A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



and Covington.' '" There is no other evidence that Little Barford was in Huntingdonshire at any 

 time since Domesday. Of Pertenhall Mr. Round notes that it ' lies in Bedfordshire, but renders 

 geld and service in Huntingdonshire.' '^ This is apparently equivalent to saying that it is within the 

 county of Huntingdon ; so Weston (Westoning) ' lies ' in Hitchin (Hertfordshire), but its wara 

 ' lies ' in Bedfordshire, i.e. it pays geld, it ' defends itself ' in the latter county."' In the Teita de Nevill, 

 the Feudal Aids, and the Hundred Rolls, Weston is always reckoned as in Bedfordshire, and is so still ; 

 but at least a knight's fee in Pertenhall is in Bedfordshire from 1284''" onwards. Meppershall, 

 which Domesday divides between Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire,"^ was wholly in Bedfordshire in 

 1302,'*' and remains so still. Ramerick is just upon the border, where Hertfordshire makes a sudden 

 inroad into Bedfordshire. In 1270 the boundary would appear to have been the same, as the 

 hundred of Clifton ' says that John de Breybrok has committed the double offence of transferring 

 land from Beds, to Herts, and encroaching on the king's highway.' "' 



Not much help can be got from old maps. Saxton's county atlas of 1579 cannot be relied 

 upon with any confidence, as in the map of Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and Berkshire, in which 

 the frontier is very carefully drawn, Turvey Church is included in Buckinghamshire, and there is no 

 reason to suppose that such was ever the case. In the map of Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire, 

 Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire, and Rutland, Hexton (Hertfordshire) is included in Bedfordshire, 

 Pertenhall is in Huntingdonshire, Stanwick is in Northamptonshire and Turvey is in Bedfordshire ! 

 In the Hertfordshire map, which is on a larger scale than that of Bedfordshire, Hexton is most 

 carefully indicated with a church within Bedfordshire, and most strange of all, Wrestlingworth is 

 given as * Wormleghton.' 



"' ' Alboldesle, et inde ad Tettesuuorthe, et inde ad Evertone, et inde ad Bereford, et inde ad Sanctum 

 Neotum et inde ad Hayluueston, et inde ad Magnam Stocton, et inde ad Kynebauton, et inde ad Suynesheved 

 et inde ad Conigton [sic], 7 Jan. 1244 ; repeated in an inspeximus 28 Mar. 1341; Ramsey Chartul. (Rolls 

 Ser.), iii, 40. The record of the Forest Pleas at Huntingdon in 14 Edw. I is to the same effect ; ibid. 

 i, 209-1 1. 



"• V.C.H. Beds, i, 215. "' Cf. Maitland, Dom. Bk. and Beyond, 10, n. i. 



"* Feud. Aids. ' Now wholly in Beds.' (Letter ut sup.). "' V.C.H. Beds, i, 214. 



"° 'tou villau ;' Feud. Aids, i, 12. 



"' Hund. R. 1276. Extract, inquisitionum 4 Edw. L He 'fecit purpresturam apud Ram'dewyk trans- 

 vertendo cursum cujusdam aquae [i.e. the Hiz] et appropriavit sibi quoddam solum a comitatu Bedefordiae 

 in comitatum Hertfordiae de Regia via, ita quod vix nemo potest transire.' 



The main turnpike road, or rather one branch of it, runs through Ramerick on its way north from 

 Hitchin. See Smith's Map of Beds. 1 804. 



72 



