96 SOME ANCIENT DOCUMENTS. 
the surnames, to which they gave birth, are to be found in the 
neighbourhood still. If we take up an ordnance map we shall 
see that nearly all the places mentioned in these charters are 
in close proximity, and their precise situations may be pointed 
out. Such names as ‘ Barns” and “ Woodhouses”’ seem to carry 
us back to a time when England was half covered with forests, 
and when a barn, or a squatter’s wooden hut, formed a con- 
spicuous spot in the landscape. 
Amongst the trade-names mentioned in these charters we have 
Ralph the barker or tanner, who was living at Dore in 1351, 
Roger the walker or fuller, who was living at the same date, 
Richard the walker, who was living in 1333, and Ralph Cissor, 
Scissor, or cutler, who was living at Dore about the year 1325, 
where he held land under the lordship of Ralph de Welwick, 
knight. The family of Barker acquired considerable wealth, 
and, doubtless, they obtained it from the lucrative trade of 
tanning. From one of the charters we learn that there was a 
tannery at Beauchief. By this charter Hugh of the Barkhouse 
gives to Ralph the barker and William of the Barkhouse (the 
name is the same as the willing ‘‘ Barkis” of Dickens) all his 
property in the tanyard, his goods, chattels, and debts owing 
to him. It would thus appear that tanners, in those days, sold 
on credit, for these debts were “book debts” belonging to the 
tannery. The charter is dated 1384. Attached to another of 
the Barker deeds is a seal, which appears to represent a triangular 
pile of bark. Something is said about these Barkers in Dr. 
Pegge’s Historical Account of Beauchief Abbey, as also in my 
own Memorials of that house. I have nothing to add to what 
has been said in those books, but I will here insert an abstract 
of a deed which Charles Jackson, Esq., of Balby, near Doncaster, 
was good enough to send me :— 
DRONFIELD.—Feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 1449. William Bolloke, 
alderman of the Gild of the Blessed Mary, founded in the parish of St. John 
Baptist, and John Hordryn, chaplain of the same, with the consent of the 
brethren of the gild aforesaid, have granted to Thomas Melton the elder, and 
Joysie, his wife, a messuage in Dronfeld, and ja. and tr. of land, formerly in 
