340 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
set down for it any stock, or any meadow, pasture, or woodland, 
and that no part of it was held in demesne. It was practically 
farmed by its villein at a fixed rent. Small as it was, there were 
less valuable manors in the district — Pithill, for example, was only 
worth two shillings to its lord annually, and some other moorland 
and upland manors reached but three shillings. With the one 
local exception, however, of Wederidge (Withyhedge), Stonehouse 
has assigned to it the smallest stated area ; and its exceptional 
relative value, therefore, is probably due to the conditions under 
which it was held. Though it passed from Saxon ownership at 
the Conquest, I have no doubt it remained in Saxon hands. As 
the present extent of the parish is 385 acres (including the lands 
added by reclamation since, and the addition of a portion of Sutton 
Valletort) allowing for waste, &c, its Domesday value must have 
been fully assessed. 
Passing from Domesday \ and coining to times regarded as dis- 
tinctly within the domain of recorded history, we notice two 
things : first, that our local topographers and historians have very 
little to say about Stonehouse at all; second, that what they do 
say is almost wholly incorrect. There is no need therefore to waste 
space in citation. One of the most prominent of the assertions 
which one writer has copied from another, and which appears 
to have originated with Sir William Pole, is that Stonehouse was 
anciently called Hepeston, and took its present name from the 
family who owned it. There is no existing trace known to 
me that Hepeston was ever the name of Stonehouse, or of any 
place in Stonehouse. The family had their name from the manor, 
which was called Stonehouse centuries before they were connected 
with it. Still, while Stonehouse has not an important it has an 
interesting history, and in dealing with that history we are 
traversing what is practically new ground. 
In the endeavour to follow the record of Stonehouse on from 
Domesday, I have been much indebted to the kindness of the 
Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, who courteously gave me access to 
various sources of information among his family archives. These 
date back to the opening years of the thirteenth century ; and the 
information contained therein I have been able to supplement from 
sundry other sources, among others from the ancient Churchwardens' 
Book, kindly placed at my disposal by the vicar, the Kev. P. Scott. 
