350 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
of Plymouth town paid between them £22 19s. 2d. ; Kingstamer- 
ton 10s.; Maker 10s.; Stonehouse 2s. 6d. ; Vawtars ground 2s. 6d. ; 
Houndiscombe 16d. ; and Tungesland 8d. An extra £12 was 
then levied in Plymouth, in the same proportions in each ward as 
the old assessment ; and Compton paid 6 s. 8d. 
]STow this "fifteenth" had been a fixed amount payable as a 
composition by each community from 1334; and these figures 
therefore give us a clue to the very small importance of Stonehouse 
ere it came into the hands of the Durnfords. It was but a fourth 
the value of Maker ; not double that of Houndiscombe ; and as 
the "fifteenth" was a tax levied on moveables or personal property, 
it will be seen that the population of Stonehouse must have been 
very small, and its portable wealth very limited. 1 
Under the Edgcumbes, Stonehouse made rapid strides. Its 
new owners proved themselves men of business tact and energy. 
We are indebted to Mr. R. Dymond, F.S.A., of Exeter, for 
documentary facts touching the erection of the Stonehouse Mill 
Bridge, by Sir Piers Edgcumbe, about the year 1525. By deed 
dated May 8 (17 Henry VIII.), John Wise, of Sydenham, lord of 
the manor of Stoke Damerel, granted, demised and confirmed " to 
Peter Eggecomb Knight one parcel of our land in Estelake, other- 
wise called Dedlake within the manor aforesaid, containing in 
itself from the middle of the salt-water running between Este 
Stonehous and the manor of Stoke Damerell aforesaid, in length 
one hundred and sixty-four feet and in breadth forty feet, to erect, 
raise, construct, and build one wall or work called a causeway, for 
certain corn-mills to be newly built and constructed upon the said 
wall or work, together with a reasonable way of going and return- 
ing for all and singular the subjects of our Lord the King, with 
all carriages, on our land in Estlake or Dedlake aforesaid, that is to 
say, as well frtfm the said mills unto a certain way leading from 
1 There has been preserved a curious entry of an inquest held at East 
Stonehouse, December 10, 1502 (18 Henry VII.), before John Bekette, coroner 
of the King in Devon, on the body of Robert Mathew, jun., of Eststonehous, 
fy slier, on the oaths of Henry Elerycke, Walter Gawe (?) alias Synkeler, 
John John, John Sawter, Reginald Phylypp, John Noune (?), Stephen Adam, 
Reginald Carter, John Elerycke, jun., Thomas Chelway, Thomas Maryner, 
and Thomas Martyn, whose verdict was that on the 8th December, at 11 p.m., 
John Croste (or Creste), of Lypson, groom, stabbed Mathew in his belly at his 
house at Stonehouse ; Elizabeth, Mathew's wife, being an accomplice. 
