have passed from the Beauchamps to Warden Abbey some time in the 12th century, for in 1198 its charter of confirmation contains mention of land in Southill. The overlordship of the land belonging to one of these tenants, which later became known as GASTLYNS or GASTLYNBURY MANOR, fell to the inheritance of Albreda, the younger sister of Walter Espec, who married Geoffrey de Trailly.
SOUTHILL with ROWNEY including the hamlets of Stanford and Broom and the extra-parochial hamlet of Shefford Hardwick, forms a large parish lying a mile west of the Roman Way. The land slopes towards the River Ivel, which forms the eastern and southern boundary of the parish. The ancient church stands at the extreme north-west corner of the village away from the main street. Stanford is a scattered hamlet containing a school, two inns and a mill. Gastlings, which derives its name from the Gastlyn family, who lived there in the 13th century, is in the west of the parish. A few scattered houses to the north of the parish are known as Ireland (the Inlonde of the 16th century).
SOUTHILL ALL SAINTS The advowson of Southill Church was part of the original endowment of Newnham Priory by Simon de Beauchamp, as is confirmed in the second charter of Henry I, inspected in 1317. It remained in the possession of the priory until the Dissolution, when the Crown retained it in 1605.
STANFORD There are three entries dealing with small portions of land in the hamlet of Stanford in Domesday. These overlordships continued in Stanford, the last reference that has been found to the Eaton Barony being in 1360, to the barony of Bedford in 1499. There were two manors in the hamlet of Stanford. Of these STANFORDBURY MANOR derived its origin from land which was confirmed to Warden Abbey in 1198 in a charter of Richard I.
STANFORD MANOR the second manor in this parish, was in 1284–6 in the possession of John le Child, who died before 1287. No later connexion, however, of the Pabenhams with the manor has been found, and it was probably this land which was granted to Warden Abbey in 1360 by William Burlee and others, as it had passed into the possession of the abbey before 1428. There is no reference to Shefford Hardwick in Domesday, but William le Caron's half-virgate of land evidently lay in this part of the parish of Southill, for the Caron family were still living there in 1298. It has not been found possible to connect any early holdings in the hamlet with SHEFFORD HARDWICK MANOR, which belonged in 1562 to Peter Grey, who conveyed it in that yeare to John Whitbread.
ST. ALBANS ABBEY Before The Conquest the legend of the foundation of St. Albans Abbey has been graphically written by Matthew Paris, a 13th-century monk of the abbey. Before dealing with the history of the monastery during the Anglo-Saxon period it may be well to state that the main sources of information are the various works of Matthew Paris, whose material for this period is evidently scanty. Matthew Paris viewed the conduct of the 9th and early 10th century abbots from a 13th-century standard. Ulf, the prior, built the chapel of St. German on the site of the house where St. German was supposed to have dwelt and where the body of St. Alban was found.
ST. ALBANS LADY CHAPEL The character of the original arcade was much like that in the south aisle of the vestibule of the Lady chapel, and it was probably set up in the last twenty years of the thirteenth century. St. Edward the Confessor and St. Edmund are in the middle window on the north side. On the wall to the west of the door leading into the feretory is a painted board setting forth in great detail the arms and particulars of Ralph Maynard of St. Albans, who died in 1613. It is probable that the shrine of St. Alban was originally set in the eastern apse, and that the high altar was approximately on the chord of the apse. This is at any rate the normal position in such a case, and it remains unaltered at Durham and Peterborough. Durham is, of course, the closer parallel.
SUCKLEY with its former chapelries of Lulsley and Alfrick, is an extensive agricultural parish with a station on the Bromyard branch of the Great Western railway. Suckley Station is in Knightwick parish. To the south of Old Storridge Hill, at the Beck, a height of 600 ft. is reached. In the north the land falls to the valley of the Teme, which forms the northern boundary. Priory Redding and Chapel Farm, to the south, may mark the site of the manor of Suckley, formerly held by the Priors of Little Malvern.
SUCKLEY and BROMSGROVE Before the Conquest SUCKLEY formed part of Earl Eadwine's great manor of Bromsgrove. Five hides at Suckley were, however, taken by William Fitz Osbern Earl of Hereford out of Bromsgrove and were made to pay their farm at Hereford. Suckley therefore, though it remained in Doddingtree Hundred, was surveyed in 1086 under Herefordshire. Llewelyn gave the manor to John le Scot Earl of Huntingdon, afterwards Earl of Chester, with his daughter Helen in marriage. A capital messuage called OVER COURT, and the site of the manor of Suckley called LOWER COURT, were settled by Edmund Colles in 1597 on his younger son Edmund, who was succeeded in 1613 by a son John. Over Court and Lower Court then seem to have passed into different hands.
SUCKLEY ST. JOHN the BAPTIST In the churchyard, on the south side of the church, are the three steps and the base of a mediaeval cross, apparently of 14th-century date. The church of ST. GILES at Lulsley is a small building of red sandstone ashlar with tiled roofs, and consists of a chancel, nave, north vestry, south porch, and west bellcote. The church of ST. MARY at Alfrick consists of a chancel 16 ft. 4 in. by 14 ft. 3 in., north vestry, nave 50 ft. by 17 ft. 5 in., north transept, south porch, and a bellcote at the west end of the nave. On the south are two 13th-century windows, repaired; the eastern window is of two trefoiled lights, while the other is a single cinquefoiled light with a much lower sill. Before 1086 the church of Suckley had been given by William Earl of Hereford to the abbey he had founded at Cormeilles.
TEVERSHAM The church mentioned at TEVERSHAM by 1086, one of the few then recorded in Cambridgeshire, was attached to the hide appropriated from the abbey of Ely by John son of Waleran, whose father had already granted tithes from Teversham to St. Stephen's abbey, Caen (dep. Calvados). Patronage of the church, which has remained a rectory, was recovered, however, by Ely, and exercised by its bishop from the 12th century into the late 20th.
WAKES COLNE, BERWICK A site overlooking the brook on the western boundary of the parish was occupied from the Roman to the later medieval period as there is a narrow band of alluvium along the Colne, and a larger patch of sand and gravel extends from the church to Crepping Hall. The ancient parish (1,935 a.) was bounded by the Colne on part of the south, a small tributary on much of the west, and the Cambridge (earlier Jennyes or Loveney Hall) brook on part of the north; the eastern boundary with Fordham followed field boundaries. By the 10th century Wakes Colne formed part of a large estate which took its name from the river Colne, and which belonged to the ealdormen of Essex.
WAKES COLNE St. ANDREWS The founder granted the church of St. Andrew and lands in Earl's Colne, the churches of Dovercourt, Great Bentley, Belchamp Walter and Camps (Cambridgeshire), and various lands and tithes.
WESTHEYWOOD In 1380 the main wood on Wakes Colne manor demesne was the 82-a. Westheywood in Colne Engaine; in Wakes Colne itself there was only the sparsely wooded 12-a. park. On Crepping manor Sowenewood, perhaps an early plantation, was recorded in 1327. Rowney wood (11 a.) survived into the mid 19th century.
WIGTON parish is bounded on the east by the river Wampool, on the south by the parish of Westward, on the west by Bromfield parish, and on the north by Kirkbride parish. The parish is divided into four townships, viz. Wigton, Oulton, Waverton, and Woodside. The common lands of Wigton, Waverton, and Woodside, were enclosed in 1810, and of Oulton, in 1818.