4 PARISH AND CHURCH OF PIDDLETRENTHIDE. 



of temperament and speech. Queen ^Elfgifu found her 

 manor English, and as such we must proceed to deal with it. 

 The condition of the place from the yth century to the i ith can 

 only be deduced from the data supplied in the Domesday survey, 

 which tells us that the boundaries, population, and general 

 industrial status of the inhabitants of Piddletrenthide were much 

 the same in King Edward's time as they are now, mutatis 

 mutandis. 



The arable land in the parish employed 1 7 bullock teams ; half 

 the manor was the Lord's demesne, in this case held by the 

 nominee of the Abbot of Hyde. The manor farm worked five 

 plough teams, and the work on the estate was done by 20 serfs, 

 20 villeins, and 30 boarders, probably occupying as many cottages 

 as the village could show at the present day. The other half of 

 the manor included a strip of pasture or sheep-run " two miles long 

 and half-a-mile wide " ; this seems to imply that the whole of the 

 central valley-land was reserved for this purpose, as nowhere else 

 could such an area be located, and a sub-manor of three hides 

 (some 400 acres) in the hands of freeholders, namely, "a knight 

 and a certain widow," whose land employed three ploughs. 

 Now, it is interesting to note that, at the present day, 400 acres 

 remain freehold in the whole parish, and that previous to the 

 Enclosures Act a strip of land in the most likely position for such 

 a sub-manor as is mentioned in Domesday was known as " Free- 

 lands." This ancient landmark is now entirely lost, the lands in 

 question having been exchanged for others in another part of the 

 parish some 90 years ago. 



The number of mills is given as three (which are still in exist- 

 ence), and the demesne allotted to the Church was worth zS. 

 A further statement in Domesday puzzled me Aliud valet xv. 

 sol. Hoc manerium tenuerunt Aimer et Alured T.R.E.pro II. mancriis 

 de rege E, et non poterant cum terra ista ire ad quemlibit dom m - 

 Finally, the Survey tells us that "afterwards Roger of Arundel 

 held this manor of King William." 



When we remember that those 20 villeins and 30 boarders all 

 had farming lots of their own, with their implements and stock 



