A HISTORY OF ESSEX 



asunder by the boundary not only of a Hundred, but of the county itself. 

 The Stour constitutes so clear a boundary between what are now two 

 counties and were once portions of distinct kingdoms that one would 

 hardly expect to find an instance of overlapping. The great lordship 

 of * Eiland ' however, which belonged to Suain of Essex, lay a cheval 

 on the river, and was surveyed in Domesday partly under Essex and 

 partly under Suffolk. It derived its name from the present ' Nayland,' 

 where the site of ' Court Knoll ' is still marked by earthworks on the 

 Suffolk side of the stream. This lordship comprised, in Suffolk, Wis- 

 sington (or Wiston) to the west, Leavenheath to the north, and Stoke 

 to the east of Nayland ; and in Essex, to the south, the two Horkesleys, 

 the name of which accordingly does not appear in Domesday. The 

 lordship had still the same constituents in much later days. 1 But this 

 case is less remarkable than that of Bures on the same river a little higher 

 up. The portion on the Suffolk side of the stream is the parish of Bures 

 St. Mary ; on the Essex side Bures extends over 3,000 acres, of which 

 the eastern half is in Lexden Hundred, and forms the parish of Mount 

 Bures, while the western portion, ' Bures hamlet,' belongs to the Essex 

 Hundred of Hinckford, although it is a hamlet of the Suffolk parish of 

 Bures St. Mary. 2 To this anomalous position a reference is made in 

 Domesday, which surveys a holding there under Essex, but adds : ' Hec 

 terra est in comitatu de Sudfolc ' (fo. 84^). As at Nayland, the same 

 lord was holding on both sides of the Stour, for Richard de Clare, John 

 Fitz Waleram and Roger ' de Ramis ' were all tenants-in-chief at Bures, 

 both in its Essex and its Suffolk portions. 



Another anomaly, though less extreme, is found in the case of 

 Ballingdon and Brundon. These are both surveyed under Essex, although 

 they belong, for certain purposes, to Suffolk. 3 In these, as in similar 

 cases, Domesday follows the Hundred in which they were assessed for 

 ' geld.' One may here, perhaps, refer to the singular fact that, higher 

 up the stream, Kedington on its right bank and Haverhill, although 

 both in Suffolk, were conversely, at one time, hamlets of Sturmere in 

 Essex, according to Morant. This however appears to have been an 

 error on his part. Sturmer, he wrote, was still assessed ' with its hamlets 

 Haverhill and Ketton ' (ii. 347) ; but this assessment only referred to 

 the Essex portion of Kedington, known (as in the case of Bures) as 

 Kedington Hamlet, which has now ' been transferred to Suffolk for civil 

 purposes ; ... it is now only included in Sturmere, Essex, for par- 

 liamentary and land tax purposes.' * In 1 879 a detached part of Haverhill 



1 See entry of Nov. 24, 1424, in Calendar of Patent Rolls. 



2 Morant ignored all this, and treated Bures hamlet as part of the adjoining parish of Alphamstone. 

 Its ambiguous position is thus set forth in Kelly's Post Office Directory : ' Bures Hamlet, a suburb of 

 and in the parish of Bures St. Mary, Suffolk, ... in the Northern Division of the County [of Essex], 

 Hinckford Hundred, South Hinckford Petty Sessional division (Halstead bench), Sudbury [Suffolk] 

 union and county court district, and in the rural deanery and archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of Ely.' 



3 ' Kelly ' states that ' Ballingdon (or Ballington) is a suburb of the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, 

 . . . and with Brundon forms a parish . . . [in] the Northern division of the County [of Essex], 

 Hinckford Hundred, Sudbury petty sessional division, Sudbury Union and County Court district. . . . 

 Ballingdon with Brundon forms a rectory annexed to the vicarage of All Saints Sudbury.' Compare 

 my Ancient Charters (Pipe Roll Society), p. 76. * Kelly. 



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