• BINGHAM: AN OVERVIEW
• HISTORY OF BINGHAM
  • Introduction
  • Prehistoric times
  • Iron Age
  • Roman Bingham
  • The Anglo-Saxons
  • Medieval Bingham
  • Tudor times
  • Stuart times
  • Georgian times
  • Victorian Bingham
  • 20th Century
  • 21st Century
• ARCHAEOLOGY
  • Project Details
  • Field Walking
    • Summary
    • Field Walking Method
    • Database Design
    • Details about the Parish
    • Protocol
    • Description of Finds
      • Introduction
      • Flints
      • Stone Axes
      • Iron Age
      • Roman
      • Anglo-Saxon
      • Saxo-Norman
      • Medieval
      • Post Medieval
      • Stoneware
      • Clay Pipes
      • Glass
      • 19th-20th C
      • Miscellaneous
    • Analysis of Results
      • Introduction
      • Prehistory
      • Iron Age
      • Roman
      • Anglo-Saxon
      • Medieval
      • Tudor-Stuart
      • 18th Century
      • Modern
    • References
    • Conclusions
  • Crow Close
    • Purpose and location
    • Historical background
    • Topographical survey
    • Geophysical surveys
    • Analysis of results
    • Discussion/conclusions
    • References
    • Acknowledgements
  • Test Pits
    • Market Place Dig
    • Robert Miles Jnr School
    • Archaeological test pits
    • Churchyard
  • Warner's Paddock
  • STUDY OF OLD MAPS
    • Bingham in 1586
      • Introduction
      • Interpretation
      • Town Centre
      • Additional Holdings
      • The Open Fields
        • Furlongs/Holdings/Strips
        • South Field
        • East Field
        • West Field
        • North Field
      • Holdings and Strips
        • Reconstructing holdings
        • Analysis of holdings
        • Sizes of holdings
      • Street and road names
      • Bingham in 1776
        • The Estate Terrier
        • Town Map
        • The Fields
        • Homesteads
        • Shared Tenancies
      • Bingham in 1841
        • Apportionment
        • Town Map
        • Life in 1841
        • Analysis
        • 1841-1901
      • BUILT HERITAGE
        • Introduction
        • Development of Bingham
        • House Histories
        • Old and New Views
        • Architectural Details
        • Street Names
        • St Mary Church
      • CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
      • FARMING IN BINGHAM
      • BINGHAM AT WAR
        • World War I
        • World War II
      • BINGHAM'S RAILWAYS
      • CHURCHYARD
        • Introduction
        • Search the Churchyard
        • Churchyard Map
        • Genealogical Charts
        • Inscriptions
        • Species List
      • ORAL HISTORY
      • NATURAL HISTORY
        • Wildlife and Flora
        • Natural History Surveys
        • Linear Park
      • GEOLOGY

A MAP OF BINGHAM FOR 1586 (12)

Freeholders
Tenants
Cottagers
Closes
Land utilisation
Personal names

Analysis of Holdings

AW Richardson (see) observed that early surveyors needed handbooks such as Benese’s as their education was poor and in particular they were as a group poor at arithmetic. They can perhaps be excused finding it difficult to add acres, roods, decimae and perches! The surveyor of Bingham, Robert Johnson, seems not to have had this problem. A comparison of his lists of areas on the pages summarising each holding (tenant farmers and tenant cottagers) and our summation of his lists of holding holdings for the same individuals shows an overall error of only 0.01%. Clerks however were not immune from errors in transcribing his notebooks as we have noticed on a number of occasions. Some we managed to correct some we had to live with – for instance two entries of “9” in the roods column, which probably should have been noughts but we missed until very late on!

Freeholders

Not all the land in the parish was owned by the Stapletons; Between 10 and 15% belonged to a few private freeholders. Some were absentees and the number of resident freeholders may have been about ten. They are all are listed in the Survey as they owed some dues and services to the lord of the manor which were commuted into rents. Acreages of freehold land were not relevant to the purposes of the survey and so were not measured. The Survey did record the number of bovates of open field land held by the freeholder, which amounted to 21, split between ‘land’ (13.25) and ‘meadow’ (7.25). In only one case did the description specifically say the meadow was in the ‘common meadow’, but one might assume they had grazing rights on the common land. The details are in figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Descriptions of freeholdings

Freeholders owned and in some cases also tenanted holdings in the open fields, and a few tenants also had the freehold to one or two holdings. The details of freehold homesteads and of holdings each held is given in figure 16.
The areas given are our calculations based on:

• Measurement on the GIS of homestead boundaries that resulted from the mapping process.
• Freehold holdings areas based on the average area of a tenanted holding for each furlong.

We know from other sources that the largest freeholder was Robert Porter and indeed this is generally borne out by the mapping process – the ‘gaps’ between listed properties are freehold and the survey does give the location in formation. His family was of long standing in Bingham, as a William Porter is listed as the largest freeholder in a manorial survey of 1450. The family died out in the late 1600s but the estate passed by descent through related families down to the Sherbrookes who seem to have broken it up for sale in c.1800-1820. Robert Porter’s estate in 1586 comprised one messuage and five bovates of land and five bovates of meadow, which is estimated at c.100-120 a., probably comprising a large block of closes to the east of the town, as well as 265 holdings totalling 113 acres a. scattered throughout the open fields. He had presumably recently purchased another farm, as he is recorded as also owning a messuage (an acre and a half in the middle of Husband Street), three bovates of land and three of meadow, formerly in the possession of John Sertaine.

The freeholders were:

Robert Porter
George Gelstrop (listed twice as he had two main entries).
William Kirke
John Ludlam
John Wilson
Edward and Nicholas Spybie
Thomas Selby
Alexander Rowarth
William Gervys, alias Brunce
John Northe
Thomas Johnson

There were 615 freehold holdings, 15% of the total. As mentioned above, areas are not given but an indication of relative status can be derived from analysing their respective numbers of holdings. In this case we are using number of holdings listed as potentially more accurate measure than the number of holdings give by the surveyor, as these seemed to vary in area for occupiers who had the same area of holding. Figure 2 gives the numbers of freehold holdings per individual. Our calculation of areas assumes a freeholder’s holding would be the average of the tenanted holdings for that furlong.

The names in red in figure 2 occur in the list of freeholders in the text (homestead). The names in black were all tenants except William Beane who was a cottager. We do not know why these tenants and cottagers felt the need to own one stip in addition to their rented holdings, which in some cases were extensive. Gabriel Goodwyn (with 18 holdings) does not appear in the list of tenants or cottagers but Brian Goodwyn is listed as a tenant with 161 tenanted holdings. Perhaps they were of the same family and lived in the same house. If this was the case Brian would probably be the father of Gabriel as he was the tenant.

Figure 2: Freehold open field holdings

Several freeholders also rented some open field holdings – George Gelstrop had six, Thomas Johnson three and Thomas Selby two. John Ludlam, however, rented 308. He was the largest farmer in the parish and he was also a freeholder, owning two cottages, half a bovate of land (c. 5-7a.) and a croft in his own right, and was also farming a ‘messuage’ (house, etc) (Newgate Street Farm) and two bovates owned by the freeholder John Wilson who probably lived elsewhere. His total acreage must therefore have amounted to c.130a. He probably lived in his freehold holding (now 19 Church Sreet) as he is recorded as tenanting only two ‘tenements’, one of which was a newly-erected cottage

Freeholders were still liable for a rent - see figure 3 - which were due for paying suit of court and/or in lieu of military service. Eg why the different rates – did it reflect different land holdings (looks as though it might) and why might Northe not pay any rent?

Figure 3 - Freeholders’ rents

Tenants

The tenants of the manor are listed in two main groups – the first (unspecified) are evidently the 25 farmers or ‘husbandmen’ with substantial farms and land. The farmers included two women - Agnes Musson, widow, and Elizabeth Allane, possibly a spinster as she is not noted as a widow. The farmers’ holdings varied in size from 98 acres down to 21, the majority being in the 40-60 acre range. Virtually all had arable, pasture and meadow land in the proportion 77/9/14% with a maximum variation of plus or minus 4% points except John Wright who held 45 acres (about the mid range for tenants) in the proportion 69/6/25%.

Between them the farmers had pasture rights on common lands (no individual allocations were given in the text) as follows:

Common Moors: 652 beastgates
The Oxe Pasture: 180 beastgates
Unsown common fields: 2400 sheepgates

The farmers’ rents ranged from £ 3 19s 11d down to £1 (see figure 18). The highest was paid by Stephen Parke whose farmstead was on the south side of Husband Street (site of the Paddock) and who farmed 72 acres. On great landowning estates such as that of the Stapletons which were scattered through several counties it was not uncommon for tenant farmers and manorial officials to be moved by their landlord from one estate to another, and Stephen Parke was obviously one of these. He appears to have come to Bingham from the Stapletons’ main estates around Carlton in Yorkshire, as property deeds for the small riverside market town of Snaith show that ‘Stephen Parke of Bingham, yeoman’ also owned freehold land there in 1591, and he is later described as ‘of Snaith, yeoman’. Following his death there his land passed to his daughter Jane, wife of a Snaith labourer, and his son William Parke, described in 1612 as a’ batchelor of Bridlington Quay’ in Yorkshire.

Surprisingly John Ludlam who paid slightly less rent than Parke (£ 33 13s 0d) actually had more land - 98 a.- so rents must have also taken account of variable factors such as the quality of the land, the size of the farmhouse, etc. He was the largest farmer in the parish as he was also a freeholder (see above)

Beneath the farmers in the social hierarchy there was a wide social gap to the cottagers, described below.

The tenant farmers holdings in ascending order of shillings per acre are at figure 4: In the text rents are sometimes quoted in £-s-d and sometimes in s-d where the shillings are more than 20! We have converted all rents to shillings. The range of rents per acre is from 0.72 to 1.23, almost double. We do not have an explanation for the huge rent paid by William Smith for his tiny holding on Fisher Lane! He was a tenant not a cottager and his lack of land demonstrates he was not a farmer. His holding was described as a tenement and 2 bovates of land, barn and yard and was on the corner of Fisher lane and Husband Street which would have been a good location for a craftsman to serve the farmers. His high rent may have been for a workshop as well as a cottage.

Figure 4 Tenants’ holdings and rentals

Cottagers

Beneath the farmers in the social hierarchy there was a wide social gap to the 27 cottagers with their small crofts and a few common rights but - with six exceptions - no arable land at all. Apart from the three who paid rents of £1 the rest ranged from 16s down to 3s, two thirds of them being under 8s. Five of the twenty seven cottages were described as having gardens (for growing produce and keeping hens, pigs, etc) but there must have been others, and two had small orchards. Between them the cottagers also possessed eighteen beastgates on the common pastures, but no individual allocations are given. Two cottagers were women, Widow Isabella Smyth and Elizabeth Allen. An Elizabeth Allane was a tenant farmer; it is not clear if these were the same person (the cottage might then have been a tied to a farm labouring job. Cottagers’ details are listed at table 4.

John Allane paid over three pounds for his holding, and Thomas Wragby paid 30 shillings. Both were millers, Wragby at the top of Mill Hill and Allane on West Moor Lane. The differential might be because Allane also had 9 acres of arable land (19 holdings, see figure 20) rather than that one mill was more successful. Wragby had a single holding in Millne Furlong, West Field, alongside his mill.

The three next highest payers had holdings as well as a cottage and croft or toft. They were the only cottagers with bovates of land allocated to them in the description of their holding. William Beane and Roger Gill paid 20s for their holdings and had 33 and 20 holdings in the open fields respectively. Ralph Banister at 16s had 24 holdings.

Four other cottagers (see figure 5) had between one and three holdings, the rest had none. We must seek another explanation for the wide disparity of rents amongst this group – 16s down to 3s.

Figure 5: list of cottagers with rents

Nine Cottagers held 106 holdings in the open fields (about 2% of the area), as listed in figure 6:

Figure 6: Cottagers holding holdings

Figure 7 shows a different analysis of those cottagers with only a cottage and a croft etc with no additional land in open fields or windmills etc (i.e. with zero total area in table 4).

Figure 7: Details of cottagers’ homesteads and descriptions of holding

The entries in blue hint at standard rents for similar properties – 13.33 per acre for Johnson and Smyth and 11.11 for Richmond, Atkinson and Carlton for very similar properties. Other differences may just reflect differently sized houses, but the five highest figures may, as with Allane, Wragby and William Smith earlier, indicate also the inclusion of trade premises in the rental. Thomas Johnson was described in the text as "calcionarius” - a spurrier or shoemaker, the only tradesman defined as such.

Closes

That there had been some enclosure activity before 1586 is revealed by the existence of around
50 separate pieces of land described variously as closes, pastures, parcels, meadows. They were generally domain occupied land and farmed by Thomas Leake, the lessee of the estate. A few were rented to tenants. We suspect most if not all were meadow or pasture (29 were so described); 22 were said to be closes (5 of these were specifically described as ‘enclosed’), including .

Land utilisation

90% of the open fields were arable, with about 5% meadow and 5% pasture. The latter were generally near water or adjacent to common moorland or meadow. The last two may or may not have been permanent usage. Less than 50% of the land available in the parish was arable. Using estimates for freeholds and domain land not measured, Figure 8 gives a reasonable approximation of the proportions of arable, meadow and pasture in use in 1586. One had been ‘lately enclosed’ suggesting perhaps this was an ongoing activity.

Figure 8: Land Use

Personal names

Eight of the surnames of 1586 survived in Bingham in the 1776 (and some into the 1841 lists). Two are recorded in recent times. There are Selbys in Bingham in 2010 (although this is probably a coincidence as the name does not appear in any of the 19th century censuses). Derrys (Dyrrie) survived through the 19th century censuses until the early 20th century, giving their name to Derry Lane and a house called ‘Edmunderry’ in Fairfield Street, although the name does not appear in the 1776 list but returns in 1841.

The following names survived from 1586 to 1776:

• (Thomas) Atkinson – (John) Atkinson
• (Henry) Harison – (John) Harrison
• (Thomas) Johnson – (James, John and Samuel) Johnson (and in 1841 William)
• (Thomas and John) Skynner – (Richard and Elizabeth) Skinner (and in 1841 George the cooper and George the farmer)
• (Brian) Wheatley – (William) Wheatley
• (Richard) White – (George, Mary and Samuel) White (and in 1841 Samuel and Charles)
• (John) Wilson – (Elizabeth) Wilson (and in 1841John, Samuel, Thomas and William)
• (John) Wright – (Samuel and Thomas) Wright (and in 1841 John, Thomas and William)