This is the third installment of the Wonderful Wallingford series. Part two looked at the legal aspects of the borough and this time we look at the exceptionally rich series of medieval deeds. If you would like to read parts one and two, simply scroll to the bottom to find the links.
Gloves and roses: the borough deeds
Firstly, there are two rolls of enrolled deeds, 1232 and 1252-1253 (W/RTA). These appear to include all transactions involving real estate in the borough for these years.
The series W/RTB comprises over 140 charters of properties in Wallingford and neighbouring parishes mainly for the 13th and 14th centuries (with a few later deeds). They were presumably deposited with the clerk of the borough for safe keeping, a practice which appears to have been followed in several boroughs. The very earliest deeds are undated, but can be dated by the handwriting and the names of those mentioned to around 1230. Deeds from this period are almost always in Latin, and record the names of the parties, a brief description of the property conveyed (sometimes giving the name of adjoining landowners), purchase price and/or ongoing rent, and a list of several witnesses. The witness lists usually comprise upstanding members of the community, and are useful evidence for the history of both surnames and Christian names. Properties might include houses in the town, pieces of land in the common fields, stalls (known as selds) in the market place, etc. Rents were usually in money, paid two or four times a year, but occasionally more unusual provisions such as a pair of gloves every year, or a rose, a clove gillyflower, even in one case, a circlet of roses. Each deed would have originally had one or more wax seals appended, bearing the personal emblem of the vendor, but not all have survived the vicissitudes of time.
Covenants for a brewer
One fascinating lease, dated 1272, is of part of a corner messuage (house) in the now lost parish of St Lucian, opposite the borough corn market. William Alan, the owner, was required to provide his tenants (Richard and Alice de Benetlyea) with a furnace, kiln, and a great tun with a vessel for brewing, and in the first year of the lease term to build them a stable for four horses and an outside chamber, also undertaking repairs and roofing of buildings during the whole term. The tenants could make doors and windows wherever they wished, looking into the street for their merchandise, as long as there was no damage to the buildings. If William’s daughter got married during the nine year term, and he wished to give her the said messuage, the tenants agreed to move out. The vast majority relate to Wallingford, with some from further afield.
W/T comprises a smaller number of deeds of properties acquired by the borough, including property acquired by the aldermen and gild of Wallingford ,c.1230-1250 (W/TCA); the mayor and burgesses, 1290-1348 (W/TCB); property given in exchange for freedom of the borough, c.1220-1325 (W/TCC); and grants to the bridge wardens, 1299-1533 (W/TCD). There are also deeds of property granted to the endowment of St John’s Hospital, a charity founded before 1224, c.1225-1412 (W/THA), and leases by the hospital, c.1265-1504 (W/THB). These include a grant of a rent charge of 17 pence to pay for the maintenance of the lamps burning before the infirm at night, from about 1230. Similar deeds survive for property given to St Mary Magdalene’s Hospital for lepers in Crowmarsh Gifford, c.1240-1359 (W/THD).
Freedom to play
Counterpart leases of the borough’s properties had already been catalogued for the years 1334-1499 (W/TLA). Counterparts are the copy which was kept by the owner of the freehold. One interesting early lease is for the ancient open space now called Kinecroft (but Canecrofte in this deed, dated 1342), to be used as pasture land. The lease reserved the right of free entrance and exit for all men to go wherever they wished in Kinecroft, including for playing (‘ad ludendam’ in the original Latin) daily, and allowed for fairs to be held on the feast days of the Holy Trinity and the Nativity of St John the Baptist, as was the local custom. John Bate, the tenant, was forbidden to put any pigs in the pasture for agistment (feeding), or any animals which might damage the pasture or the mounds; as these were actually the original Saxon fortifications hopefully modern archaeologists are grateful for this! There is also a series of copies of leases granted by the borough, 1700-1878 (W/RTC).
Leases of the stalls (usually known as ‘selds’) where local retailers put their goods out for sale, although clearly far from complete, cover the period c.1258 to 1447 (W/TLB). Sometimes the tenant was asked to keep the constructions in repair, sometimes it was the responsibility of the burgesses. Some of these selds were actually on the lower floor of the Guildhall. In 1639 the butchers’ stalls were replaced by a state-of-the-art Butchers’ Shambles, with additional stalls going up on market days for visiting butchers from other places on market days. There is also a series of leases of the market tolls, 1684-1829 (W/TLT), and one for the goods and chattels of felons and borough court fines, 1733 (W/TLF1).
Floating down the river – pic W/TLC
We have added to the medieval records by cataloguing the post-medieval series, 1500-1831 (W/TLC), which had not previously been listed. While these were only a small proportion of properties in the town, they will be of potential interest for house history as well as showing how the borough managed its estate.
Perhaps the most interesting are a series for the lock above the bridge, later called the Old Lock, starting in 1619; and leases for a messuage (the Row Barge inn) adjoining the water running from a watermill, which included the right to fish in the Mill Brook with nets, bucks, instruments and engines, and to row or float small boats up from the Thames to the Mill Tail, and to set up a lock in the Mill Brook to regulate the waters there, 1735-131. In 1756 the mayor and burgesses leased a winch standing on an island called the Winch Eyot, which was used to help barges navigate through the bridge, with the right to fasten the punt boat belonging to the bridge to any trees or rails on the island. The owner, John Bishop, retained the right to use the boat and its pole himself, as long as he did not hinder the mayor and burgess, that is, the borough authorities.
All these fascinating deeds are now available to consult in the searchroom. Please see our Planning a Visit page for details on how to book. You will need to be able to read Latin for the medieval deeds, but our catalogue helpfully abstracts all the details for you. You can search the Wallingford catalogue online.
In our next installment we will learn how Wallingford modernized itself.
Why not read the first two parts of the Wonderful Wallingford series online too: