PETERBOROUGH SOKE 



PETERBOROUGH 



ground floor, being most liable to attack, is only fur- 

 nished with two small windows, and was probably a 

 cellar or store-place. The room above it has a fire- 

 place (modernized) and is much better lighted, 

 although the actual windows are of later date than 

 the walls. Each of these floors was approached from 

 the hall-wing, but there are no traces of the original 

 staircase which led to the upper floor of the wing. 

 The tower itself has no stairs leading from the ground 

 floor, but it has a narrow flight, contrived in the 

 thickness of the wall, giving access from the first floor 

 to the room over it, and a circular newel-stair from 

 the top floor on to the battlements of the roof. 



The top floor has an enclosure in the thickness of 

 the wall for a garderobe, but the shoot is filled up, 

 and the stone seat lies about in the large room. The 

 windows of this floor have never been glazed, but the 

 jambs and muUions are rebated in the usual way on 

 the inside to receive wooden shutters. The 

 present condition of this room closely re- 

 sembles what it was in its early days, and 

 the narrow stairs, the rough floor, the un- 

 glazed windows, and the bare walls convey 

 a vivid idea of the amount of comfort which 

 was expected in the days when it was built. 

 There was no fire-place here, but the single 

 octagonal shaft of the flue from below still 

 remains behind the battlements. 



Longthorpe was the only hamlet 

 MANOR of Peterborough which was a 

 separate manor with its own 

 court. ' Thorpe ' is mentioned in the spuri- 

 ous charter of Wulfhere as an appurtenance 

 of Peterborough,' and a 'Thorpe' is also 

 mentioned in the charter of Edgar,' which 

 may have been Longthorpe or one of the 

 other possessions of Peterborough of that 

 name. In Domesday Longthorpe is rated 

 at two hides,' and about 1 125 at two hides 

 and one virgate.' William son of Ansere- 

 dus, who will be referred to again, held a 

 quarter part of three virgatcs for military 

 service ; and William son of Odard, the 

 cook, held a quarter of two virgates by ser- 

 vice of cooking for the abbot. Godric, who 

 held a quarter part of three virgates, for which 

 he and his horse did service for the abbot, is 

 the only other tenant named. Either Henry I 

 or Henry II granted to the abbot of Peter- 

 borough that he should hold his 'land of 

 Thorp' for 8^. as his predecessors had held 

 it of the king's ancestors.' Richard I con- 

 firmed to Peterborough ' Thorp,' as an appurtenance 

 of Peterborough, with its chapel.* The ' court ' of 

 Longthorpe is mentioned in the valuation of the 

 abbey's lands in 1 29 1,' and again in the descrip- 

 tion taken on the death of Abbot Godfrey in 

 1321, when a capital messuage and a dovecote 

 which had been rebuilt by Godfrey are also men- 

 tioned.' Free warren w.is granted to the abbot and 

 convent in their demesne lands of Longthorpe by 

 Edward I in 1293.' At the beginning of the 14th 

 century the scries of Court Rolls at Peterborough 



begins. The first for Longthorpe is dated 1320-1, 

 the latest 1695, but there are not more than a dozen in 

 all for the manor, scattered fairly regularly over that 

 period.'" 



In a list of manors of the monastery dated 1 53 5-6 

 two manors in Longthorpe are mentioned — John 

 Villers is stated to hold a lease of the 'old' manor for 

 40 years, Thomas Philip for 2 1 years of the ' new ' 

 manor." This ' new ' manor probably developed 

 from the holding of Anseredus, father of the William 

 in the 12th-century description. In another part of 

 the same document Guy de Waterville is said to hold 

 one knight in Overton and Thorp. This is annotated 

 by a 13th-century scribe, 'Primus Anseredus de 

 Watervile. Robert de Watervile holds in North- 

 amptonshire — -that is to say, in Torpe, and in Hunting- 

 donshire — that is to say, in Overton half a knight's 

 fee and a quarter, and thence makes service.' This 



Longthorpe Tower. 



note is corroborated by the bull of Pope Eugenius in 

 1146, which confirmed to Peterborough the fee of 

 Anseredus in Overton and Thorpe." Guy was per- 

 haps the son of Anseredus and William, possibly a 

 younger brother who may have held the land in 

 Thorpe of the elder as well as holding directly of the 

 abbey. It did not, however, long remain in his hands, 

 unless he dropped his surname and was called instead 

 from the village which had become his home, for in 

 1 199 Robert de Waterville, the successor of Guy, w.is 

 deling with Thurstan of Thorpe about land in 



1 Birch, Carl. Sax. No. 22. 



a yl. S. Chrm. (Rolls Scr.), i, 220. 



» y.C.H. Narihants, i, 3 1 3 a. 



■* Chronicon, p. 158. 



' Swapham, fol. 43^, as in the Edgar 



charter. This is no evidence to show that 

 Longthorpe is referred to here. 



'■' Cart. Antiq. DD. 17. 



? Po[>c Nich. Tax. (Rcc. Com.), p. 53. 



' Sparke, Scriptures, pp. 163, 177. 



457 



9 Chart. R. 22 Edw. I, m. 15, No. 44. 

 '" Doc. in custody of dean and chapter 

 of Peterborough. 

 " Doc. at Peterborough. 

 '^ Sparke, Serif nres, p. 79. 



58 



