NOTES ON THE EARLY HISTORY OF STONEHOUSE. 
339 
water mark. Indeed, the time can hardly have been very remote, 
and barely prehistoric, that the limestone peninsula formed two 
complete islands. When Domesday was compiled, it was, how- 
ever, an irregular narrow promontory, broadening out, as now, in 
two headlands towards Mount Edgcumbe and the Sound; and 
narrowing at two points, one near the south end of Durnford Street, 
where it was barely 150 yards wide, and the other, already noted, 
on the course of Union Street, about 400 — a double peninsula with 
two low-lying isthmuses, not at all a promising piece of property 
at the outset, but one which certainly had great defensive 
capabilities. 
For the first distinct evidence of human occupation of Stonehouse, 
we are indebted to a note made by Mr. Henry Woollcombe, who 
has recorded the discovery in 1815, near the old turnpike gate 
between Stonehouse and Plymouth, which stood at the corner of 
Phoenix Street, of a kistvaen. It was of an early type, consisting 
of six slabs of stone forming a chamber 3 feet 6 inches long, 2 
feet 2 inches wide, and 2 feet 3 inches deep; and it contained 
some fragments of bones, and a rude urn of baked clay holding a 
quantity of ashes. From the position indicated it is clear that this 
find must have been made towards the eastern end of what is now 
called Battery Hill. 
The Stanehvs 1 of Domesday was a very small manor. Before 
the Conquest it had gelded only for one ferling, which was the 
sixteenth of a hide ; and as the Danegelt was six shillings on each 
hide, the rateable value of Stonehouse was therefore but fourpence 
halfpenny. It had, however, at the Survey one plough land. We 
may hence fairly presume that it had been greatly improved since 
the first imposition of the geld, for the Saxon hide and the 
Norman carucate may be regarded as practically equivalent, each 
including as much arable as one plough team could till in the 
course of a year, usually reckoned at 120 acres. Moreover, it had 
only one recorded inhabitant, a villein, who rendered to the lord 
five shillings annually. This lord was one Kobert the Bastard, 
who had succeeded to the Saxon Alwin, not only here but at 
Efford and in other properties in the neighbourhood. 
The Domesday Stanehvs is also remarkable, not only for its 
smallness in extent and value, but for the fact that there is not 
1 The proper names throughout this paper are spelt as they occur in the 
documents cited, with all variations. 
