A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE 



Sutton Coldfield, Fillongley, ' Rincele,' Claverdon, Sowley, Bedworth, 

 Packington, 'Ulverlei' and Arley, where the phrase ' cum oneratur ' refers 

 to the mast it bore. At Erdington alone, near the Staffordshire border, 

 is the woodland claimed as * in defense regis,' that is, as set apart for the 

 king and his hunting ; but at Southam, at the other end of the county, 

 the woodland was ' in the king's hands.' A grove (grava) is spoken of 

 at Lighthorne and a spinetum at Weston, the latter being, probably, rather 

 a thorn-wood than what we now call a ' spinny.' There is an unusual entry 

 under Sowe, which records that the woodland of the king and of the abbot 

 (of Coventry) and of Richard the forester together, was three ' leagues ' 

 long and i ' league ' wide. The ' league ' of Domesday, it is true, was 

 only a mile and a half, but one cannot insist too strongly on the utter 

 vagueness of such statements and the folly of treating them as exact. 

 The same remark applies to the ' hay ' (baia) at ' Donnelie,' ' half a 

 league long and the same in width,' a fenced enclosure for capturing wild 

 animals in what was then and long afterwards ' a wild Forest ground.' 



Of profits from pasture and from meadow we hear less than usual ; 

 but at ' Cotes ' by Warwick they were valued at the large sum of 4, 

 perhaps owing to the nearness of the borough, for it was only in excep- 

 tional cases that either served for more than the lord and his peasants. 



The mill is one of the very few features of the Domesday Survey 

 that can often be recognized to-day standing where it stood then. Indeed, 

 as Mr. Walker has observed of ' Offeworde ' : 



In Dugdale's time the only indication of this place was a mill known as Offord's 

 mill ; this name has now disappeared, although the mill is still shown on the ordnance 

 survey maps. 1 



Many mills at the time of the Survey paid their rent partly in kind, 

 especially in eels from the mill pond. Twenty-five eels went to the 'stich,' 

 of which measure a fixed number was usually due. Eels were due in this 

 county from the mills of Stratford-on-Avon, Alveston, Atherstone-on- 

 Stour, Wixford, Salford, Wootton Wawen, Spernall, Aston, and Barford, 

 while that of Wasperton produced no less than twenty shillings, 1,000 

 eels, and four (horse) loads of salt, and that of Binton was responsible 

 for four (horse)loads of grain, and three ' stiches ' of eels. 



Salt, at that time a valuable commodity, was produced either from 

 saltpans on the coast or from inland brine-springs, as at Droitwich and 

 Nantwich. The six Warwickshire entries in which it is mentioned 

 deserve careful study, for, in my opinion, they all refer to salt obtained 

 from Droitwich, which is less than ten miles from the Warwickshire 

 border. This is expressly so stated in the case of Binton, where the 

 revenue of its lord, William Fitz Corbucion, included three loads (summas) 

 of salt from (Droit)wich, a and in that of Urse de Abetot's manor at Hill- 



1 Some Notes en Domeiday Book, p. 37. 



The load seems to have been a ' mitta ' of salt, for we read that the tenants of the church of 

 Worcester at Broadwas (Wore.) had to find horses, on Sundays, to carry salt from (Droit)Wich to 

 Worcester, and that each horse was to carry ' unam mittam ' (Registrant Ptioratnt B.M. Wigom'unsis, 

 P- 34")- 



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