• 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

1776 MAPS - ARCHIVE

Georgian Bingham and the Estate Terrier of 1776 (4)

Homesteads

The description ‘homestead’ might seem to imply a substantial property, perhaps a farmhouse with some land around it. Some of the homesteads would seem to have been very much smaller than that; only 22 were over one acre. 43 occupiers were described as having a ‘homestead …’ - see table below:

The occupiers listed in blue were freeholders.

One holding

Eight people had only one holding of less than 1.5 acres. They had no grazing rights.

Two holdings

Mrs Needham’s plots were a freehold homestead of 4.8 acres on which her own house stood (and still does) and an adjacent house which she rented from the estate and presumably sub let or used as a tied cottage for staff. Doncaster and Widowson had grazing rights, Devoral had a second house.

Three holdings

Grant was the baker, had some grazing and a freehold homestead which we assume was his home. Daniel Stafford was a teacher; his homestead was in East Street with an adjacent portion of Cow Close and another a little way away. We can only speculate that he ran a few head of cattle in his spare time! John Brooks had a close attached to his homestead and 1.48 acres named Doubleday Lane near the Fosse! Widow Oliver had two enclosures away from her homestead.

Four holdings

William Green had two distinct homesteads each with a house and two allocations of grazing. Might the second have been for a son? Horsepool had two enclosed pieces of moorland and some meadow. The family were butchers. Bass had two enclosures at Sweetwell Head.

Five holdings

Samuel Wright had two homesteads but only one had a building. He also had two allocations of grazing. Mary Parr also had two homesteads, both with houses. She had some grazing, a meadow and a close at Starnhill. Johnson had an attached home close and three separate enclosures. Elizabeth Skinner had some grazing and three enclosures. Widow Alvey farmed four closes at Brocker with a house on site.

Six holdings

John Harrison’s homestead was in Long Acre East, he had four contiguous closes at Thoroughbridge (Granby Lane) at the edge of the parish. Johnson had five scattered plots.

Seven holdings

John Bass had a homestead, two houses and four allocations of grazing. James Horspool had five closes and some grazing. Samuel White had six enclosures, four contiguous.

Those with eight or more holdings seemed to be the large farmers except perhaps for Thomas Eden with 10 holdings totalling only 28 acres. He had four allocations of grazing, Townend Close (the triangle bounded now by Nottingham Road, Tithby Road and Porchester Way) and two hop yards – was he a hop dealer as well as licensee of the White Horse? Some inns would have brewed their own beer.

Village locations of main farmers’ homesteads

These can be found on the map here annotated as in the list below:

1. John Timm jnr lived at what is now 8 Newgate Street, a Georgian farmhouse once known as Newgate Street Farm. The Crown Estate rationalised holdings in 1952 and the enterprise moved to Newgate Farm on Nottingham Road when the adjacent land was sold to build Gillots Close.
2. The second largest land holder, Thomas Pacey, tenanted Beauvale Farm, the much altered house of which is still in the Market Place. Aerial photographs show hay ricks still in the yard in the 1950s. The Pacey family occupied Beauvale until the 1870s.
3. James Wickham’s homestead was where Rutland Road is now.
4. Thomas Chettle’s homestead was at 21 East Street, on the present NE corner with Foster’s Lane junction with Rutland Road.
5. Joseph Askew’s homestead was at the east end of East Street and included the house known as “The Rosary” which may date to this period.
6. Thomas Wright’s homestead extended along the west side of Fosters Lane, alongside Porchester Farm.
7. John Chettle lived at what is now Porchester Farmhouse, Long Acre, which has much evidence of old brickwork at the side and rear despite its Victorian frontage. Their tenure lasted until the 1850s. It ceased to be a farmhouse in the 1950s.
8. Samuel White’s farmhouse has been converted into semi-detached cottages 61/63 Long Acre. These have been dated to 1617 by dendrochronology.
9. Thomas Richmond’s house was on the eastern part of 59 Long Acre, which became part of the estate wood yard.
10. Richard Skinner had two homesteads which were between Market Place and Long Acre – the western half of 59 Long Acre.
11. Widow Foster’s house was on the site of the present Fire Station, the barn alongside which is of old narrow brick. Later the Fosters built Banks House, at the southern end of the homestead plot and lived there until the 1870s.
12. Richard Little’s homestead was the entire western side of Fisher Lane. The building known as Long Acre Studios may have been his barn, to which the thumbnail shows the house attached.
13. Samuel Parr’s homestead became “The Paddock” in the 1960s. Two old barns on the site were converted to houses.

Remaining tenants

66 tenants had no holdings in the fields, of which ten had more than an acre of homestead/closes within the village and the remainder just a house and, possibly a garden, maybe with some shared grazing on the moorland. 35 householders had nothing more than a house and some not even a garden. Of the 35, eight were women (including five widows).

12 occupiers did not live in Bingham. Of these John Bower was a farmer in Whatton. The rest occupied a series of small holdings in Brackendale along the parish boundary with Cropwell Butler and seemed to live in Cropwell and not Bingham. Two, William Newton and John Barratt had ‘Cropwell’ after their name to distinguish them from other tenants of the same name. Several others do not appear in the Bingham census of 1841 and a few names do appear but as agricultural labourers whom one might not expect to be in a position to rent land. None of the names appeared as possible tenants in Cropwell Butler, Tithby or Saxondale. The list is as follows: