Hinton Waldrist (1): The Story of an English Village from Saxon to Early Modern Times

The little village of Hinton Waldrist sits on top of a ridge that runs west-east through the prime agricultural land lying between Faringdon and Oxford. It is a place I know well, as my wife was brought up there and we were married in its trim medieval church. The parish that it forms part of stretches northwards to the river Thames and south across the main Oxford to Swindon road towards the Berkshire Downs. Indeed, Hinton Waldrist was in Berkshire until 1974, when boundary changes reallocated it to Oxfordshire. The parish is thinly populated; successive census returns have never ventured above 400 souls. Although it contains some fine buildings, it is an unprepossessing place, lacking the picturesque quality of the Cotswolds to the west. These days, it has few amenities. Its school closed down many years ago and it has lacked a shop and post office for the past two decades. It has never had a pub, due to the disapproval of a nineteenth century lord of the manor.

A picture-postcard view of the hamlet of Duxford, at the northern end of Hinton Waldrist parish

Hinton Waldrist is just one of thousands of anonymous villages and parishes that chequer the English countryside. However, its very anonymity makes it a classic example of an English nucleated village in a parish situated among champion countryside. In this article, I will outline its history and explain how it can serve as an exemplar of this aspect of rural England. I will take its story up until 1760, when its farmlands were enclosed by Act of Parliament. A subsequent article will explore Hinton Waldrist’s more recent history.

Woodland Countryside and Champion Countryside

Landscape historians identify two broad types of countryside in medieval England: woodland (or ancient) countryside and champion (or planned) countryside. Woodland countryside was so called because it featured small fields and numerous winding lanes with thick hedges that contained many standard trees, enabling the harvesting of woodland products. It was predominantly found in upland areas of north and west England and also in the south-eastern counties of Kent, Essex and Suffolk. The small well-protected fields were mainly for livestock farming and the pattern of human settlement was for scattered, family-run farms and small hamlets – pastoral agriculture was not labour-intensive. In champion countryside, by contrast, arable farming predominated and the land was largely made up of large open fields with few hedges, easy to plough and therefore suitable for growing grain. Arable farming was more labour-intensive and “nucleated” villages were established in the centre of parishes, as a dormitory settlement for that parish’s farmers and agricultural workers. Champion countryside was mainly found in a band running from lowland Yorkshire in the north-east to Dorset in the south-west, that band embracing the upper-Thames area where Hinton Waldrist is sited. However, both champion and woodland countryside could be found anywhere in England if the land conditions suited, and both arable and pastoral farming took place everywhere – it was the balance of grain and livestock that differed.

The shaded area on this map shows the main area of Champion (or planned) countryside in England. Other areas were predominantly "woodland" countryside. Scotland's pattern of land use was different

Today, woodland countryside can still be identified in many places, largely unaltered for centuries. However, there is little or no champion countryside left that medieval farmers would recognise. The open fields were swept away in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by “enclosure”, which we will discuss later.

The Parish of Hinton Waldrist

Hinton is a Saxon name, meaning “township on a hill”. The suffix Waldrist (there have been many different spellings over the centuries) was apparently added in the early 13^th century, when the parish was owned by the St. Valery family. The manor of Hinton was founded in Norman times and was coterminous with the ecclesiastical parish served by its church. ‘Manor’ in this context refers to an area of land with a single owner (the ‘lord of the manor’) and administered from a ‘manor house’. Today, the civil parish of Hinton Waldrist, founded in the 19^th century and replacing administration by the manor court, follows the same boundaries. This pattern of unified land ownership and civil and ecclesiastical administration is typical of champion countryside, where the population was relatively high. In woodland countryside, ‘townships’ (the name given to local administrative units) were relatively large and may have included more than one manor, while ecclesiastical parishes were larger still, often embracing several townships.

As was common in areas of champion countryside, prior to enclosure in the early 1760s, Hinton Waldrist was a self-contained and essentially self-sufficient community. There is evidence that its boundaries were planned in relation to its neighbouring parishes to ensure that there was fair division of resources in each. The north-south boundary between Hinton and Longworth parishes has a jagged edge in places, indicating that fields were deliberately divided between the two. As we have seen, the village itself is in the centre of the parish, on the top of the ridge. Large, arable fields spread out from the centre down the slopes. Towards the edges of the parish were areas of common pasture land where the parish’s livestock could be grazed and on the flat, flood-prone ground next to the river Thames were fields of meadow, to make hay for winter feed. Animals would also be grazed on the arable fields after the harvest and during fallow years. The river itself, running along the northern boundary of the parish, provided fish and also transport links. There were also areas of woodland, to provide the community with timber and firewood.

Hinton Waldrist as it appeared just before the implementation of the 'Act of Enclosure' in the early 1760s. This is taken from John Rocque's map of Berkshire

On the edge of the village was the manor house, set back in its grounds and next to it the parish church, which dates from around 1250. Houses and cottages of various sizes straggled along the east-west road that connected Hinton with the neighbouring parishes of Longworth and Pusey and along a lane that ran north from this road, past the church and manor house, to the river, where there was a smaller hamlet named Duxford. There was also once another residential area, known as Hinton Burgage, off the Duxford road (this area is now a modern plantation). A dwelling (or 'messuage') would usually have a small piece of land known as a ‘close’ attached to it, which its occupants would use to keep pigs or poultry, to grow vegetables or maintain an orchard. Messuages had individual names; examples include, Slatters, Taylors, Peckes and Pompis. Hinton would have had the necessary amenities for an agricultural community, including a mill (the southward slope from the village to the A420 is known as Windmill Hill), a smithy and a saw mill. The manor house also had fishponds, and a warren for keeping rabbits. In short, Hinton had everything needed to sustain its population, both materially and spiritually (but no pub!)

Hinton's Parish Church, dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, is the oldest building in the parish, dating to around 1250

The lane to Duxford has a timeless feel

Open Field Farming

Prior to enclosure of the land in the 1760s, Hinton, in common with other champion countryside parishes, used the ‘open field’ system of farming. In this system, rather than farms having their own discrete areas of land, with hedged fields, farming was carried out in large, communal fields. The arable fields were divided into long strips and individual farmers were allocated strips in each field, distributed throughout the fields to ensure that each farmer had a fair mixture of good and less productive land. The hay meadows were similarly divided, while the pasture fields, (named ‘commons’) were grazed by all who owned livestock.

The system was overseen by the lord of the manor, or his land steward and by representatives of the parish community who met regularly at manor courts. These included ‘courts baron’, where administrative matters were decided and ‘courts leet’, which had a disciplinary function. It was a self-regulating, co-operative and communal way of life. At the same time, there were certain things that open-field farming was not:

• ·         It was not a collective, communist system. Some farmers had more land than others and produce was used or disposed of individually, rather than going into a single collective ‘pot’.

• ·         It was not exclusively a subsistence farming system. While some had just enough land for their own needs, others produced a surplus that they sold in the nearby market towns.

• ·         Not everyone possessed land and not everyone who did possess land worked it themselves. Farm holdings of different sizes implied more or less workers and farmers with large land holdings would employ a number of labourers. These may also have possessed strips of arable land for their own use and could graze animals on the commons.

Few owned their land outright. Most leased it in some way or other from the lord of the manor. A common means of land possession in pre-enclosure times was known as ‘copyhold’, where an individual possessed land for their lifetime, or sometimes for the lifetimes of two generations of their family, paying an annual rent to the lord of the manor. Poorer residents were likely to be sub-tenants of copyholders. Wealthier copyholders were referred to as ‘yeomen’.

All who possessed arable land were obliged to farm it in the same way, as determined by the community at the ‘courts baron’. It was usual for the parish’s arable land to be divided into two, three or four large fields, that were farmed in rotation on a three-year cycle, embracing wheat or barley in year one, oats, peas or beans in year two and fallow in year three. Hinton’s three arable fields were, rather prosaically, named Little Burrow field, Middle Field and Field next to Longworth. As stated above, each farmer would have an allocation of strips of land distributed within each field. As well as the tenant farmers, there would be allocations of land for the lord of the manor (known as demesne lands) and for the rector (glebe lands). Arable fields had a distinctive corrugated appearance, as each was made up of ‘rigs’ and ‘furrows’, wave-like undulations running the length of the field, produced by medieval ploughs throwing the soil up on one side, the mounds of earth deepening as the years passed. Rig and furrow also helped with drainage and assisted the demarcation of individual land holdings. Both the open-field system and rig and furrow developed in late Saxon times, contemporaneous with the division of the land into manors and parishes, strongly suggesting a planned reorganisation of agriculture at that time (hence ‘planned’ countryside as an alternative title to ‘champion’ countryside).

This drawing, derived from John Rocque's map of Berkshire, shows the main features of the parish of Hinton Waldrist in pre-enclosure times. The village itself is in the centre of the parish, with hamlets to the north at Hinton Burgage and Duxford. The three open fields, Little Burrow field, Middle field and field next to Longworth, sweep down the hill to the south. In the west and north are two areas of common pasture and in the north-west, adjoining the river Thames is an area of meadow. Finally, Westfield copse, on the western edge of the parish, provided the main supply of wood

This enlargement of a section of Rocque's map shows part of the three open arable fields to the south of the village. While it should not be taken literally, it gives a flavour of how those fields appeared when they were made up of a patchwork of strips of rig and furrow, with access lanes in between

Rig and furrow fell out of use following enclosure, as new ploughing techniques rendered it obsolete. There is now no evidence of rig and furrow in Hinton Waldrist. However in other parishes, some arable fields were converted to pasture after enclosure and never ploughed again. The former rigs and furrows may still be seen today, somewhat worn away. This shows a field in the parish of Cropredy, near Banbury, where rig and furrow survives. The peaks and troughs can be seen running left to right across the picture, which was taken while the field was being used as a camping site during the annual Fairport's Cropredy Convention music festival. The white lines sprayed on the field help highlight the undulations of the ancient rigs and furrows

The site of Middle Field is still used for growing grain, but its smooth, regular appearance would not be recognised by those living in pre-enclosure times, when it would have been a patchwork of strips of rig and furrow

Looking north towards the river Thames, we see the site of Hinton Common, which would have been the main area of summer grazing for the parish

So by Norman times, Hinton was established as a largely self-contained, self-sufficient and self-regulating community, with its own manor house, church, open arable fields, commons, meadows, etc. And so it continued, changing little, until the middle of the eighteenth century.

The Manor of Hinton

The story of Hinton Manor has been entertainingly (if somewhat speculatively) told by a twentieth century owner of the manor house, Nicholas Davenport (a more succinct account can be found in the Victoria County History of Berkshire). The Manor was apparently formed following the Norman conquest of England and was granted, along with other extensive land holdings, to the St Valery family. The St Valerys were relations of William the Conqueror and were major landholders in Normandy and Brittany. The St Valerys built a motte and bailey castle on the site of the present manor house; the motte and part of the moat that surrounded the site still survive. The castle became the headquarters of the 'Honour of St Valery' and Davenport believed that the St Valerys lived there themselves during the twelfth century. The manor remained in the possession of the St Valery family for over two hundred years, until it was disposed of during the reign of Edward I and became part of the Crown possessions. Briefly in the late 14th century, a resident of Hinton Castle was Marie de Bohun, wife of Henry Bolinbroke, later King Henry IV and the mother of the future Henry V.

At some point, possibly during the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century, the castle was abandoned. The manor lands remained Crown possessions until the 17th century. Davenport suggested that the present manor house was probably built by George Owen, who leased the manor from Edward VI in 1549. Owen had been physician to Henry VIII and had overseen Edward VI's birth in 1537. The manor house was altered and extended in the 18th and 19th centuries. Around 1618 the estate, along with the neighbouring estates of Longworth and West Challow was purchased from the Crown by Sir Henry Marten, a judge of the Admiralty court and a close ally of King James I. Following has death, his estates passed to his son, also Henry Marten (1602-1680).

Henry Marten, Lord of the Manor of Hinton and Regicide

Henry Marten junior was a colourful character. A lawyer and politician as well as a landowner, he was Member of Parliament for Berkshire during the English Civil Wars. He made Longworth Manor his official residence, installing his wife there while he spent most of his time in London with his long-term mistress, Mary Ward. During the Civil Wars he supported the Parliamentarians and in 1649  was among the 'regicides' who signed the death warrant of King Charles I. Following the retoration of the monarchy in 1660, the regicides were required to surender to the Crown and Marten did so, a decision which probably saved him from execution. He was however imprisoned for life, dying at the age of 78 in Chepstow Castle.

In passing, the Civil Wars briefly touched Hinton Waldrist itself. In May 1645, Cromwell and his troops were pursuing King Charles through Oxfordshire and reputedly stayed a few days at Hinton manor house. Then in 1649 a group of mutineering Levellers militia were trying to cross the river Thames but found their way blocked by Parliamentarian soldiers. Locals showed them an alternative route across the ford at Duxford, whence they made their way to Burford. During the night they were surprised by Cromwell's troops, many were taken prisoner and the ringleaders were shot against the wall of Burford church.

Henry Marten was a spendthrift who lived life to the full and had to sell his estates to offset his debts. Hinton and Longworth manors went to John Loder (1622-1701), originally a small landowner from Harwell who, following advantageous marriages, purchased the estate in 1658 and came to live in Hinton manor house in 1668. Following John Loder’s death, the estate passed to his son Charles (1666-1727), whose only son predeceased him. The estate was then inherited jointly by Charles’s four daughters and the manor house became the residence of his eldest daughter Mary and her husband, a cousin named the Rev. Seymour Loder (1693–1743), who was also rector of the parish. By the time their son John (1725-1805) was eighteen, both his parents were dead and the estate was managed by his aunts until he came of age and inherited it under the terms of his grandfather’s will. Before coming into his inheritance, John went to Balliol College, Oxford and took holy orders. As soon as he was ordained he followed his father in becoming rector of the parish as well as lord of the manor. Like his father he lived in the manor house, presumably renting out the fine rectory.

We do not know how devout the Reverend Loder was, but we do know that he was committed to hunting, being a founder member and first master of the Old Berkshire Hunt. And as we will see, in the 1760s he enthusiastically added to the value of his estate by being an early adopter of land enclosure.

Life in Hinton Waldrist in Pre-enclosure Times

Some documentary evidence has survived that gives us hints as to life in Hinton in the centuries leading up to enclosure in the 1760s. Many of these documents were painstakingly transcribed and typed up in the 1960s by Jasmine Hawse in her “Hinton Waldrist through the Centuries”. The best sources are probably the minutes of meetings of the Courts Baron and Courts Leet, which were held at regular intervals for hundreds of years. The Court Baron was the main administrative body for a manor and met regularly under the chairmanship of the lord of the manor or his land steward. Decisions were made by a ‘jury’, made up of representatives of the village, usually the more prominent farmers or tradesmen. The business of the meeting included formally noting the surrendering or passing on of copyhold tenancies and appointing village officers, such as the Hayward, responsible for ensuring the upkeep of hedges, fences and other boundaries and the Leasmen and Grass Stewards, who oversaw the common meadows and pasture fields. The court baron also made decisions regarding the management of the common fields and dealt with minor infringements of discipline among the village inhabitants. Originally, courts baron were held every few weeks but by the mid-eighteenth century they appear to have been reduced in Hinton to annual events. The Court Leet was held less frequently and was essentially the lowest court of the royal criminal justice system, dealing with minor crimes and misdemeanours. The penalties applied for infringements at both courts baron and leet were invariably fines that went to the lord of the manor - a sometimes lucrative means of income generation.

Reviewing examples of court baron records covering several centuries, one is struck by how little things changed. Lords of the manor came and went but the same issues were discussed year after year, century after century, underlining the slow, constant way of life of the village. A routine issue was ensuring that “mounds” were properly built and maintained. These were the boundaries of the common fields, which had to be kept up by all those who held land within the fields, each taking responsibility for a particular section. Thus, in 1571:

Henry Newburye and Richard Newburye, for their part, before the feast of St. Andrew, will well and sufficiently build their mounds in the nether side of the Bridges Close, from the Shephowse of Master Kennell to the lane at Humphrys Busshes, under penalty of 3s 4d.

Another regular item of manor business was the setting of “mere stones”, that marked the boundaries between each tenant’s allocation of land within the common fields. So in 1651:

The whole homage is to mett to sett meare stones behind Burgage on the twentieth third daie of Januarie at tenne of the clocke in the morning for every default not appearing at 3s 4d.

Timber cutting was also closely regulated. In 1725 the court directed that:

No tenant shall cut down and timber whatsoever without leave of the Lord.

But at the same time:

The Lord cannot cut down any timber from off the Copyhold premises without leave of the tenant except to repair the Manor House, outhouses, barns and other buildings thereto adjoining.

The grazing of animals was another regular concern. In the summer, stock would graze the common pasture, or the arable field that was that year left fallow. In winter, they would graze on stubble following the grain harvest. The number of animals that a tenant could keep was regulated by the court baron, as was the seasonal movement of stock. In 1733, the court determined that:

By the Custom of the said Manor all the tenants within the same are for every yardland they possess by Copy [a yardland comprised twenty acres of arable land] to have the pasturing of thirty sheep, four Rother cattle and two horse beasts, and so according to that rate more or less.

In 1651 it was ordered:

That no Beasts nor sheipe shall be baited nor kept in the summer tilthe field from London Way quite down to Hay Gate from the sixteenthe day of Januarie to the 25^th daie of march next coming, for every default 3s 0d.

Sometimes court orders appeared somewhat pedantic. In 1725 it was solemnly noted that:

Anyone may stock a cow upon a horse common but not a horse on a cow common, any one stocking a horse upon a cow common shall forfeit five shillings to the Lord of the Manour for every horse so stockt.

Disciplinary matters tended to be mundane. Court leet records from 1437 state that:

John Sonte (3d fine) made assault on William Schand with one dagger…and that Nicholas Bridde made assault upon John Sonte with one stick…and that the same Nicholas made assault upon John Whyting with one gisarm [a kind of halberd] against the peace and so is in amercement…and that Amy Whiting (2d) and Sibill Finch (2d) are shrews to the injury of their husbands so they are in amercement.

Later records give a more settled picture. The majority of individuals “presented” to the court for misdemeanours were fined for failing to maintain their properties, or for neglecting to make “mounds” or set mere stones. Grazing animals on the commons at the wrong time, or sewing crops on a pasture field could also draw fines. And in 1715 the court leet ordered:

That Francis Crosse shall remove his dunghill out of the highway by midsummer next and that he lay no more dung in that place nor elsewhere which shall prove prejudiciall to the highways or other wise to forfeit Twenty shilling.

The courts baron also formally noted when copyhold tenancies were given up or passed on, usually following the death of the copyholder. One example from 1737 gives a feeling for the extent of a tenant farm in Hinton at that time:

The homage before named upon their oaths present the death of Richard Castel, a Customary tenant of the Manor who dyed seized of one Messuage, one Barn, one Cowhouse, one Court Yard, one Orchard and Close adjoining to the said Messuage, And one parcel of meadow called Fettiplaces with appurtenances in Duxford under the yearly rent of eight shillings and four pence. And also of one yard land and three quarters, one parcel of land called Two Staves, one other parcel of land called Two Watermen, one acre of land called the Boot Acre, under the yearly rent of twenty six shillings and two pence. Whereby a Herriott [a sum of money paid to the lord of the manor on the death of a tenant] of twenty pence became due to the lords. And that Lydia Castell his widow ought to enjoy the said Messuage and several tenements during her Widowhood according to the custom of the said Manor.

The Agricultural Revolution comes to Hinton Waldrist

In 1701, at Crowmarsh Gifford near Wallingford, just 20 miles from Hinton Waldrist, a gentleman farmer named Jethro Tull designed and manufactured a mechanised seed drill, which (he claimed) greatly improved the sewing of arable crops. Tull’s innovation was one manifestation of a range of changes that have come to be known as the English Agricultural Revolution. Their net result was a massive increase in both agricultural output and productivity, contributing by the mid-19^th century to a huge increase in the population of the country and also a dramatic reduction in the proportion of the population who worked on the land. This increase in the ability of the nation to feed itself has been cited as a vital factor that paved the way for the 19^th century British industrial revolution.

Change happened over a period of time and had many facets. Technological innovations such as Jethro Tull’s seed drill were probably less important than changes in animal husbandry and the introduction of new crops. The selective breeding of livestock increased both the size of animals and their meat and milk yields. The introduction of fodder crops such as turnips and clover into the crop rotation in the arable fields increased fertility by boosting nitrogen in the soil and reduced the need to leave land fallow, thus increasing grain production. At the same time, farming was reorganised, with changes in tenancy arrangements that replaced long-term copyhold tenancies with shorter term lettings, shifting the balance of power from tenants to landowners. Most controversially, enclosure transformed the common open fields into smaller units possessed by individual farmers. Historians still argue over the relative importance of the various factors – and some dispute the concept of an agricultural revolution at all. However, it is clear that changes did occur and that agricultural efficiency increased greatly from the late 17^th to the mid-19^th centuries.

By the mid-18^th century, such changes were evident in Hinton Waldrist. They were prompted by the lord of the manor, the Reverend John Loder. From the 1750s, court baron records show that turnips were being grown as part of the crop rotation in the arable fields. There is also evidence that copyhold tenancies were being phased out; as tenants died they were not replaced by new copyholders. Then in 1759, Rev. Loder wrote to his tenants to notify them of his intention to:

Improve my estate at Hinton by obtaining an Act of Parliament if I can for inclosing the same and flatter myself that my behaviour hath been such that you will not obstruct any advantage to me where you may have proportional benefit.

Hinton Manor and Parliamentary Enclosure

Enclosure was about reorganising the agricultural land within the manor by replacing the open fields and common pasture and meadows with smaller, privately owned fields. The land was to be divided up, with each current landholder being allocated new fields near to their farm houses for their sole use, the new holdings being equivalent in size to their former acreage in the common fields. The new system was supposed to be more efficient and productive, as it gave larger landholders arable land in discrete blocks, rather than scattered throughout the common fields and their own pasture and meadow, as opposed to sharing it with the rest of the village. Also, landowners could farm their land as they wished, rather than having to bow to the collective decisions of the court baron.

Historians still argue as to whether enclosure of open field systems led by itself to greater productivity. Recent studies suggest that openfield systems could be as productive as enclosure and had the benefit of beingmore flexible and adaptable to changes in conditions. At the same time, enclosure clearly benefited landowners, who could increase rents, and disadvantaged the poorest tenants who had too little land to warrant being allocated enclosed fields for their own use. Many of the latter left the land to seek work in the growing industrial towns, or became day labourers, selling themselves at hiring fairs to work for their more fortunate neighbours.

If tenants in a manor would not agree to enclosure, the landowner sought an Act of Parliament to compulsorily enclose the land. As Parliament was dominated by the landowning class, Acts were invariably agreed. Around 21% of land in England was enclosed by Act of Parliament between 1700 and 1850, with Hinton’s enclosure coming early in a wave of enclosures of arable land that took place in the 1760s. Hinton’s tenants formally wrote to Rev. Loder to set out their objections to his proposals, their main concerns being the uncertainty that they would not be disadvantaged by the new arrangements and the expense they would incur in setting up the hedges and other boundaries around their land allocations. However, their objections were ignored and in 1760 the Act for the enclosure of Hinton manor was passed by Parliament and the village and its way of life changed for ever.


Sources Used
New Landscapes: Enclosure in Berkshire Berkshire Record Office
Davenport N (1978) The Honour of St Valery: The Story of an English Manor House. London: Scolar Press
Hawse, J.S. (1968) Hinton Waldrist through the Centuries. Unpublished typescript.
Allan R (2001) Community and Market in England: Open Fields and Enclosures Revisited
Muir R (2000) The New Reading the Landscape. Exeter: Exeter University Press
Rackham O (2003) The Illustrated History of the Countryside. London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.