A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



bv Zoffani of the third Karl Cowpcr is to be seen 

 outside the door in the inner hall. 



On the grand staircase are a fine Tintoretto and 

 a portrait of Queen Mary by an unknown hand. 

 The Queen's Room, entered from the landing at the 

 head of the stairs, with its dressing room next door, 

 is furnished with a remarkable suite of rosewood 

 inlaid with ivory. Nest to it is the Japanese room, 

 with wonderful hangings of embroidered silk, and 

 westward of this is the Indian room, with blue silk 

 hangings and furniture of ebony and ivory. 



Hard by the house is the famous Panshanger 

 oak, a tree of noble growth, though now somewhat 



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othei 



,ab of . 



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The 



nding at the Cole Green end of the 

 ; Sella, xiii 



aanor of SELE (Sela, 



s held in 1 086, like Blakemere, of Geoffrey 

 de Bech, and the overlordship passed with that of Blake- 

 mere. ,Ia The mesne tenant in the reign of Edward 

 the Confessor and in 1086 was a certain Godwin, and 

 he held half a hide. It contained land for one plough, 

 which was there, and meadow enough for one plough 

 team. There were two serfs, wood sufficient for 

 the fences, and pasture for the live stock. The 

 annual value in io86and before the Conquest was 10.'. 

 The tenant was able to sell. One-eighth of a fee was 

 held in 12BZ Of Baldwin Wake by a certain tenant 

 of the name of Selc, probably Hugh de la Sele, who in 



1187 acknowledged that he had stopped up the w*y 

 leading to Hertford, to the annoyance of the free 

 tenants and of Peter, parson of St. Andrew's Church." 

 Rather later Sele seems to have come to the Pelctots, 

 for Eudo de Peletot was holding part of a fee in 

 Blakemere of Joan Wake in ij03, ; ' and in 1 H7 bis 

 son Philip Peletot (see Walton Woodhall) conveyed 

 the manor to Ralph Botelcr and his wife Katherinc, 

 Philip's daughter, with remainder to William and 

 Thomas, the sons of Philip." It descended in the 

 line of the Botelers of Watton Woodhall," and passed 

 with that manor until it was bought in 1791, on 

 the death of Sir Thomas Rumbold, by the second 

 Marquess of Down shire. He in 1801 sold it to 

 Peter Leopold Earl Cowper.'* 



There was in 1086 a mill in Sele, presumably a 

 water-mill on the River Beane, which was of the 

 annual value of &," In the time of Henry VIII 

 there was a paper-mill at Hertford, which be- 

 longed to John Tate, whose father was mayor of 

 London. This is said to have been the first paper- 

 mill in England, and to have been situated on Sele 

 Manor. As late as 1785 a meadow in Selc and 

 beside the Beane was known as Paper Mill Mead. 

 A mill was erected on it in 1700, and was noted as 

 the first in which the fine flour called Hertfordshire 

 White was made.' 6 



The church of St. Andrew is dealt with under the 

 borough of Hertford. 



STANSTEAD ST. MARGARET'S 



The earliest name of thi: 

 {Thele, xiicent. ; Theele, xi 

 Theyle, the Ylc, xvi cent.), 

 century it took an alien 



arish seems to be Thele 

 lent. ;LeEle,xivcent. ; 

 At the end of the 13th 

 name from the bridge 



r the Lea and was called Pons de Thele, Punt de 

 Tyull, Pons Tegule or Pons Tegleri ' (Pontherigg, 

 xiv cent.). In the 16th ccnturv it begins to be called 

 St. Margaret's Theale (Margarthele, 1535) and Stan- 

 stead Thele, the first from its church and the second 

 from the fact that the village of St. Margaret's adjoins 

 the village of Stanstcad Abbots, from which it is divided 

 by the bridge over the Lea. Stanstcad St. Margaret's 

 is a modern lorm of the name. The p.irish has also 

 been known by the name of Lea Vale and Old 



Stanstcad St. Margaret's is j small parish, contain- 

 ing only +07 acres. About one-half of it consists of 

 arable land and one-third of permanent gra ; s, while 

 there are about 60 acres of woodland.' This lies 

 chiefly In the extreme west of the parish where 

 Golding's Wood is situated. The soil is mixed on 



a subsoil of chalk and gravel. The River Lea forms 

 the eastern boundary of the parish. In 1858 a 

 bronze spcar-head was found in the river here.' 

 In this part of the parish tie land is about 100 ft. 

 above the ordnance datum and rises towards the 

 south-west to about 300 ft. The Great Eastern 

 railway has a station called St. Margaret's, lying 

 north of the village in the parish of Great Amwell. 



Stanstead St. Margaret's seems to have been origi- 

 nally a part of the parish of Great Amwell, in the 

 middle of which it lies. There is no mention of it 

 in the Domesday Survey, but it had acquired a 

 sej/arate j-arochial existence by the middle of the 

 13th century. 



The bridge called in early records the Punt de 

 Tyall or Pons Tegule, from which the parish possibly 

 took one of its names, carries the main road to 

 Hertford over the Lea. There was a bridge here 

 early in the 1 zth century, when the manor of Stan- 

 stead Abbots (on the other side of the bridge) appears 

 under the name of ' manerium de Stanstede et Fontis 



4-72 



