DOMESDAY HISTORY

 

I have found the county translations of the Domesday Books  published by Phillimore & Co Ltd an invaluable resource for studying this period. The company website is http://www.phillimore.co.uk/  Many public libraries carry volumes relating to a few counties, but The National Monuments Record Centre ( NMR ) located at Swindon has an excellent library which carries all the volumes, and in addition has the Victoria County History of each county. This resource is particularly useful if you wish to find out about Domesday holdings held by a specific individual in more than one county. The website for the NMR can be accessed from the English Heritage Home Page and then search for the National Monuments Record :- http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/   

 

The first mention of Wooburn in historical records is an entry in the Domesday Survey when the manor, located in the Hundred of Desborough, was called WABURNE. The tenant in chief at the time of the survey was Remigius, Bishop of Lincoln. Prior to the Conquest its Lord had been King Harold. Remigius,  was almoner of the Benedictine Abbey of Fecamp in Normandy and in 1066 he had provided William the Conqueror with ships for the invasion. As a reward he was made Bishop of Dorchester in 1067, and was the first non-Saxon bishop appointed by William I. Under the new Norman regime bishops became far more important as administrators than had been the case with their Saxon predecessors. In 1072 Remegius, acting on the King’s orders, moved the administrative centre of his diocese to Lincoln, which was the largest diocese in England stretching from the Humber to the Thames.  Clearly Remigius was a trusted henchman of William I, and the Bishop in turn awarded the Manor of Waburne to a close relative, - Walter D’Eyncourt (D’Aincourt), who had fought at the Battle of Hastings. In addition to WABURNE Remigius assigned to Walter an adjoining manor known as LEDE (LUDE),  and a parcel of land, seemingly uninhabited, which was located in Burnham Hundred which lay to the east of Desborough Hundred. These allotments of land effectively created what was to become Wooburn parish, for in pre-Conquest times WABURNE and LEDE were separate manors. The map below shows a rough assignment of the three areas of land plotted within the parish boundaries of 1803.  The area coloured pink is  the land in Burnham Hundred. Mill locations ( as of the 19th Century  ) have been numbered and  the mill names for the same period are tabulated  below.

 

1

Lower Mill

2

Hedsor Mill ( not in Wooburn Parish )

3

Gunpowder Mill

4

Egham Green Mill

5

Princes Mill

6

Soho Mill

7

Lower Glory Mill

8

Glory Mill

9

Clapton Mill (I)

10

Clapton Mill (II)

11

Hedge Mill

 

 

                               

 

                                                

 The land areas associated with the above  distributions of land are given in the Domesday Survey in hides:-

 

WABURNE                                                    8½ hides

LEDE                                                             1½ hides

(LAND IN BURNHAM HUNDRED )         ½ hide

 

[For a description of hides and hundreds see   http://www.netserf.org/Glossary/]

 

On enclosure (1803) the associated land survey gave a parish area of 3082 acres. Langley ( 1797) gave it as 2596 acres However, in subsequent Census returns the parish area was usually recorded as 2850 acres. The wedge-shaped piece of land coloured pink on the map is almost certainly the land in Burnham Hundred mentioned in the Domesday Book this measured 115 acres in the 1803 survey. This would suggest ½ hide = 115 acres, and hence 1 hide = 230 acres. If this is approximately correct the total parish area of 10½ hides might be expected to be about 2415 acres (These values, although somewhat variable, suggest that the Wooburn of 1086 was roughly the same size as the Wooburn of 1800).

 

The Domesday entries relating to the three components which later became the parish of Wooburn can be translated as follows :-

 

Land allocated to the Bishop of Lincoln

 

3a,1

In Burnham Hundred

Walter holds ½ hide from the Bishop.

Land for ½ plough.

The value is and always was 5s.

 

3a,4

In Desborough Hundred

Walter holds Wooburn himself from the Bishop

It answers for 8½hides.

Land for 9 ploughs; in lordship 2.

12 villagers with 13 smallholders have 10 ploughs, 1 slave.

8 mills at 104s; meadow for 6 ploughs and for the horses.

From the fishery 300 eels; woodland 200 pigs and 7s 4d too.

Total value £ 15; when acquired 100s; before 1066 £ 12

Earl Harold held this manor

.

3a,5

In Desborough Hundred

In Lude Walter holds 1½ hides from the Bishop

Land for 2 ploughs; 1½ there, and another ½ possible

2 villagers with 1 small holder. 1 slave.

3 mills at 14s

The value is and always was 30s

Leofric, Earl Harold’s man, held this manor; he could sell.

 

These entries are in effect a short-hand description of the economic (and hence taxable) assets of the new manor in 1086, but also include brief descriptions of the land tenure and the way in which the value of the component manors had changed before and after the Conquest of 1066. (In my book of 1983 I went into the significance of these descriptions in some depth).Perhaps the most significant thing they show is that 11 mills (watermills) were already well established by 1066. These mills would be capable of grinding far more corn than could be produced within the parish and hence give the first clue to Wooburn’s role. The River Wye provided sufficient water-power to grind corn sent from elsewhere, e.g. via the Risborough Gap or possibly the Thames, and the flour would then be transported away, almost certainly to London. For the next 800–900 years the mills would continue to dominate the economic history of the parish.

 

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