THE PRESIDENT'S ADDRESS. 
213 
the local manors is some 50 per cent, less than those of the county 
generally. In accepting this conclusion it must be borne in mind, 
however, that this corner of the county included none of the 
chief centres of population, such as Exeter, Totnes, Barnstaple, 
and Lydford. Allowing for this, we shall find that the average of 
the more rural districts is fairly represented here. 
Included within our area we have nearly all the hundreds of 
Roborough and Plympton, with portions of the hundreds of Erming- 
ton and of East : comprising the parishes, in whole or in part, of old 
St. Andrew and Charles (Plymouth), Stoke Damerel, Stonehouse, 
St. Bude, Tamerton, Beer, Egg Buckland, Bickleigh, Buckland 
Monachorum,Whitchurch, Sampf ord Spiney, Walkhampton, Sheeps- 
tor, Meavy, Shaugh, Plympton Mary, Plympton Erie, Cornwood, 
Yealmpton, Newton Ferrers, Holbeton, Revelstoke, Wembury, 
Brixton, Plymstock, Rame, Maker, and Antony. Without assum- 
ing absolute accuracy, it seems probable that the population of 
Roborough Hundred was greater than that of Plympton, but that 
it did not much, if at all, exceed the 500 or 600 which we have 
regarded as the original hundred population unit. It is impossible 
to speak with precision on this point, still in all likelihood the 
population of Plympton Hundred was at least fifty less. We can 
reckon exactly the population of the eight manors which now con- 
stitute the Three Towns — Svdtone, Leuricestone, Lisistone, Con- 
tone, the two Modleis, Stan eh vs, and Stoches — and we find it 
61. This makes a poor figure against the enumerated population 
of the chief centre in south-west Devon — Tavistock, which had a 
stated population, in addition to monks and five tenants under 
the abbey, of 79. Lydford, with its 28 burgesses within the walls 
and 41 without, had clearly been distanced by the " stock " of the 
Tavy. Por twenty miles, however, in every direction St. Germans 
was the most important settlement; for it had 92 dwellers, exclusive 
of the canons. Since Domesday the population of the immediate 
Three Towns' area has increased at the very least 2000 times. 
serf, or villein, or bordar classes. For all practical purposes, therefore, so far 
as the Plymouth district is concerned, the figures of the unfree population 
may be accepted as substantially accurate. They agree closely, moreover, 
with the hundreds estimate ; and I do not believe that the addition of the 
free folk would increase our total more than 25 per cent. Had there been any 
burgh within the area, of course a much larger addition must have been 
made. 
VOL. VIII. O 
