DOMESDAY SURVEY 



day enters in all some seventy fisheries in the county, and the money 

 values recorded amount to no less a total than 2 1 I %s. %d. The proceeds, 

 however, vary greatly, several being valued at only five shillings or less, 

 while the most valuable were at Appleton (i i^.s. zd.), and (three) at 

 Eaton in Appleton (1 %s. od.}. That of Duxford also was worth 

 i 5-r. 2d. These sums were as much as substantial estates were some- 

 times valued at in Domesday. It is very interesting to trace the fisheries 

 up the rivers of the county. Starting from the Surrey border we 

 find them on the right bank of the Thames at Windsor, Cookham, 

 Hurley, Wargrave, Sonning, Earley, 1 Reading, 2 Streatley, Appleford, 

 Abingdon (' Bertune '), Cumnor, Eaton, Appleton, Longworth, Draycott 

 Moor, Hinton Waldrist, Duxford, Buckland, Carswell, Littleworth, 

 Eaton Hastings, and Buscot. It will be observed that they lie more 

 thickly on the upper part of the river. 3 Up the Kennet we have 

 ' fisheries ' at Whitley, Southcot, Burghfield, 4 and Aldermaston ; on the 

 Loddon at Whistley, Shinfield, and Swallowfield. Fisheries are also 

 mentioned at Faringdon, Kingston Bagpuize (on the Ock ?), and ' Burlei.' 



From the fishery to the dairy, from the eel to the cheese, may 

 seem an abrupt transition ; and yet it is not so here. It was mentioned 

 above that the monks of Abingdon entered together their dues of cheese 

 and of fish, for which there was a reason. ^Ethelwold, their great 

 reforming abbot in the middle of the loth century, had provided for 

 their portions of cheese, but arranged that these, in Lent, should be 

 replaced by fat eels. 5 Before tracing the portions of cheese, let us see 

 what the Domesday Survey has to say of their production. 



At Sparsholt Henry de Ferrers has deprived the Crown of a dairy 

 (vaccaria) producing six weys of cheese ; at Shellingford the dues of 

 cheese (consuetudines caseorum) are worth to Abingdon Abbey no less 

 than 4 i6s. %d. ; at Buckland bishop Osbern has a dairy farm (wica) 

 producing ten weys of cheese, which are worth 1 izs. \d? A glance 

 at the map shows that these three manors lie, as it were, in a crescent 

 across the vale of White Horse, the famous dairy district of Berkshire, 

 the home of the ' Little Gloucesters.' 



Returning now to the Abingdon evidence, we find that a fortunate 

 dispute, some thirty years after the Survey, enables us to trace further 

 the local production of cheese. Moved, we read, by the devil, some of 

 the monks attacked the abbot in chapter on the ground that the portions 

 of cheese assigned them by the sainted ./Ethelwold had been diminished. 

 On this coming to the ears of the King, he sent down the primate, the 



1 Two fisheries occur in each of the two Earley entries ; they may have been on the Thames or the 

 Loddon. 



3 Each of the Reading entries mentions fisheries. These may have been on the Thames or the 

 Kennet. 



3 They were also very productive there, those of the adjoining Buckland, Hinton Waldrist, and 

 Duxford being worth l y. 6d., i, l 5*. 2d. respectively. 



4 Just below the Sheffield ' fisheries ' spoken of above. 



6 ' In quadragesimali vero tempore, loco casei constituit unicuique fratrum unam anguillam grossam 

 quotidie cum generale ' (Chron. Abing. i. 346). 



' Wica de x pensis caseorum valentes xxxii sol. et iiii d.' 



I 305 39 



