SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



in Peveril Honour were quite ' decayed.' !09 They were, however, leased at 

 a low rent (^50) and set to work again. Perhaps the disorganization and 

 slackness of trade appear in the difficulties experienced by the persons set to 

 cut wood in Sherwood Forest for the supply of the navy. Writing from 

 Ollerton, the government agent complained bitterly of the difficulty of trans- 

 porting the timber. Carts were scarce, carters ' sluggish,' nor was transport 

 by water easier. There was only one ship at Stockwith fit for the work in 

 1662 3: " a year later two great ketches were in use; but there was a 

 difficulty in getting men to work these as the watermen objected to leaving 

 their own county for fear of being pressed. 211 



Despite this laxity, however, Nottinghamshire steadily gained ground 

 during the comparatively quiet period following the Restoration. By the end 

 of the century the Hearth-money Rolls show that Nottinghamshire had risen 

 to the twenty-fourth place among English counties ; though the number of 

 houses (17, 8 1 8, or one house to 29 acres) suggests that the population was still 

 scattered. 212 The description of the county in the diary of Celia Fiennes 

 also gives an impression of prosperity. She commented on the good stone- 

 built houses to be seen, not only in the towns, but along the banks of the 

 Trent between Newark and Nottingham. North of Nottingham the little 

 towns were built of brick, though Mansfield, ' a little market town,' was 

 built of stone. Many slight traces of luxury and comfort are also noted, such 

 as the ' Piazy ' in Nottingham, or the ' sashed ' windows at the great house 

 at Blyth. The fertility of the land round Nottingham excited her admira- 

 tion. ' The Green Meadows with the fine Corrn-ffields which seem to 

 bring forth in handfulls. They soe most of Barley and have great Encrease.' 

 The barley was no doubt the source of the Nottingham ales of which Celia 

 Fiennes speaks. These were famous for long afterwards ; and were frequently 

 sold by the yard. Other industries mentioned by Celia Fiennes were the 

 weaving and dyeing of ' Tammys ' at Mansfield, the spinning of glass, and 

 making of buttons in Nottingham itself ; and the weaving of stockings. su 

 She speaks of this manufacture as if confined to Nottingham town ; but it is 

 probable that it was beginning to spread through the villages. In 1669 there 

 are said to have been under a hundred stocking frames in Nottinghamshire ; in 

 1714 they had increased to four hundred, 214 and since as late as 1751 Deerino- 

 mentions only fifty frame-work knitters in Nottingham town, 215 it is probable 

 that the industry had spread through the adjacent villages before the close of 

 the 1 7th century. As a domestic industry, in which both women and chil- 

 dren could take part, stocking-weaving was well suited to a country of small 

 occupiers such as Nottinghamshire appears still to have been. The details of 

 the Duke of Newcastle's rent-roll during the i8th century distinctly suggest 

 that in the earlier part of the century his tenants held small farms. At 

 Sutton Bonnington in 1738 four tenants paid altogether 3 1 ; at Brinsley 

 fifteen paid 145 ; at Basford twenty-one paid 202 12s. ; at Hucknall, four 

 paid rather over 19, and these rents continued without alteration till I764. 210 

 At Colston Basset, in 1710, rents seem to be high, varying from about i is. $d, 



Cal. S.P. Dam. 1663-4, P- '60 ; 1665-6, p. 168. " Ibid. 1663-4, P- "56. 



Ibid. 1664-5, P- 2I 3- "' Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Agric. and Prices, v, 121. 



1 Celia Fiennes, Through England on a Side Saddle In the time of William and Mary, being the diary of C. F. 

 d. by the Hon. Mrs. Griffith. " W. Felkin, Account tf the Machine-wrought Hosiery Trade 



15 Deering, Fetus Nottinghamia, 95. ' Add. MSS. 33 1 65. 



293 



11 

 113 



