ESSEX AS A WINE-PRODUCING COUNTY. 4I 



yard, Morant says " that it was situated "on the west side of 

 the Castle, between it and Baylie Street, [at a spot since] called 

 the Lord's Orchard, where lately grew wild vines, bearing red 

 grapes." 



(8.) At "Belcamp" (possibly Belchamp Walter, or 

 perhaps, Down Hall, in Hatfield Broad Oak, as Chisenhale- 

 Marsh suggests), also on the land of Alberic de Vere, there were 

 " xi. arpenni of vineyard, i. of which bears " (fo. clii.). 



It thus appears that, in 1086, nineteen years after the Con- 

 quest, there were in Essex at least forty-two arpenni and a half 

 of vineyards, of which over thirteen arpenni had not yet come 

 into bearing. 



Mr. J. Horace Round has submitted these eight entries to 

 careful examination -j and has called attention to the facts that, 

 in every case, the vineyards in question were new, having been 

 planted since the days of King Edward the Confessor ; that, in 

 several cases, they had been so newly planted that parts of them 

 had not yet come into bearing ; that they are all measured by the 

 arpent — a French measure ; and that they were all, or nearly all, 

 situated upon, or near to, manors held in demesne by a tenant 

 in capite and on which such tenant resided. From these facts, 

 Mr. Round draws the conclusion (which the entries seem fully to 

 justify) that, whether or not viniculture had been carried on here 

 by the Romans, it had fallen into disuse during the days of the 

 Saxons— a beer-drinking people — and had been revived again, 

 after the Conquest, by the Norman nobles, who felt the need of 

 the wine to which tliey had been accustomed in their native land, 

 and therefore planted vineyards in the vicinity of their chief 

 residences. 



We may now turn from Domesday Book to notice other 

 early records proving the former existence of vineyards in this 

 county. 



Mr. Horace Round, in his paper above alluded to, refers to 

 an entry on the Roll of 11 30 which mentions the making of two 

 vineyards on Peverell's land at Maldon, gives particulars of the 

 pay and clothing of a vine} ard man, and speaks of sixteen barrels 



22 Hist, of Essex (1768), ii., p. 291. 



23 Mr. Round's paper on the subject, which was read at the forty-sixth Annual Meeting 

 of the Essex Arch£eological Society at Colchester, on April 20th 1899, since this article 

 was written, appears in the Tninsactions of the Society (vol. vii., n.s., pp. 249-251). 



