• 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 (2)

The Town Map

The text descriptions in the survey describe residences in several ways in a column headed ‘Closes Names’. The survey distinguishes in its description of dwelling places between homestead and house. Generally ‘homesteads’ referred to the farmhouse and surrounding land of substantial farmers in the town. House usually referred to non farmers, of whom many held grazing rights in the moors but no other land. However the dwellings of at least three substantial farmers were described as houses, so presumably had no farmyard or extra close attached.

The abbreviations used here [and in the GIS attribute table] are given in brackets. Where two buildings are shown, one is probably a barn although the distinction is generally not made in the terrier text or plan:

• House only (H) - presumably means exactly what it says and that the building is virtually the same area as the land parcel
• House and garden (HG)
• House on waste (HW) - again presumably with no garden; on the waste is taken to mean built on unused land not already taken up by closes and therefore effectively reclaimed from scrubland or road-side verges.
• House and garden on waste (HGW) - as above but with a garden
• House and Home Close (HHC) – with a significant parcel of land attached as a close rather than a garden
• Homestead etc (HSE), homestead and home close (HSC), homestead and garden (HSG) or house and homestead (HHS) - generally these are larger plots than those for houses and are occupied by tenants with other holdings (fields). However some homestead plots are very small and may indicate a previously higher status (e.g. William Pawson at 288).
• Other abbreviations used in the list are:
  FHLD Freehold
  BK Bake house
  RECT Rectory

The occupants (or in some cases perhaps their descendants) of a number of the ‘house and garden’ plots are listed as tradesmen in the 1793 trades directory. Many are in the Market Street/Place area and probably mark the significant development of house/shops as trade developed and the community as a whole became less self sufficient after 1586. Occupation details of the houses are described and locations justified below in geographical order, within street areas. The numbers refer to land parcel numbers in the terrier; missing numbers in a sequence indicate there was no building on that plot. Hmestead/house etc in the town are listed in the order used for the 1586 maps. Click here for the map of Bingham Town in 1776. The map does not distinguish between types of building (house, homestead etc).

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

Newgate Street and Moor Lane

Click here for map of Newgate Street/Moor Lane/Market Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

Plans are not given for the next three houses, which if plot numbers were sequential were next to 369. The plan for the latter shows a widening of Newgate Street. Since Fair Close was to the south, perhaps these three houses were built on land reclaimed from a wide roadway – hence waste – or from scrubby edges of Fair Close (or a combination of the two). None of the occupiers held any other land. They could equally have been on a waste edge of Fair Close in Fairfield Street

Market Place

Click here for map of Newgate Street/Moor Lane/Market Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

These plots are not arranged in a numerical sequence. Figure 1 shows each individual plan – there was not one for 353 – from which the disposition on the conjectural map is deduced.

Market Street

Click here for map of Newgate Street/Moor Lane/Market Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

Church Street

Click here for map of Church Street, East Street and Cherry Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

The land behind (north of) 339-342 was described merely as ‘sundry freeholds’ which we know were under different ownerships.

Cherry Street

Click here for map of Church Street, East Street and Cherry Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

The locations of 305 and 303 are known from the survey plans to be at either end of Cherry Street; eastwards plots 307 and 308 are similarly fixed. There are no plans for the four cottages that must have been in between so the positions are conjectural. The boundaries we have chosen owe something to the tithe map but are significantly different to the terrace of (three) Victorian cottages now at the north end. It is clearly not possible to arrange the houses 301, 302, 304 and 306 in sequence between the known locations of 303, 305, 307 and 308!

East Street

Click here for map of Church Street, East Street and Cherry Street

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

309 (HSC)	William Brooks. He held 46 acres including four contiguous fields in Brackendale and substantial grazing on Meadow Moor and Menders and both Far and Near Little Moors. He also had closes on Chapel Meadow. He held house 305 as well. Clearly a man of some substance, he is not listed in 1793. The previous rectory, an old cottage at 2 East Street, stands here now.
337 (HG)	John Wrath. He held another house and garden at 272 in the Market Place together with a 5-acre close in East Meadow and an acre of grazing in Far and Near Little Moors. A John Wroth is listed in the 1793 directory as a miller. Might that mean he was a baker first and that the property in Market Place was a bakery? (There was at least one other, of course) Two buildings are shown on the plan, one of which may have been a barn or some such.
336 (HG)	Mary White occupied the house together with 1½acres of grazing in Far Littlemoor. The plan for this house (figure 2, right) clearly shows there to have been a pathway around the churchyard, which was a common feature with town churches. The figure also shows the plan for 309 which seems to indicate a narrow path (a line) rather than a road.
333 (HG)	Matthew Stevenson had no other holdings.
334 (H)	Richard Devoral also held 244 in Long Acre East. A Richard Deverall was listed in 1793 as a carrier.
331 (HSE)	James Wickham. He held 84 acres and some shared grazing with Askew and others and four gates on Bull Moor. He was listed in 1793 as a farmer.
330 (HSC)	Thomas Chettle. He held 100 acres with no shared grazing.
329 (HSC)	James Johnson. He held 37 acres with no shared grazing.
316 (HSE)	Joseph Askew. He had 70 acres and was listed in the 1793 directory as a farmer. He had eleven closes in four groups and shared grazing at Toothill with the Littles and in Chapel Meadow with Johnson et al.
315 (HSC)	Daniel Stafford. He was a schoolmaster and father of John, a schoolmaster in 1793. He also held 3 acres in two closes nearby. The plot (8 East Street) now has a much altered 18th century farmhouse.

Long Acre East

Click here for map of Long Acre East

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

Long Acre (central)

Click here for map of Long Acre Central

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

Figure 3 shows the thumbnails for north Long Acre in their relative positions.

Long Acre (west)

Click here for map of Long Acre West

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

The Banks

Click here for map of Long Acre central and the Banks

The maps appear as a pdf. You will need Adobe reader to view them. The size of the map can be adjusted using tools available in your pdf viewer - the image can be magnified and the hand tool used to scroll around the enlarged map.

There was a group of houses built ‘on the waste’, the first plot number of which follows close 158 whose position is fixed well by the plans. This was the northern boundary of South Field in 1586 and the steep slope up to the field was almost certainly incapable of cultivation and therefore ‘waste’. Whether The Banks had actually been a kind of bypass to the town is open to discussion. The original Nottingham Gate followed the line of Stanhope Way which meets The Banks at Tithby Road. The turnpike however followed the modern route of Nottingham Road and Long Acre.

Outlying

By 1776 some of the outlying farms made up of contiguous closes had developed after enclosure:

Plans for the three consolidated farm holdings are at figure 5.

Town Life

As in 1586, the development of Bingham town centre was constrained by the medieval town plan with its grid pattern of roads and lanes. Only Deadman’s Lane seems to have gone, but the 1776 survey does not give street names so we do not know when these may have changed.

Many of the 1586 boundaries we showed in our conjectural map were derived from the 1776 map so it is difficult to demonstrate conclusively that boundaries had been preserved from 1586! However, the property boundaries thus generated did honour the areas quoted in the 1586 survey to within a +/- 5% tolerance, so we are confident that these boundaries do date back to at least the 16th century.

The 1586 conjectural map identified the location of 78 dwellings. The 1776 town map shows 115. There were another four or five in the wider parish. A multiplier of 4.5 is used in some studies to convert number of houses to total population – this would produce a population of 525. Elizabeth Foster’s WEA group (which published “Bingham in the Past”) made three estimates based on Protestation returns of 1642 (573), Hearth Tax returns of 1674 (530) and number of communicants (Compton census) of 1676 (540). The Nottingham Journal in 1779 estimated the population as ‘less than 900’. There is insufficient information to be any more precise. The 1586 disposition of houses is compared on this map with that of the 1776 houses. Virtually all 1586 houses survived (in some form). New 1776 houses were built on previously undeveloped closes that had been tenanted by cottagers or farmers in 1586.

The survey text described dwellings as either homesteads or houses, with or without gardens (and/or home closes in the case of the latter). Unlike 1586, no descriptions were attached to people; all are listed as ‘tenants’ rather than as farmers or cottagers although freeholdings are still identified.

Only 8 houses did not have a garden in which to grow vegetables and perhaps keep chickens or a pig. A large number of tenants made up for having no other land by renting grazing rights on the moor land, perhaps for one or two cows to provide milk (and occasional meat?) for the family. Those with gardens presumably grew vegetables. Thirty five householders had no land or grazing rights at all. Some would have been agricultural labourers working for the larger land holders but most would have been tradesmen, shopkeepers, professional people etc. The trades directory of 1793 lists 80 people in 40 non-agricultural trades. 27 full names in the directory occur in the 1776 list of occupiers only 15 years earlier and could be the same people.

The Universal Trades Directory lists 107 names who between them followed 41 trades (some practised more than one trade). The list of trades followed in Bingham is in figure 6.

Figure 6

By linking names (sometimes surname only) with the Universal trades’ directory of 1791, only 15 years ahead, one can make some assumptions about the trade or occupation of between 27 (forename and surnames same) and 41 (surname only) villagers Figure 7.

Figure 7

We also know from other sources that Daniel Stafford was a teacher. We know from the survey that there was a bakery (now 11 Market Place) occupied by Robert Grant and that Rebecca Bakeley had a brew house (at the NE corner of the modern Warner’s Paddock). There was Thomas Eden’s hop yard (north of the later railway line) and John Lee’s windmill at the top of what is now Tithby Road. This is shown both on the survey and on Chapman’s map of 1774; Lee lived in the cottage in Church Street next to the church. There had been two mills in 1586; the fact that there was now only one maybe a sign of increased efficiency or of reduced demand because of changing agricultural practices from arable to sheep. However, rising population and subsequent food shortages at the end of the century may have led to an increase in arable production and resulted in three windmills appearing on Sanderson’s map of 1835.

John Pilgrim’s house was the Royal Oak (later the Chesterfield Arms (Church Street) and Mr Hains’ freehold was the site of the Wheatsheaf (Long Acre), which we know was operating in 1793 under the tenancy of John Richards. There were two more inns in 1769, run by Septimus Tinkler and Richard Whitworth respectively, but these names do not occur on the survey. They are likely to have been the Marquis of Granby and the Kings Head whose licensees in 1841 were of the same surnames. We know from the newspapers that Thomas Eden ran the White Horse in the Market Place (365 (HSG).

The preceding paragraphs start to build a picture of the social structure of Bingham in 1776. Two large farmers (Thomas Hutchinson at Starnhill and Thomas Pacey in the Market Place, both with over 200 acres) growing commercial crops and/or raising stock for sale would have been at the top of the social strata with seven or eight middle ranking famers of 50 – 200 acres, also presumably producing commercially. In the newspaper notices for the 1770s and 1780s several were mentioned as opulent or wealthy farmers or graziers or both. Among them are William Hutchinson, Richard Skinner, Thomas Pacey, John Chettle, John Timms and William Moggs. John Needham is described as “a gentleman of large fortune”; John Bradshaw as a gentleman; William Brookes as a gentleman “skilled in Philosophy and Polite Literature”. Of Mr John Bates it was said, “formerly a plumber and glazier, but of late retired having acquired a handsome fortune.” Richard Oliver was a maltster of “Great business”, while in a newspaper advertisement for the living at Bingham rectory it was claimed that the rector had an income of more than £600 a year from tithes, making it the richest living in the county. The Porter family, who lived here until c1754 were significant freeholders with a large house and estate.

The middle classes would have been small-holders and tradesmen with a few acres in the fields and/or attached to their house in the town. Some of the smallholders might have been self sufficient or even have sold some produce at market locally. Several, including younger members of the family, would have been labourers or house servants.

A number of present day buildings in the town date from the late 18th century and could have been here in 1776 in some form. These include the Chesterfield Arms in Church Street with numbers 9, 11, 15b and the rears of 19 and 21, The Wheatsheaf Inn, Falcon House and Regency House in Long Acre. Several more have 18th century origins but with 19th century additions or frontages.

Eleven houses were built ‘on the waste’. They may have been squatters’ cottages. Six were on the south side of The Banks (159–164) and three ((370-172) were north of Fair Close on Newgate Street. Waste land was owned by the lord of the manor, usually on town greens or wide grass verges etc. Although technically illegal encroachments the lord often allowed them to remain in return for a nominal payment.