An Elizabethan Survey and Dofnesday Book, [ch. 



I. The topography of Forncett vill. 



The boundaries of Forncett in 1565 were, for the most part, 

 watercourses, roads, or Hnes dividing ancient waste. The northern 

 boundary of St Mary's parish was a line dividing the mark in which 

 probably at an early period the vills of Hapton and of Forncett 

 St Mary intercommoned. To the north lay Hapton common, and 

 to the south, in Forncett, were Broomwood, the lord's pasture, known 

 as Broomwood Bayes^, Lound wood, and Lound common. On the 

 east, the stream or 'beck,' known as the Tas, separated St Mary's 

 from Tharston, while a road divided St Mary's from the ' ridding ' or 

 clearing in St Peter's, east. North of the ridding, in St Peter's, lay 

 Tharston wood ; so that here, too, the boundary divided the waste. 

 The western and north-western limits of St Mary's as far as Broom- 

 wood were marked partly by roads and partly by Deepmore Beck. 



Littlemore or Drage Way was the northern boundary of St Peter's 

 as far as Westwood Green. That part of Forncett that comprised 

 Westwood (alias Keklington) Green and Westwood (alias Bun well) 

 Ridding is a strip a mile and a half in length thrust out like an arm 

 toward the north-west and reaching as far as Wymondham. Next it 

 was Tacolneston common. A strip somewhat similar in shape 

 though very much smaller lies east of Moor common where Moulton 

 common protrudes into Forncett. In both cases, doubtless, the 

 projecting parts were sections of the waste — a fact which accounts 

 for the artificial character of the greater part of their boundary 

 lines 2. 



shown only in IV. i and IV. 7 of St Mary's parish (now in Tacohieston) where the fields are 

 still uninclosed. Some of the balks have been ploughed up; but many of the strips have 

 to-day the same breadth and length that they had when described by the Surveyor three 

 hundred and forty years ago. In marking the position of the balks the Ordnance Map 

 has been followed, on which they are indicated by broken lines. 



An abstract of the survey of IV. i, St Mary's parish, is given in Appendix II. For an 

 account of some similar surveys, see the paper by W. J. Corbett, ' Elizabethan Village 

 Surveys' {^Transactions of Royal Historical Society, N.S. Vol. xi. 1897). 



^ Spelled *Baythes' in the Survey, but *Bayes' is the usual form in the other 

 records. 



^ That the strip in Forncett called Westwood was part of a larger waste also known as 

 Westwood may be inferred from the following passages from the Hundred Rolls (1275). 



I. (i. 529.) ' Hundredum de Depwade. De feodis, etc. Dicunt quod Rogerus Hardi 

 defunctus appropriavit sibi injuste ii. acras de pastura Regis quae vocatur Westwod. Et 

 Robertus de Tateshale appropriat sibi emendas de animalibus extraneorum inventis in eadem 

 pastura. ' 



^- (i- 530-) '{.Hundredum de Depwade.'\ De ptirprestttris, eic. Item ballivus domini 

 Regis voluit tenuisse hundredum suum in pastura domini Regis quae vocatur Westwod et 



