THE HUNDRED OF HAMFORDSHOE 



CONTAINING THE PARISHES OF 



GREAT DODDINGTON HOLCOT WELLINGBOROUGH 



EARLS BARTON MEARS ASHBY WILBY 



ECTON SYWELL 



THE hundred, which appears in the Geld Roll of 1 076 as ' AnduerSeshoh' 

 and in Domesday Book as 'Andferdesho' and 'Hanverdesho', has 

 always contained these eight parishes; and a portion of Hardwick, of 

 which parish the greater part belonged to Orlingbury hundred, was 

 also in this hundred at least as late as 13 16.' Even in about 1720 a meadow in 

 Hardwick still owed suit and service to Lord Brook's court at Wellingborough. ^ 



The hundred descended with the manor of Yard- 



/^ *'^ ^ ley Hastings (q.v.) and was usually coupled with 



\ ;.<^ 'N.^/''^* ^*' the adjacent hundred of Wymersley. In 1246 



^'^^\\ ^J^:*\ ^"*"°''°"'^" i the two hundreds were said to be paying 11 



I "P *. '.waVYy. / marks, whereas they had formerly paid less;^ and 



j : ,_ '"•:'' S'^'-'/ i" I 329 complaintwas made that they used to be 



'•.EARLS ':^<s^V* farmed for I ooj. but twenty years before John de 



V''^°'^':BARTor/-^^* Hastings had raised the farm to ^^Ti 6, to the great 



\ .^.— ** oppression of the people. 4 Complaint was made 



HA\fFOHrmHOF ^^ ^^^ same time against the bailiff of Hamford- 



shoe that when he had to raise 2s. td. from the 



Map of the Hundred . , . , - 



hundred towards the expenses or the Knights or 

 the Shire at Parliament he took excessive distraint from the Abbot of Crowland.5 

 Hamfordshoe and Wymersley were held of the Crown by Sir William Compton 

 at the time of his death in 1528 by service of a sparhawk or is.^ 



The meeting-place of the hundred in 1 565, and probably from the earliest 

 times, was at 'Low Hill', which has been identified by Miss Wake with a mound 

 in Round Hill field on the borders of Mears Ashby, commanding a view of the 

 whole country-side.'^ By the beginning of the i8th century the hundred court 

 had been removed to Wellingborough.^ 



' F.C.H. Northants. i, 354, 382; Feud. Aids, iv, ^ Ibid. m. 7. 



17, 27. * Bridges, loc. cit. 



^ Bridges, AforM<z«/j. ii, 136. ' The P/ace-Names of Northants. (Engl. P.-N. 



3 Assize R. 614, m. 41 d. Soc), 137. 



'' Ibid. 622, m. 7 d. ^ Bridges, loc. cit. 



112 



