The complete history of South Marston

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The complete historyof South Marston

• darren.cook_at_henryandco.co.uk

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Sources

• Books Roman Wanborough, Highworth Hundred, Tax
  Lists, Inquisitions PM, Alfred Williams
• Maps early county maps, 1773 Andrews Dury,
  1840 Tithe Map, 1886 Ordnance Survey, 1918
  Auction
• National Archives Wiltshire Swindon History
  Centre over 500 deeds, leases, wills, 1840
  Tithe Records
• Parish Records baptisms, marriages burials
  1539-1840 onwards
• Census Records 1801 onwards
• Archaeological records Wiltshire Sites
  Monuments Record, Archaeological Data Services,
  WANHS Magazine
• National Monuments Record - aerial photographs
• Google Earth
• British Museum pottery collection
• Field-walking fossils, pottery coins

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Dinosaurs

• 4.6 metres, each mm one million years
• repeated ages of desert, jungle, sea, ice
• prehistoric sea - fossils of 500 million year old
  coral 200 million year old ammonites,
  belemnites bivalves
• did dinosaurs exist 100 million years ago in
  South Marstons Kimmeridge Clay?

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Geology
Ridgeway
Highworth
South Marston
coral limestone
greensand
alluvium
clay
chalk
Kimmeridge clay
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Prehistoric man

• 40,000 years ago Neanderthals?
• 10,000 end of the Ice Age hunter-gatherers
  appear along the Ridgeway?
• 6,000 - neolithic farming SM stone axe
• 4,500 Bronze Age civilisation ritual
  worship SM round barrow
• 2,500 Iron Age society Atrebates Dobunni,
  forts, pottery, burials

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Neolithic stone axe from South Marston
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A man-made landscape
SM
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Roman 43 - 410

• Ermin Street, Cunetio, mansio Cirencester
• Durocornovium population more than 3,000 - a
  society that flourished for 350 years but no
  written record
• Romano-British farming estates (c.1800 acres)
• Villas at Bishopstone Stanton Fitzwarren how
  about Earls Court Rowborough?
• S Marston road, villa, pottery, coins, SM Park
  burials

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Roman villas in the area?
Stanton Fitzwarren
Rowborough ?
Earls Court ?
Bishopstone
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South Marstons Roman Road?
Durocornovium
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AD 500 Saxon Influence

• AD 410 Roman administrators soldiers leave to
  defend Rome from Germanic tribes
• towns economy decay - Durocornovium
• towns people disperse as Saxons raid settle in
  kin-based rural farms
• Saxons Britons eventually live together
• Saxon charters but no written record for SM

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AD 700 dispersed farms, marsh forest (1280
names ley, ledenhull, leighmannesheys field
shapes) north-south road to Lotmead Roman
junction?
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AD 900 King Alfreds burh, security
collectivism sees arable replacing forest
nucleated village Mersh Tun
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Mersch tun Merston

• where was the marsh? The entire central area is
  below 95m Longleaze below 90m - see Google
  Earth next
• consider sub-soil clay greensand interspersed
  to give dispersed marsh (e.g. West Marsh Long
  Marsh to the west)
• consider changing climate water table

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Longleaze Farm Great Marsh, then channels -
drainage of the marsh or water meadows cattle
ponds? Do the channels pre-date the enclosed
fields of 1600?
hotel
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The Feudal System

• Saxon Shires divided into Hundreds of 100 tuns
  -Highworth Hundred Coleshill to Castle Eaton
  Haydon Wick to South Marston 30 villages by
  1300
• Hundreds divided into Manors held by a lord -
  demesne, chapel, reeve, court bailiff,
  tithingman, free tenant, villein, cottar
  customary tenancies (later copyhold), rents,
  fines services nucleation open-field system
  to share oxen, ploughing, good bad soil,
  haymaking harvests, in allocated ridge furrow
  strips common pasture meadow virgate (30)
  demi-virgate (15) grain subsistence for beer,
  bread pottage animal products (wool cheese)
  for market Sainsburys!
• Norman Monastic exploitation of Saxon system

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Royal Merston

• 1086 Domesday Book omission Saxon Royal Manor
  of Sevenhampton?
• 1150 Queen Matilda gave an estate in Merston to
  the Priory of Farley
• 1150 construction of the church of Mary Magdalene
• 1200-1350 Kings itineraries Marlborough
  Lechlade (London, York, Marlborough,
  Leicester)
• 1276 Sevenhampton Manor reverts to the Crown

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AD 1200 Priory of Farley planned village, less
wood marsh, new church, road alignment, Berton
Wick
East Field
West Field
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Medieval 1280

• 141 Merston villagers named in Manorial Court
  Records from 1271-88 comparison with
  Sevenhampton (70 houses) indicates
• estimated 300 people in 60 houses the highest
  population until 1831 (339)!
• some houses at Berton (10), Wick (10) one or
  two farmsteads (Chelesies, Wydie, Ley?) but
  majority in Merston (40) in toft croft plots
  30m x 100m, wattle, daub thatched houses

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1280 villagers named

• Merston 96 inc. 44 from the families of Thomas
  Warde, Richard Faber (Smith), William Yrmongar,
  Robert le Messor hayward, Simon Cowherd, Walter
  Molendinarius windmill?, Robert Godchep, Jacob
  Renfrey, Stephen Poynant, Henry Le Bedel, Hugo
  Abbod, Thomas Felawe, Walter Url Everard the
  chaplain.
• Berton 21 inc. 15 from the families of William
  de Berton, Robert de Abendon, Hugo Stone quarry
  Walter Hyldyth hill ditch
• Wick 14 inc. Richard de Wyk (chaplain steward
  of the Priory), other de Wyks Thomas, Nicholas,
  Andrew, Robert Walter Walter Sculhard
  family, Agnes, William, Robert Margery the
  brewers of the priory
• Out-lying farms? inc. 10 from Johannes de la
  Leye, Richard de Marisco, Robert de Wydie (
  Cheles ?)

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1280 tracks

• primary routes north-south Berton Highworth to
  Wick Ermin Street east-west Sevenhampton
  Court to Stratton Market
• Dark Lane to waddebroke brokforlonge?
• Green Lane to Bradymoor Heldichesham
• Pathlay to Ley Farm ? Leighmannesheys, Ledenhull,
  Berefurlong
• (Nightingale) lane to Chelsiesmede Chels Farm?
• drove to north of Chelsiesmede
• diagonal holloway to Priors Farley, Hackerne
  Bridge Bourton
• Rowborough Lane (1629) to Wydie (Great
  Rowborough)?
• de Marisco Old Vicarage Lane drove A420 O V
  Lane roads post-1700?

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1280 tracks? No canal, railway, A420
alternative Bourton Lotmead routes Dark Lane,
Green Lane, Path Lay, Chelesies Drove
marsh
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Chelesies Drove pre-1200
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1315 flooding

• land use at full stretch to feed 5 million
  (building oak from Savernake in 1280 indicates
  reduced woodland)
• the chronicles describe the famine in biblical
  terms rains fell nearly continuously for three
  years .crops rotted many people died of
  starvation or disease
• sheep murain cattle rinderpest creates the
  Great Famine 1315-21, killing 10 of the
  population
• Did it happen here? Are we flooded every
  century?
• Alfred Williams recalled freak weather the
  ruination of Farmer Wheeler at Rowborough Farm
  excessive rains came and the floods washed the
  whole of it away and left him penniless in the
  severe frosts of 1891 the canal was frozen for
  seven weeks.

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1332 Tax List

• tax of moveable goods of wealthier villagers
• Merston is wealthy - good pasture meadow for
  animal products (second in the Hundred only to
  Hannington same in 1334)
• familiar names from 1280 de Abyndone, atte Stone
  (Berton), atte Wyke Scolarde (Wick), de
  Marisco, atte Leghe, atte Wydie also Le
  Revehyne (Reeve for absent Priory?)

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Black Death 1349

• killed 2 million of a population of 5 million in
  just two years (compare WWI dead 1 million of 35
  million in four years)
• 1377 tax record suggests 145 people died in
  Merston 155 remained did it destroy Wick?
• where are they buried?
• the Black Death recurred four times to 1380
  destroyed communities, religious orders, manors
  the feudal system
• many copyhold life tenancies were replaced by 7
  year leases!

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145 skeletons in South Marston?
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1365 allocation

• Thomas Pykote, wife Alice son Robert rent a
  messuage with toft croft between William le
  Cartere to the west Andrew le Heywarde to the
  east planned plots for their lives for 6
  shillings yearly, pasture for 3 oxen in the
  woodland 8 acres of arable
• one acre in leighmannesheys, trokenbergh, benhull
  rywardeslade
• half an acre in longforlong, lowstede,
  stokforlonge, ledenhull lithesmore
• one a half acres in waddebroke
• illustrates copyhold landholding about to
  change!

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Winchester College Leyplace

• Lay or Ley (wood clearing) referred to in
  peoples names field names 1230, 1280, 1332
• 1391 Winchester College acquires Leyplace
  comprising c.60 acres (spread out in common
  fields)
• 1393 to 1596 eight leases for terms between 7
  40 years, rather than lifetime copyholds, with
  the rent decreasing from 23 shillings to 20 shows
  reduced population meant reduced demand for
  arable
• WC land allocation becomes enclosed in 1640 is
  centred on Pathlay, later Pidgeonhouse Farm

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The missing 1400s

• few manorial, court, tax records or deeds have
  been published for South Marston - historical
  fracture in surnames (no more Poynant, Godchep,
  Wyk, Marisco, Ley, Wydie, Berton, Hyldyth etc)
• 1380-1480 golden age of wool, cloth
  aristocratic magnets - Hungerfords (courtiers to
  the kings) had stewardship of the Priory of
  Farley acquired land for themselves throughout
  Wiltshire, including South Marston perhaps paid
  for the church tower c.1440?
• Hungerfords relatives from 1500 include
  inter-marrying Wanborough/Stratton/Stanton/SM
  families of Brind, Cusse, Burges, Bryant Harris
  it is they who comprise SM tax payers in 1545
  1576

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Elizabethan Mansion

• Manor Farm Henry Hungerford 1576-82 my lower
  house
• Berton Manor Henry Hungerford junior until
  1626.
• Wynnings in Leycrofte, mansion built by the
  Harris family?
• Old Farm - William Brind, the farmer of Marston
  died 1577
• Cusses Place - once de Marisco? now Longleaze
  Farm?
• Rowborough Burgess family
• Bennetts Becks Dorothie Mundaies
• Population 150 30 families Jenckins, Pinching,
  Edne, Grundie, Mundy, Stevens, Tayler, Lewis,
  Drue, Fowler, Davis, Smarte

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1600 Will of Hercules Burges (1565-1617)
including 20 shillings to his servant Edmund
James (1581-1658) both in Parish Records
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Family Histories

• Parish Records from 1539 WSHC 120 wills, 500
  leases deeds name the villagers
• the Parish Records contain family histories for
  the Southbys (1670-1832), the Mundays (1569-1824)
  the Kempsters (1687-1840)
• frequent internet enquiries from people compiling
  histories of Elizabethan Hungerford, Brind, Cusse
  Burges more recent villagers from the
  Victorian era
• we have one villager who can trace her history
  back to 1600 inc. Jackie Bridges cottage
  Nightingale Lane

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Village hierarchy

• Before 1500 classed according to type of
  land-holding in the manor cottar, villein,
  freeman, lord
• After 1500 classed according to monetary wealth
  husbandsman, yeoman, gentleman, squire no
  agricultural labourer
• After 1600 Enclosure, at first, creates many
  self-sufficient husbandsmen yeomen farming
  copyhold or leasehold land of 5 to 50 acres.

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1650 Enclosure Sale

• Enclosure of the common fields started with the
  Hungerfords in the 1400s was complete by 1650
• we can trace ownership of most of the parish back
  to 1650
• enclosed land was more valuable, the Hungerfords
  gambled their wealth at the Court of King
  Charles I sold two-thirds of the Parish by
  1650
• central manor Old Farm to John Southby (JP,
  MP, Encloures Commissioner) who rebuilt the manor
  house (Manor Farm)
• Berton (Burton Grove Farm) to the Dowe family
• SM Farm, Longleaze Dorothie Mundays to James
  family?

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1700s chalk cheese

• North Wiltshire Cheese boom the Marlborough
  factors selling to London, new A420 turnpike road
  Old Vicarage Lane post-1700 1600 acres of
  pasture by 1840!
• landed gentry of Southby, Dowe, James Goddards
  joined by Hippisley, Freke Warneford rents
  increase, farms renovated new ones built (most
  of those we see today)
• yeomen farmers pay higher rents for farms of more
  than 100 acres displace many self-sufficient
  husbandsmen who now become landless employees,
  the agricultural labourers

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The worn out agricultural labourer

• 1801 Census 151 agricultural workers out of
  c.190 adults in 252 population (only the gentry
  3 vote)
• canal, railway, industrial agricultural
  revolutions alter appearance of village way of
  life
• Alfred Bells brick slate villas with
  allotments replace stone, wattle daub, thatch
  meadow
• 1840 Tithe Map, Censuses 1918 Auction name
  people their houses trace change
• Alfred Williams Nelus farming, medieval
  harvest-home feast, soldiers, railway factory
• 20th Century owner-occupation of freehold land in
  small house plots (320 in SM, Sevenhampton 40)
• farm land becomes recreational countryside (C
  Forest)

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Our landscape shows us

• field shapes names evidencing 1,000 years of
  reclamation, occupation, ownership Enclosure,
  traceable in deeds
• the central channels drainage or irrigation?
• road development at expense of field tracks
• features - medieval holloways, platforms,
  headland, wells, ponds Parish boundaries

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Our archaeology may show us

• dinosaurs
• a Roman villa estate dispersed Saxon farms
• our lost roads (Roman Rowborough Lotmead N-S)
• the medieval planned village, manor windmill
• burials of plague victims the death of Wick
• the remains of Wynnings, the Elizabethan mansion

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New development

• How important to you
• is the preservation of our
• landscape archaeology?