MANORS OF STRATTOX AND GRIMSTON. 9! 



duty to impound, being paid a fee of four pence per head for so 

 doing. 



4. The viewers of fields and tellers of cattle, which appears 

 to have been a joint appointment, their duties being to see to the 

 proper rotation of crops, to procure the common bull, and to see 

 that the number of commonable cattle was not exceeded by any 

 tenant ; they also had to see that each tenant took his turn in the 

 repair of the two common bridges, viz., Lacy's bridge and 

 Hardy's bridge, and that the interchanges of the meadow lands 

 were properly made. 



5. Later there were viewers of chimneys, whose duty it was 

 periodically to inspect the chimneys of the tenants to see that 

 they were kept swept and thus lessen the danger of fire which 

 was so disastrous in a village where all the houses were thatched 

 and built close together. Thus the interests of both the lord of 

 the manor and of the village community were duly guarded. 



I select the following as being of interest from the numerous 

 presentments which were from time to time made between the 

 years 1728 and 1751, when George Pitt and Lora, his wife, were 

 the lords farmers of the Manor of Stratton, by the jury and 

 homage at the view of Frank-pledge with the Court Baron of the 

 said manor : 



MANOR OF STRATTON. 



IOTH OCTOBER, 1728. Before JAMES SYNDERCOMBE, 

 Steward. 



We present William Churchill of Colliton in or near the parish 

 of Holy Trinity in Dorchester, in the County of Dorset, Esquire, 

 as a freehold tenant of this Manor for his land lying in Colliton 

 aforesaid by the yearly rent of 135 4d and suit of Court, and we 

 further present that the said William Churchill hath been three 

 times called in this Court to appear, do his suit and pay his rent 

 and that he did not appear for which default we amerce him 

 as 6d. 



