A HISTORY OF SURREY 



Domesday as sufficing for so many plough-teams. They were indeed 

 of such value that Domesday notes their exact acreage, descending even, 

 in the case of Talworth, to a half ' v[irga] ' of meadow, probably the 

 eighth of an acre. The difference between the extent of meadow on 

 the manors in the Thames valley, such as Egham (120 acres), Apps 

 Court (46), Kingston-on-Thames (40), Mortlake (20), Battersea (82), 

 and on those of the interior of the county, is strongly marked. Of 

 ' fisheries,' as Domesday terms them, there were several in Surrey ; but 

 these fisheries seem to have been weirs constructed for the purpose of 

 catching eels. From ' a fishery and a half at Byfleet on the Wey the 

 lord received yearly 325 eels ; while at Petersham, in suggestive 

 proximity to the well-known ' Eel-pie island,' he received i ,000 eels from 

 one of the two 'fisheries,' and 1,000 lampreys from the other. The 

 latter have an almost historic dignity, as has the ' fishery ' mentioned at 

 Mortlake, for Domesday tells us that it was c forcibly constructed ' 

 by no less a man than Harold himself, and was held by archbishop 

 Stigand for a long while afterwards (fo. 31). There is no mention of 

 vineyards in Surrey, although we find at Wandsworth the only entry of a 

 vineyardman (vinitor), it would seem, in all Domesday. Vineyards occur 

 so often in Middlesex that they probably existed in Surrey also, although 

 the Survey omits them. At Chertsey there is mention of a forge, which 

 was worked for the Abbey. The miscellaneous sources of income 

 include ' tolls ' at Putney and Wandsworth. 



The Domesday Survey was not intended to provide a census of the 

 whole population, and I think it rash even to conjecture what the 

 population was in 1086 from the figures there recorded. But on the 

 relative proportions of the rural classes its evidence is always of interest. 

 The valuable maps prepared by Mr. Seebohm 1 reveal no feature of 

 special salience in Surrey ; but the serfs, in proportion to the other classes, 

 were rather more numerous than in Kent, and three times as numerous 

 as in Sussex. Mr. Maiden considers that Domesday shows ' a very marked 

 preponderance in the south-east of the county,' especially in Tandridge 

 Hundred, its south-eastern corner, of this servile class. He has also 

 observed in the Survey ' a marked local distribution ' in the classes of 

 bordars (bordarii] and cottars (cotarii), which he is unable to explain. 

 In the Hundreds of Godalming, Wallington, and Emleybridge ' cotarii,' 

 he has found, ' are nearly universal, to the exclusion of bordariij and on 

 no estate in the county has he found both classes mentioned. 'The 

 only rule,' however, he considers, ' seems to be that there should be no 

 cotarii on royal demesne.' 



It must be remembered that Domesday Book does not contain the 

 Survey in the form in which it was made. The original returns from 

 which it was compiled were drawn up Hundred by Hundred, and their 

 contents had then to be rearranged under fiefs by the compilers. Of 

 this process, the Surrey Survey contains a trace that has escaped notice at 



1 English Village Community, p. 86. 

 292 



