By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 23 
- From a.p. 1001.—1100. 
We have brought our narrative down to the commencement of 
the eleventh century. Then followed the most complete and the 
last conquest of England. In a few years the country presented 
the singular spectacle of a native population with a foreign sove- 
reign, a foreign hierarchy, and a foreign nobility. Domesday Book 
was completed in 1086, just twenty years after the battle of Hast- 
ings, and that remarkable record shows how the country had been 
portioned out among the captains of the invaders. In Bradford, 
however, we seem to have been comparatively favoured. The Ab- 
bey at Shaftesbury is still spoken of as possessed of Bradford ; and 
amongst those who held lands here, by military service under the 
King, are several whose names are clearly Anglo-Saxon. 
Domesday Book contains the following entries concerning Brad- 
ford and its dependencies. 
Under the head of Lands of the Church of Shaftesbury we have 
the following! :— 
(Ch. xii. § 3.) ‘‘The same Church (Shaftesbury) holds Bradeford. It was 
assessed in the time of King Edward at forty-two hides. Here are forty 
plough-lands (caracute). Thirteen of these hides are in demesne, where are 
are eight plough-lands, and nine servants, and eighteen freedmen (coliberti). 
Thirty-six villagers (villani) and forty borderers (bordarii) occupy the other 
thirty-two plough-lands. There are twenty-two hog-keepers. Thirty-three 
burgesses (burgenses) pay thirty-five shillings and ninepence. And one of the 
holders pays seven quarts of honey. Two mills pay three pounds. The market 
pays forty-five shillings. Here is an arpen* (arpenna) of vines and fifty acres 
of meadow. The pasture is one mile and three furlongs in length and three 
furlongs broad. The wood is three quarters of a mile long and a quarter of a 
mile broad. 
§ 5. ‘*To the same manor of Bradeford belongs Alvestone.® It was assessed in 
the time of King Edward at seven hides, besides the above mentioned for forty - -two 
} Wyndham’s Domesday Book for Wiltshire. p. 160. 
2 An Arpen was perhaps something less than an acre. It varied in different 
districts. 
% Alvestone. It is not easy to explain how Alvestone was first reckoned as 
parcel of the Manor of Bradford, nor when it was severed from it. The exact 
place alluded to even may be matter of doubt. There are two places in Glou- 
cestershire, about ten miles from Bristol, one called Olveston and the other 
Alweston, which till lately were held as one living, and the Rectory impropriate 
of which now belongs, as does that of Bradford, to the Dean and Chapter of 
Bristol. 
