User talk:Terence Kearey

Please advise: considering present sandbox contibutions, of a number of sections on Wikisource - sections from one of my unpublished books. Originally I submitted my work to Wikibooks... they, in turn advised Wikisource. I intoduced myself, and my work, through my website. This was done for all to see what was being offered... since then I have spent time and effort uploading sections, and editing... to be told now, what should have been originally obvious - my work had not been published. Kindly give me a definitive answer, is my work acceptable for any of your sites? Terence Kearey 14:02, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of The Demise of an Irish Clan
A tag has been placed on The Demise of an Irish Clan, requesting that it be speedily deleted from Wikipedia. This has been done under section G11 of the criteria for speedy deletion, because the page seems to be unambiguous advertising which only promotes a company, product, group, service or person and would need to be fundamentally rewritten in order to become an encyclopedia article. Please read the guidelines on spam as well as FAQ/Business for more information. You may also wish to consider using a Wizard to help you create articles - see the Article Wizard.

If you think that this notice was placed here in error, you may contest the deletion by adding  to the top of the page that has been nominated for deletion (just below the existing speedy deletion or "db" tag - if no such tag exists then the page is no longer a speedy delete candidate and adding a hangon tag is unnecessary), coupled with adding a note on the talk page explaining your position, but be aware that once tagged for speedy deletion, if the page meets the criterion, it may be deleted without delay. Please do not remove the speedy deletion tag yourself, but don't hesitate to add information to the page that would render it more in conformance with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Lastly, please note that if the page does get deleted, you can contact one of these admins to request that they userfy the page or have a copy emailed to you. I42 (talk) 22:53, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Please delete all my work on Wiki sites. My apologies for errors made. TerenceTerence Kearey 23:18, 7 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi, I moved the page to your userspace at User:Terence Kearey/The Demise of an Irish Clan because I thought you were trying to create a page in your userspace. If you don't want to keep it in your userspace after all, just put at the top of that page and it will be deleted by an administrator. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 01:10, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

August 2010
Welcome to Wikipedia. If you are affiliated with some of the people, places or things you have written about in the article The Demise of an Irish Clan, you may have a conflict of interest. In keeping with Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, edits where there is a conflict of interest, or where such a conflict might reasonably be inferred, are strongly discouraged. If you have a conflict of interest, you should avoid or exercise great caution when:
 * 1) editing or creating articles related to you, your organization, or its competitors, as well as projects and products they are involved with;
 * 2) participating in deletion discussions about articles related to your organization or its competitors; and
 * 3) linking to the Wikipedia article or website of your organization in other articles (see Spam).

Please familiarize yourself with relevant policies and guidelines, especially those pertaining to neutral point of view, verifiability of information, and autobiographies.

For information on how to contribute to Wikipedia when you have a conflict of interest, please see our frequently asked questions for organizations. Thank you. I42 (talk) 22:54, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Metropolitan90 - My User Talk of 5 August, and others, give a fair overview to my work. The Demise of an Irish Clan is the first part of a trilogy. As with all such work it should be viewed in that context - It is about how, why, and when, a family moved from Ireland to London - their experiences, hopes and fears. It is founded on given name, relative/s, and related experience. In no way is it 'unambiguous advertising', that it is affiliated does not make it 'a conflict of interest'only that it is nearer truth than purely historical writings. As previously stated, I gave my website not because I was trying to be pushy but by doing 'you would see and hear my points - as given above. I do not want to be a bore. If you wish me to finish the book upload, complete the seven sections, I will do so. Please refer to Panel Painting. I have included my work on the subject under Reference of that name. Once again in copying the above list - to get my insert in line with all the others, I included my website. Later on I realised that you would again think this to be advertising. Sorry, please remove. If you would like me to upload an edited version under that or likewise title I will do so with pleasure.Terence Kearey 10:25, 10 August 2010 (UTC)

Dear Metropolitan, There seems to be a doubling up of The Demise of an Irish Clan. Wikisource also has a version. I have asked them to remove all trace, please would you do the same, so that I can totally revise and resubmit a new version which will conform. Please also let me know to whom I should present the new version as most of my work is with Adrignola at Wikibooks.--Terence Kearey 11:54, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Dear Metropolitan,  Lithographic Drawing needs editing. Is it OK to go ahead--Terence Kearey 23:35, 6 November 2010 (UTC) I have uploaded a new version for you to consider.--Terence Kearey 23:26, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Proposed deletion of Painting methods and Brushwork


The article Painting methods and Brushwork has been proposed for deletion&#32; because of the following concern:
 * how-to guide

While all contributions to Wikipedia are appreciated, content or articles may be deleted for any of several reasons.

You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the notice, but please explain why in your edit summary or on the article's talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Removing will stop the proposed deletion process, but other deletion processes exist. The speedy deletion process can result in deletion without discussion, and articles for deletion allows discussion to reach consensus for deletion. &mdash; RHaworth 16:53, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Harrow
I happened to notice User:Terence Kearey/North Harrow, Local History. The tone is somewhat unencyclopedic but basically we look down on stand-alone essays. You should think in terms of adding information to existing articles. I note that you are openwindowslearning.co.uk. &mdash; RHaworth 17:28, 16 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Dear RHaworth, At the time of writing North Harrow/Local History there were no articles to attach to. I have tried to get back to the original site but I believe you have changed the format. Sorry about the form of writing. You are right it is conversational rather than the bare facts. However as I lived and breathed NH I did know it intimately for my first fifty years... and so that how it came out! Now, the Painting and Drawing Artworks. Once again you have pipped me to the post. They were just one page which I split to conform to wiki preferences... it is better as you have made them - back to its original form. Thank you. It is interesting for me to see how quickly wiki is developing/evolving... I am but a youngster at contributing but for you it must be quite daunting. Spare my blushes for the website. Regards--Terence Kearey 11:54, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"No articles to attach to" - what? There has been a North Harrow article for six years. "I believe you have changed the format" - what? Please point me to the alleged edits. "It is better as you have made them" - again what; point me to the edits. &mdash; RHaworth 23:45, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Nomination of Painting methods and Brushwork for deletion
A discussion has begun about whether the article Painting methods and Brushwork, which you created or to which you contributed, should be deleted. While contributions are welcome, an article may be deleted if it is inconsistent with Wikipedia policies and guidelines for inclusion, explained in the deletion policy.

The article will be discussed at Articles for deletion/Painting methods and Brushwork until a consensus is reached, and you are welcome to contribute to the discussion.

You may edit the article during the discussion, including to address concerns raised in the discussion. However, do not remove the article-for-deletion template from the top of the article. &mdash; RHaworth 23:27, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

The AfD tag clearly states "please do not remove or change this AfD message until the issue is settled". Why do you think the message does not apply to you? Your edit summary said "see comments under talk page" - where are those comments? What purpose is the &#123;{header = tag supposed to serve? And what on earth makes you think that PD-user-w is used on article pages? &mdash; RHaworth 11:25, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

History of Kersall Manor
It would appear that in the age of Domesday Mapelbeck went under the name of Chenesale and Cheversale. Both places are now known as Kneesall and Kersall. Knowing that there is no K in Gaelic perhaps adopting K, when latinised, it is not surprising. The land at the time held by Guslebert de Gand, later by the Burtons who gave the property to the monks of Ruchford for the betterment of their health and soul in 1224. In 1565, Kneesall and Kersall become the then accepted Title names. Thoroton’s History of Nottinghamshire Vol.3. Pub. 1796. See; Manorial papers for the manor of Maplebeck (Ne M 143-203) dated 1371-1639, rare-book-library@nottingham.ac.uk The medieval village was a cluster of houses, barns, sheds, huts, storehouses and pens, it was a place inhabited by farmers belonging to a community who cleared the land… cut down trees… tilled the land and herded animals. They were people who feared the elements, staying in one place close to water; ditches were dug, fences raised, walls built and order practiced to create security. Simple land management and animal husbandry became recognised as an improvement to crop cultivation and animal health. Feudalism created mutual-aid; vassal-lord relations brought forward an economic foundation. Neighbours fixed boundaries and obeyed communal decisions and laws. The village expanded to include a meeting house, church, mill and school. Throughout centuries raiders came and went others stayed and settled. The village name changed along the way to identify the then lord/owner or benefactor. The village became a political entity with tithes paid - a territorial unit of the kingdom, subject to national control – a manor, (manerium and villa, Domesdays surveyor’s Latin). The manor has been described as a “landowning and land management grid superimposed on the settlement patterns of villages and hamlets.” John Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, KG, PC. He was born in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire, the son of the 3rd Earl of Clare and his wife Grace Pierrepont. Grace was the daughter of The Hon. William Pierrepont and Granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Kingston-Upon-Hull. The Duke died in 1711. He left his Estates to his son-in-law, Edward Harley (later 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer) and the remainder of his property to his nephew Thomas Pelham, subsequently 1st Duke of Newcastle (third creation) and prime minister. The Lords of the Manor of Mapelbeck is referred to as, ‘the manor of Mapelbeck and Kersall’ (Nottinghamshire); 27 May 1565. Court leet of the Lord of the Manor Robert Markham and his wife Mary, held at Mapelbeck; includes tenants, inquisitions, amercements and pains. The manor of Kersall was sold by the Duke of Newcastle (or his trustees) in at least two separate lots. Firstly to John Whall and Henry Mason by conveyance dated 29 December 1871 and secondly to the Earl Manvers’ Trustees by conveyance dated 28 July 1877. Hopkins Farrer, Solicitors, “The Lordship of Kersall appears to have belonged to the family of the Duke of Newcastle for many years and is being transferred to Simon R. Kearey with the Conveyance and Title.” (23rd March 1989). Martin According to the University of Nottingham’s Manuscripts and Special Collections, Parishes in Nottinghamshire until 1842, Kersall (NG22 0BJ) 1. 11 of the Archdeaconry of Nottinghamshire is given as a township in the Deanery of Newark, and is associated with the Vicarage of Kneesall. This suggests that the townspeople of Kersall had to travel to their Parish Church at Kneesall to worship, become married, baptised and to be buried. Kersall’s description is taken from Bartholomew’s Survey Gazetteer of the British Isles, 1914 edition. Kneesall Parish comprises the three lordships of Kneesall, Kersall and Ompton, the latter of which is in the South Clay division of the Bassetlaw Hundred. Kneesall and Kersall were one of sixty Wapentake (equivalent to a hundred) in the historic county of Nottinghamshire. Kneesall is a considerable village, situated on a gentle declivity on the Newark and Ollerton Road, nine miles north-north-west of the former, and four miles east-south-east of the latter, and has within a few years been considerably improved by the building and rebuilding of several neat houses. It contains 382 inhabitants and 2,197a 0r 28p of land, of the rateable value of £1,993 13s 6d. Earl Manvers is the lord of the manor and owner, with the exception of about 50 acres in small freeholds, and a small portion of copyhold held under the Chapter of Southwell, on small certain fines, and a court is held at Michaelmas. The church, dedicated to St Bartholomew, is a vicarage, valued in the King's books at £10, now £150 10s 0d, having been augmented by a grant from Queen Anne's Bounty, and has a curacy of Boughton annexed. It is in the patronage and appropriation of the Chapter of Southwell, under whom Earl Manvers is lessee, and the Rev. John Chell A.B. is the incumbent. The church is an ancient structure with nave, chancel, side aisles, tower and tree bells, and is about to undergo considerable repairs." [WHITE's "Directory of Nottinghamshire," 1853] The lord of Kersall manor from about 1300, was a consumer of the village surplus. His interests were not political nor military but economic, he was its exploiter and beneficiary. Since 1200, the farming of a manor died – the trend was then towards direct and active management. To increase demesne, (land retained by the lord of the manor for his own-use, distinguished from sub-enfeoffed, to others. (Demesne: di: mein/di-MAYN), villeins still had work to do on the estate but increasingly had produce to sell. The lord needed revenues - both labour, produce and cash. The medieval village lived and worked in a state of near autonomy this freedom ensured his rents and dues, the efficient operation of his demesne and good prices for wool and grain. His steward only visited the manor of Kersall two or three times a year. The lord’s deputy was the bailiff who combined the personae of chief law officer and business manager, he lived in the manor house. Assisting the bailiff, a staff of subordinate officials chosen by the villagers. Chief of these was the reeve – the best husbandman, who produced his rendition of the demesne account each year making his mark upon the tally stick. The reeve had an assistants sometimes called the beagle, hayward, or messor. Kersall’s produce consisted of flax, apples, honey and wax, fleeces, garden vegetables, cider, timber and brushwood. The lord accepted that his villagers relied upon existing custom to limit their services and payments, and that he should guarantee them their house, croft, strips of land and grazing rights Today’s description gives the church in the Parish of Kneesall, under the Archdeaconry of Newark, Deanery of Newark and Southwell, and Diocese of Southwell and Nottingham. There are fragments of an Anglo-Saxon shaft remains which suggests an earlier church. The present church dates from the thirteen hundreds with a rich tower built in 1425. It is a vicarage in the patronage and appropriation of the Chapter of Southall under whom Earl Manvers is lessee. As rent receipts for agricultural land fell in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the family began selling some of their estates. Large-scale sales of properties began in 1874 with the sale of the Bath estate. Properties in Wiltshire, Lincolnshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire were sold in the 1910s and 1920s, and some of the outlying Nottinghamshire estates in the 1930s. Death duties following the death of the 5th Earl Manvers in 1940 forced the sale of the Holme Pierrepont estate, comprising the Hall, 23 farms, and 5465 acres of land. By 1950 the estate was limited to properties in Perlethorpe, Budby, Edwinstowe, Laxton, Kneesall, Kersall and Eakring, plus chief rents from Weston, and rents from canal, railway and utility companies on the old Holme Pierrepont estate. Thoresby Hall was sold in 1980 although an estate still survives, based at Thoresby Park. Tax was redeemed on the glebe lands in the accounts for 19th July 1803, and the glebe lands were still recorded as part of the parish in Kersall and Kneesall in 1865, but leased to Earl Manvers. In 1851, on Census Sunday, the general congregation was 84, with 28 Sunday scholars, at the morning service, from a population of 201. There was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Kneesall, and Primitive Methodist chapels in Kersall and Ompton. Kersall is just over a mile south of Kneesall, both off the A616, which links Newark-on-Trent to Ollerton - this is Robin Hood country, Rufford Abbey and the main village of Eakring are not far from Mansfield Town and Kelham, five miles south - the nearest city being Lincoln to the north. Kersall has a number of key properties: Bramble Cottage, Hill House Fam, Hill Farm, Valley Farm, Mill Cottage and Manor Farm all serviced by Mill Lane and Wood Lane. In Elizabethan times the Kelham family sold their manor house, famous for providing a prison for Charles 1st in 1646, for their move to Clerkenwell. Ruffold Abbey suppressed in 1537, granted to the Earl of Shrewsbury. Kelham Hall was destroyed by fire and replace in 1903 - the architect being Sir Gilbert Scott, since, has served as the home of the Anglican community - as a Theological College known as the Kelham Fathers. In 1908, 12 deep borings near the railway bridge revealed underlying coal and oil. In 1919, the sugar beet industry was inaugurated, 5,000 acres of land hereabouts being purchased for the purpose towards which the treasury contributed half. The sugar factory was opened in 1921. (Northamptonshire history. The Nottinghamshire Guardian (1947) Pre-history Iron Age Tribe in central/southern Britain was the Brigantes. It was a period in England of forest clearance and a settled population. The countryside was dotted with settlements made up in the main of extended family units. It is highly likely that Kersall had a few homesteads for it was surrounded by a rich countryside with ample water. This period lasted from about the middle of the first millennium BC until the time the Romans invaded. During the Roman occupation of Central and Eastern Britain, bartering took place to exchange goods. Over a hundred years later King William’s Doomsday survey, catalogued in 1086, declared that Kersall was owned by the church and would be recorded for the assessment and collection of the ‘geld’ or land tax. There was no exemption from paying royal tributes - included the provision and upkeep of armed men. As the land comprised eight hides and one man was to be provided per six hides we will be generous in stating that this is the right amount. The Barony of Halton in Cheshire was created by Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester in about 1077, who was also bestowed the duties of Constable of Chester. According to Southwell and Nottingham Church History Project the manor of Kneesall became the property of the Barons of Halton before Domesday completed in about 1095, and that it is likely that a church at Kneesall existed at that time and that the church is listed in a grant made by William FitzNigel establishing the Augustinian Priory church at Runcorn. Kneesall is one of four remote churches which feature in the grant. In addition the church was granted the income from a mill at Southwell. In the latter part of the 11th century the church of Kneesall would be manorial, that is the avowed of the priest would be in the hands of the lord of the manor. However, from 1115 to 1449 Norton Priory appointed the priest. In 1211 a descendant named Baron Roger de Lacy renewed the grant, the church becoming part of Norton priory achieving monastic status. Kneesall was taxed at the ninth part of sheaves, lambs and their fleeces and that the arable land and meadow being worth 6 marks a year with alter dues per annum at 9 marks 6s 8d. The church was assessed for value in 1428 at the Henry VI subsidy and the annual value had not changed since 1291, being taxed at 66s 8d. Kneesall was sold in 1459/60. In 1536, Kneesall reverted to being a parish church within the archdiocese of York. Kneesall had a problem with the collection of the tithes in 1590. The York consistory court found for the farmers and the tithe collectors were dismissed. In 1743 the chapel of Boughton was administered by Kneesall, both Kersall and Ompton being hamlets dependant on the mother church. Tax was redeemed on the glebe lands in the accounts for 19th July 1803 and the glebe lands were still granted as part of the parish in Kersall and Kneesall in 865 but leased to Earl Manvers. In 1851 there was a Primitive Methodist chapel in Kersall. Nottinghamshire Public Office says,” Kersall township, 11/2 miles south-east of Kneesall, contains a small hamlet of scattered houses, having 100 inhabitants and 653a 1r 21p of land belonging to several proprietors. Kersall Lodge, a neat house, is the property of Mr John Moosely. Mr William Mosely owns about 200 acres, with a good residence. S.E. Brestowe Esq and Mr G. Doncaster are owners. At the enclosure in 1778, 92 acres of land were awarded in lieu of tithes, of which Earl Manvers is lessee, under the Chapter of Southwell. The Duke of Newcastle is lord of the manor, under the Duchy Court of Lancaster.” “Close upon St Bartholomew’s Church is the school. In 1842, Earl Manvers erected a neat school here, which is supported by voluntary contribution, and is open to the children of Kneesall, Kersall and Ompton, who are educated on the payment of two pence each per week. The tithes of Kneesall and Ompton in 1843 were £600 4s, vis. £483 for Kneesall and £117 4s for Ompton.” Kersall was arranged as a three open-field system, cultivated in a three-year rotation of: white corn – wheat, rye, and barley; peas and oats, and the third arable resting as fallow. The two main production fields raised corn crops on the furlongs – ground cultivated in strips. Each farmer had rights over his land that was scattered across the manor. The decision about what was planted, and when, was made communally; all the men worked together sharing the oxen, ploughs and other tools under the direction of the Reeve. The other main activity was looking after the animals – sheep and cattle, on the common grazing land - one looking after the lord’s oxen, grazing the water meadows. Each village gave work to a miller, baker and ale-house-keeper - who also sold provisions. They all worked in unison, as did all the other tradesmen. Each farmer gave a percentage of the grain to the miller for grinding his corn - the flour produced, he used for his own household - any extra was sold to the baker he in turn sold the bread to the tradesmen who did not work the land but needed loaves. Some of the grain went to the brewer to make into ale, who provided all with brew. The craftsmen needed the skills of the smelter and the foundry. The charcoal maker needed his axe and knives forged and sharpened. The blacksmith made up the farming tools, and the wheelwright sought his rims; the carpenter put on the handles and made the yokes. The shoemaker and leather worker shaped the soles and cut the traces; the basket maker and weaver all exchanged their wares for basic materials from the farmer and his field. It was part-bartering system that worked well; the wise Reeve saw to it that no one was given short change. All these trades with their craftsmen had rights too, just as the farmer did. These tradesmen’s sons took over from the father keeping the skills within the family making themselves indispensable. They too had to pay for the privilege of working for the lord even though they were freemen. When there was trouble, they had to turn too and become part of the lord’s conscripted army, and when the harvest needed to be gathered in, they became farm labourers. It is only by long service that they could purchase their freedom from forfeiture. Up to the late Middle-Ages, the power in the land lay with the king, who owned all the land. The king awarded some of his land to relations and those who helped him – his lords. Both the king and lords gave land to the church so that they might be redeemed. A manor is principally a territorial unit, which corresponds to the parish. The manor included settlements referred to as vills’, which corresponds to villages, hamlets, and large farms. Most of England and Wales was divided up into manors. All the land in the manor was overseen by the lord or his tenants and was held as principle tenures being freehold and copyhold. The freehold tenants held their land by grant from the lord in return for a definite service. Military service was usually commuted in course of time for a money payment or ‘quit rent’ – quit of his personal service. The copyhold tenants, whose evidence of title was their copy of the entry in the Court Rolls recording their admittance, owed various services, which usually was particular to the parish. These included heriots, forfeiture, the obligation to do fealty to the lord, and suits and services of many different kinds. A heriot is the best live beast – horse or ox – of which the tenant dies possessed, or sometimes his best chattel – piece of plate, furniture, or garment. The lord was entitled to take this when the tenant died or when the property was alienated to another person. Forfeiture, or obligations, was the liability of the copyholder if he alienated without telling his lord or seeking his consent. All tenants of the manor had the same rights on the manorial waste – the unenclosed, uncultivated land – on the common. This did not necessarily mean they were ‘practicing commoners’ for that was generally reserved - as a handed down right - to long serving members of the community. The freeholders had, as well as their tenure, ‘rights of pasturage’ for their ‘beasts of the plough’ cattle, horses, donkeys, geese and special rights for sheep. The copyholders had various additional rights. Tillage - ‘working the land for cultivation: needed ploughs, plough socks, coulters, spades, shovels, sickles and scythes… power was supplied by oxen. All these were the means to produce enough grain and vegetables, to feed the ploughman and his family, and to pay rent for his land. Eventually after more common land had been cleared - for development, there remained sufficient for a cash crop. Pasturage: the right to graze cattle, horses, donkeys, geese. Pannage  : the right to graze pigs. Turbary    : the right to cut turf. Marl          : the right to dig clay. Estovers  : the right to cut bracken, ferns, heather, gorse. All these were used to provide roofing and bedding. Wood could be cut but only for use in the dwelling for the right applied to the hearth that lay in a particular place. Similarly the Turbery: The right to cut turf as a fuel. This also belonged to the chimney and the hearth. There was also a ‘right’ to draw water, and to fish. Housebote : the repair of cottages. Firebote    : the collection of fuel for the fire. Ploughbote: the wood needed to make the farm implements. Hedgebote : the material to construct hedges and fences. Tenant    : Usually described as a smallholder, one who rented land paying dues and a forfeiture to the owner could also be a Cottager - a villager, [villein or feudal serf], with a smallholding of land measuring one yardland or less. Also described as a husbandman – a common labourer, someone attached to the soil - a slave. A Cottager owned very little other than one or two house-cows, he had no other animals and the minimum of arable strips. His only source of payment was from an excess of the corn he grew and grazing rights. Bad weather, poor harvests, and low grain prices saw him destitute – owing money for his rent; he had to keep a supply of grain for his next sowing. When enclosure was forced upon him, he lost what little income he could make. When enclosure was enacted it affected all the cottagers until tillage ceased - and all became landless – unattached labourers. Illness and injury saw the family begging. The cottager’s rights were for constructing dwellings, maintaining them, making the tools and carts, and developing the land to produce food. The tenants and copyholders had these rights attached to the property - passed on when the property changes hands. All these went with the property not the person that meant the dweller was secured/attached/linked to rights that kept him firmly controlled and subservient to the holder of the land - the lord. Over time, these rights become unused, disinherited and died out - as tenants moved away. The Reeve, who enforced the local rules and rights, with the aid of his Hayward (assistant) handled the management of the lord’s estate. The workers of the land voted him into office, which gave him credence - elected him annually giving him the authority to adjudicate when there were arguments; this gave him standing, especially when discipline was called for. Generations later, the Reeve’s job was superseded by the Sheriff, only this time the position was the lord’s to give, and not the people; he was retained in office, in some cases permanently being an inherited position - able to be passed down from father to son. The forfeited service – the obligation the tenant had to pay for the privilege of the ‘grant’, was usually military service. The lord was honour bound to provide a similar service to his superior in the hierarchy and so on. It was a method whereby the king obtained an army, which he did not have, to train or support. By good work and long service, the tenant could buy his quintal from his obligation to fealty – his quit rent. The lord held his fiefdom devising taxes and laws hiring a steward to look after the day-to-day running of his estate in company with the reeve who was far more knowledgeable about the countryside and the people who dwelt there. The result of The Black Death – the unprecedented death rate - particularly of the poor, reached the east midlands in the autumn of 1348/9. For the first time it gave more power to the workers – the serfs, because the plague reduced the population by over a third - making those left worth a great deal more; they could now demand better conditions – which is what they called for The Bishop’s steward, fifty years later, found that low prices and high wages made demesne farming no longer profitable. The Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, led by Wat Tyler was mainly the outcome of the massive increase in the poll tax - three times higher than the previous year, taxing both rich and poor, at the same rate. This aggravated the already dissatisfied working population who wished to have their servitude – as serfs and the villeinage system, abolished; they also wished to have free contracts for labouring services and the right to rent land. Parliament legislated to keep the wages of the workers low - prevent their dissatisfaction from seeking new employment - moving to other estates. The lords sought further means to stop the flow of workers from the land by increasing the feudal dues – services rendered, tightening the legal bonds. The rebels attacked any signs of lordship and lordly authority – both secular and civil, including their manorial systems and records they kept. To oversee all the churches property and land he travelled continually accompanied by his secretaries, servants and guards. At each manor he controlled there would be his steward who ran the estate in his absence. Over time - by beneficent work and prayer, the church had been gifted over forty percent of the land. The ‘lordship’ of land is about its benefit to the lord, ‘hide’ refers to an area of land of about 120 acres and virgate measures about one quarter of a hide. The armed man provided by the owner of the land, tenant in chief, to the king’s service was not just a swordsman but also ‘a man at arms’ or knight. The knight also held land which he sublet and lived off the rent, or employed a steward – he usually held the largest free holding in the manor – sometimes he represented his holding as ‘his’ manor. The steward acted as a local administrator to run the demesne of the knight, when he was away serving the king, appointing a reeve [magistrate, organized labour and collected rents] and a beadle (parish officer, enforced law and order) from names put forward by the villagers. All the inhabitants of Kersall knew their place in society. It was a ‘feudal’ society, which meant that it was a society based upon families within a community - where each person relied upon the other. Land was owned by the lord in return for ‘homage’ and ‘fealty’ – recognising the power and rights of the king, which the land owner had to defend – in reality both protected each other. The land was held on condition and service – a fiefdom. Homage referred to an acceptance by the knight that he recognised and respected the king’s position – which he swore an oath of loyalty. http://www.openwindowslearning.co.uk/ The Collins of Chard. Over a period of about two hundred years, this tenure changed as much by the increase in population as anything else. Land became transferrable from one generation to another – it became one of inheritance. The land then became enfeoffed by common-law owners. The lord was most reliant upon his workers who were the villeins. Their sons had to have a house. Itinerate serfs needed a home too. There was ample land and in most part, individuals built their own home, perhaps bartering help from neighbours. It was wise to tell the bailiff and seek his approval which was easy to do labour was sorely needed - if the lord’s position was to be maintained. There was not a strict plan to be upheld houses were built close to the areas being worked. It was normal to try to build close to housing materials, fresh water, and ease of cartage, near neighbours and close to the church. The bailiff would advise taking a small parcel of land not occupied on waste ground – which would be close to the forest or wood. This ensured that arable land was not lost. Building a cottage and providing furniture. To ensure the expense and labour is not wasted the building needs to be sited on land which isn’t inundated by flood is firmly built on ground that remains compacted - giving a firm base to the walls, and is built in a fashion that guarantees stability and rigidity. For all building projects a survey has to be ordered. Even when the first pole houses were erected this elementary principle was taken. Before building a timber framed house in the fifteenth century the master carpenter would have been consulted. Planning the Site. The builder, who in those days would have been a Master Carpenter, had to make a number of decisions before starting work. Most importantly he had to be sure who owned the land, who, was going to pay, and if the lord of the manor, or his bailiff, had been informed. Once those stipulations had been cleared he could concentrate on the building. He needed to know the size, and purpose - of the building its site, and what building materials there were to hand. The materials on the land: trees, minerals and clay, maybe under the control of someone else usually the lord of the manor. Whereas you might have permission to build a hovel, hut, shack or cottage you might not have the owner’s right of gathering the material on the land. Given that these questions have been positively answered, and given that the builder can have an option as to the actual site he should: consider the compass direction, the prevailing wind, folds in the land, access to the site, distance for carting the materials, and the availability of water. He may be lucky and the site located near a stream, ford, or track, and have a sheltering copse, or wood, or even a chalk outcrop, close by. If the builder can cut down a number of trees and have a choice as to type and size he would select trunk and branches of oak for the main frame. Hazel, chestnut, rowan, willow, and pine, for the infilling; and arrange for the straw from a local crop of wheat for the thatch when the field is harvested. His first task, after surveying the land, and assessing its offerings of materials, to perhaps: dig and line a well, construct a limestone pit and kiln, clear a suitable site to make up daub, putty and plaster and finally dig a saw pit - close to where the trees are to be cut. If there is stone or flint both can be incorporated into the foundations and lower walls. Gravel provides a level site and contributes towards making a roadway, chalk and clay provide plaster to cover wattle, and turfs form a roof or build a wall. In its simplest form the building may rest on a number of linked, stripped, tree trunks set into the ground – to act as a ground plate. The heavy structural main posts would be mortised into this. The ground outside the footprint of the building would be cut to create a fall-away - proper drainage for storm and waste water. If however, there are sufficiently large stones on site they can be used to give a sound foundation which can be further built upon - to give a damproof wall to plate off. This simple footing of stone makes a far more substantial base - that will not rot, and casts off dripping rain water. The builder’s final job before building starts is to organize his labour, both for working the site and carting the materials. The framework of all sides, are made at ground level, where the jointing cuts and drilling can be performed at a more comfortable level. In some instances, where a relatively small building is to be constructed, the sides can be jointed and raised in a complete section – similar to barn construction. However, this only applies to a frame, especially gable-ends, that are lighter and therefore manageable. The Timber Frame. Posts are the main uprights – structural members, which supports the cross beams and roof. The four corner posts maybe the structures largest timbers and stretch from ground to roof in one piece. These posts are mort iced into equally large horizontal timbers call plates; these distribute the weight of the whole building and stop the posts from sinking into the ground. The plates may rest upon a foundation of large stones sunk into the ground or rest upon a small lower wall. Some buildings have support crucks or half-crucks, which are structural curved timbers, found in pairs, joined at the top to form a bay. Lesser posts are the uprights to support partition rails, which together, make-up a frame or panel. The use of large stones in the foundation was an evolution of the medieval post and beam dwellings; a small lower wall linking into this foundation found on later buildings. Finally, timber framing gave way to the all stone or brick buildings. Even though Tudor mansions and palaces were sometimes made of brick their manufacture and use was expensive. This was enough to limit their use for Yeoman farmers and worker cottages. Beams: rest on the main posts - are horizontal structural timbers placed to support floor joists. They maybe bonders, built into stonework that link-in roof rafters - as wall or floor plates. Bessumer: heavy beams used as a lintel to bridge over a wide opening for barn doors or drive through openings, or as a support for jetted – cantilevered, overhangs. Tie Beams: span from wall to wall and tie the principle rafters which the form a truss. Top Rail: the uppermost horizontal member of a frame. Rails: horizontal framing members in panel construction. Principle Rafters: carry the purlins, rafters and roof cover. Braces: timbers placed at an angle in frames and panels - to act as a support. Wind Braces: diagonal timbers in roof construction. Both these angled members are to stiffen-up the frame or panel. In the Middle Ages, the timber used to build cottages was green. This made possible splitting the main trunk with the grain by the use of wedges. Branches, boughs and logs were split in the same fashion. Second-hand or seasoned wood needed an axe, chopper or adze to split down the grain. The Carpenters Tools. The axe, riving iron, adze, auger, beetle club and various wood and iron wedges were the early tools used to cut, split, and shape wood for house building and fashioning interior fittings and furniture. In later periods the saw enabled the wood to be cut with more precision and the drill bored holes faster. The sawmill cut timber into uniform size including planks and laths. It was a happy day for the builder when the saw was invented. Before that the tools were of the simple hack and bash type which restricted any leap forward in building design. When using a saw the logs could be squared off, studding produced from beams, planks into battens and laths trimmed even smaller with veneers became possible. None of this came about quickly because saw design and manufacture had to be progressed. That innovations and improvements would be made was inevitable. A similar story can be made for the production of a hole from burning with a hot iron using an auger followed by a brace and bit. If, the carpenter was given permission, by the lord of the manor, or his bailiff, to select his own choice of tree he had, once chosen, a task for every piece. When felled the main trunk was split to make it transportable and to give a pair of main timbers of equal proportions and shape (perhaps considering a cruck). The two pieces would be taken to the sawpit to be squared off. The sawpit allowed two men to operate a single saw each pulling in turn - that speeded up the cutting process. The top man stood on the split trunk to steady it. All the main beams, posts and plates would be cut in this manner. After the main frame of the house has been erected and the roof timbers put into place the building thatched or tiled. Often, timber frame houses were left without doors, windows, and interior fittings, for a year – to allow the whole structure to dry out and settle. This structural movement is natural and inevitable whilst at periods the builder returns to the building to tap home the pegs to keep the joints tight. Drying out, and the inevitable settling down - of the building - into the ground, can take many years, often causing parts of the building to lean and twist. Once, this movement has been given a chance to settle: the doors, windows, interior panelling, and wainscots, fitted. Wattle filled frames or panels between upright posts and horizontal rails – top, middle, and bottom, can be almost any size; they were sectioned-off to make smaller frames – approximately 120cm in height by 40cm wide and 10cm deep. The top rail is set under the floor beam and the bottom rails rests on the floor plate. The secondary framing was aligned to the outside edge of the main frame and the windows and doors – fitted into the panels. All rails are tenon-jointed into the posts, and pegged. The staves are spaced out approximately 10cm apart. They are morticed, notched, sprung, or set, into channels or grooves set in the horizontal members. The wattle, made up of: hazel, reed, willow osiers, or rowan - interlaced, weaving in and out of the upright staves - making a basket like covering. The interwoven wattle was as thick as a thumb or two fingers – they were not twigs, green, to allow some flexibility - to lace into the upright staves. The tighter these wattles were woven the stronger the partition. This tightness also provided a good background for the daub to adhere to allow the plasterer to apply more pressure to force the daub through the woven wattle from both sides of the partition. The daub was applied from each side at the same time starting from the bottom up - to allow greater grip - whilst the daub was malleable. The daub would be overlapped onto the frame and tapered off this too gave more grip to the covering and allowed the daub to dry without a gap appearing as it shrunk. The width of the panel would now be 15cm. Plastering with daub, the builder or plasterer would make-up his own daub. The use of chalk, lime and cement in building was well understood by the Romans. They realized that a mixture of aggregate and cement would set below the waterline – that powdered baked limestone returned to its previous structure by the addition of water. Traditional wall construction using lime mortars allows moisture to escape as water and water vapour through the materials pores when drying out. The use of cement on its own or added to lime traps water in its closed pore structure. Any use of chalk or lime must be allowed to frequently dry out for - damp conditions, quickly deteriorates the structure. Lime binders are normally sold as two main types: non-hydraulic and (natural) hydraulic. Non-Hydraulic lime and sand mortars are made from a lime putty containing at least 90% calcium lime – is for external rendering and internal plastering – perfect for daub having a high level of cohesion and low shrinkage. Making-up traditional daub, the builder would dig out a pit to form a baking oven, close to outcrop of chalkstone, facing towards the prevailing wind. The construction of the oven using blocks of chalkstone would include a number of vents and chimney to produce a draught. The building would take place whilst the fire was alight making sure there was sufficient burning material inside the oven. The object was to create a high temperature. When sufficient baking had been achieved and the oven cooled the whole structure was broken down and crushed. The result would be caustic lime powder. A second pit was dug and lined with puddle clay, into this was poured sufficient water to quarter fill – this was to form a lime mortar pit. Treating the powdered quick-lime or lump lime with water made the hydrated lime suitable as a lime wash or thicker still as a lime putty this became calcium hydroxide when dry – reverting to its previous solid form. Painting the outside of the plasterwork with lime-wash created a hard shell that was weatherproof. Some clay’s were baked in the same fashion to become hydraulic lime and used with normal powdered lime to baulk out the mixture to save lime. This did not adversely affect the mixture and this too was used as paint with other vegetable or minerals added - as colouring. Into the lime pit was added horse or other animal hair, chopped straw, hay, chaff, dung, sieved soil, clay and graded sand. This was done in whatever combination necessary depending on the availability of the ingredients on site. Once again the object was to produce, when dry, a solid weatherproof coating that was long lasting. The pit with its contents was covered over and allowed to soak – to temper, or fatten-up. This could take several weeks; the longer it was left the better the mixture. The final mixture was thrown, pressed, towelled – applied from both sides of the wattle - to grip together. Must not be too dry, which might cause it to crack, or too wet, it would drop, or cause sagging. The thickness was never achieved at once but by several coats. The first coat needed to penetrate through - to make a secure base - for the remaining coats. The final coat was smoothed and polished the edges, onto the frame, tapered off, to grip onto the outer frame. The daub mixture in the pit was added to continually as the worked progressed. To achieve a perfect mixture which was consistent was impossible. Much depended on the weather, drying conditions and amount of moisture in the mixture. For the plaster to dry out in the middle of the partition could take many months. In places where there was no lime or where the builder could not afford the price clay was used to make blocks which overtime hardened. The result rested on the individual’s knowhow and time afforded. The development of building methods particularly concerned with constructing internal walls changes as soon as wood could be cut to produce laths – thin strips of wood to take the place of wattle. The cut wood was seasoned and uniform. This immediately reduced the bulk, lightened the weight of the construction, and speeded up the drying process. The main upright structural members, which support the beams and roof would be buried into the ground. Large horizontal timbers called plates would be morticed into the posts. These would stop the posts from sinking and distribute the weight of the building. Depending on the surrounding ground, there may be sunken stones or logs providing a foundation – the posts jointed into the plate, or the walls half built of stone. However, we must not get beyond our self for the serf or villein neither had the time, help, tools and expertise, to form such a structure. Their simple structure was a pole house needing no sawing only the splitting of green timber. Lesser posts were the uprights to support partition rails, which together make up a frame or panel. These wall panels were made up of woven split canes, similar to a hurdle. A mud and dung daub filled the gaps. This would soon become a hovel with a compacted earth floor and a fire burnt upon stones set into the centre of the floor area. Smoke would dissipate through the rather rough thatch such a hovel would soon deteriorate and the roof to sag. Depending on the character of the man that lived there the place would either fall into total disrepair or it would be maintained, improved and part rebuilt. The improvement upon a simple pole house was a post and beam building with rails, rafters and braces, and a crown-post roof. The wattle and daub walls replaced with shuttered cob better still a stone and flint infill, using a lime mortar. The single large room partitioned and a floor above with dormer windows but this was years later after The Black Death when the workers conditions improved - their labours better appreciated. The villager who wanted a dwelling either negotiated a plot with the bailiff or squatted on the outskirts of the village. There was an excess of waste ground and the village needed labour. It was a do-it-yourself building although there was usually somebody close to superintends the building – either a family member of a close neighbour who had knowledge of such things. The site would be marked out taking regard for access to the site and availability of wood, gravel, sand, mud and lime. A trench dug out to accommodate the foundations, which was filled with stone cleared from the site. There was no need to consider drains for these would be external. Close to the site, a pit would be dug to mix up the daub, cob, plaster, and lime. If this sound rather slap happy it wasn’t. All these mixtures had similar components and to some extent worked. The frame of the building was of wood or the walls built of cob blocks, stone, flints, or shuttered cob or a selection of all, perhaps you could lay your hand on some old Roman bricks or stone from a disused house, church, or barn. Once again, this choice relied upon what was on the site - or close to. Cartage was a problem. It was rare for the villager to have his own cart, or the loan of one. Nor did he own a horse. What had to be transported to the site had to be carried? If you had to do this, you made very sure you had enough materials on the site before you began, and the most easily made up compound was a mixture of mud, chalk, flints, stones, straw or chaff and cow dung. If you added stones, sand or flint to the mixture it became hard to mix so that that leaves just a mixture of mud, chalk, clay, dung, chaff and soil. Whether or not you baked the chalk or lime was probably doubtful. The longer the mixture was kept together in the pit, with sufficient water to soften it, the better. Here I am talking about six months, for all the components had to be fully saturated and rotted to break up into particles. Therefore, the project took many months to prepare before building began. The most common method was probably the easiest, which was to build thick walls or stone. The largest stones were reserved for the base, which saved having to lift them up. The stones were assembled very much like dry-stone walling or building with brick or block - to make the inner and outer surfaces’ interlock to give rigidity. The mixture of chalk, lime, clay, and mud pushed and placed between and about the stones to give a secure base for the next layer and to stop any draughts blowing through. In an area providing sufficient stone, much of that picked up off the ground by stone-pickers who were paid a contract rate – so much per cubic yard in preparation for planting, building with stone was the obvious answer. Similarly in areas of slate and flint. In deciduous woodland clearings, the land gave the split green wood to make timber-framed houses associated with the Tudor period and in areas planted with pine, the pole houses the simplest construction method. The easiest way to use cob was to make blocks using a mould, allowing the cob to dry in the sun – very much like the original way of making clay bricks. This took longer but in the end was more precise. Constructing wooden shuttering either side of the wall then packing, the cob down inside was perhaps the faster method, but took longer to dry out. For some villagers simply piling up the cob into layers allowing each to partially dry out before the next placed on top was the easiest. Making the sides true and square with axe and saw, trimmed it into shape. The quick, but holding the shortest life span, hurdles, or wattle tied against stakes driven into the ground, daub pressed into it from both sides, and smoothed off. All these methods were used allowing a large overhang of the roof to offer protection to the walls. Giving the inside and outside wall a wash of lime gradually built up a hard rainproof surface. Making sure, the rain drained away from the wall base kept the building relatively damp proof. Ultimately, it was continuous maintenance, which secured the longest lasting building, and having a well found thatch, the key to that. It must not be thought that cob, timber framed or pole houses, flint, slate, or any of those other building materials were inefficient building materials, which had a short life span. They were used hundreds of years ago, are still able to be seen today, and lived in. Nor must one think that the builders in the past were incapable of building attractive long lasting houses that leaked, were damp, and disintegrated. Research reveals lime and brick kilns operating whilst cob extensively used. Lime burnt, crushed, and mixed with water made an excellent protective coating and many of the houses were thatched. A full range of attractive bricks was made as well as drainage pipes and roof tiles. The Black Death reaped its toll over Britain. The country lost over a third of its population. Some villages were abandoned, and cottages remained empty the countryside began to disintegrate - as the land drainage systems clogged and the tracks became overgrown. The landowners could not maintain their estates - the fields returned to their natural state. The numbers of skilled artisans – that did survive, were sorely needed, which gave them power, which previously had been denied them the lord of the manor could not continue with the old manorial system and the tillage system broke down. The only way food could be produced was to entice the remaining men by the promise of land of their own. The onetime cultivated fields now grazed sheep. This alarmed the government who believed this would reduce the number of peasants owing forfeiture – they would lose subjects for the Crown. This they tried to prevent. There is little doubt that the plague did alter the countryside and its manner of husbandry. Food had to be grown and the bartering system had to be maintained. The land’s management certainly took a blow and most manors reduced their farming areas - productivity fell, but only so far, the reduced population was still fed. The main source of income was the lord’s store-flock of sheep. The tillage system evolved with a reduced number of serfs attending to the land. The first dwellings were the construction of a single room, housing the family and its animals. In the centre the fire. This ‘hall-house’ gave way to the smoke bay house where part of the end of the hall was given a first floor, reached by a ladder. A space was left over the hearth for the smoke to travel up to the roof. In later times, the hearth made into an inglenook open on both sides – this structure becoming a hollow dividing wall – the fire heating both rooms. It was not long before the cooking was done in a separate room either partitioned off or built as a lean-to onto the original structure. The dwellings of the 1600s took the form of a conventional house with two rooms below and a number of bedrooms above. The original rough structures, built before this period were over time, improved, replaced, built onto and refaced the hovel became the hut, the hut became a cottage and the cottage a farmhouse. A steady improvement over many years made the now quaint farmhouse much sought after - becoming a countryside residence upon the town’s main road. The hovel had no windows relying upon the open door back and front to give air, light and access for humans and animals. A later improvement, which required very little structural alterations, was to put in window slits - to direct light. The huts that came after, in the 12th century, had windows included with bars and shutters for security, and keep the winter draught out. Horn was also pared down to give a sealed light-penetrating cover but these have not survived. An oiled cloth draped over the hole was another method used – as a light emitting barrier. By the 1500s small paned mullioned windows were glazed having the panes tied to the bars. This was before grooved lead glazing bars were introduced - for the insertion of glass a hundred years later. The glass was blown and cut to fit giving at every blowing what is termed a bottle bottom, the rest was cut into very small panes. Later the glass was blown in a tube, removed - unwrapped - opened out, and cut… This latter method continued for decades. All old glass would have distortions created by blowing and are distinct. Whether the bars created a latticed diamond pattern or vertical and horizontal plan was incidental – a design feature. By the 17th century, most open hall houses were converted to take a staircase and second floor. The buildings structure incorporated a designed series of fireplaces with the flues linked top and bottom – some sharing the same smoke chamber and chimney. It wasn’t long before builders and architects became aware that it was best to add a kink in the flue to drawn air through the fire and to stop smoke being sucked back into the room. It did not take the government long to tax people on the number of hearths – rooms, the building had. This was the hearth tax of 1689. Those houses where there were more than half a dozen chimneys could be considered the dwelling of minor gentry… below this number the house of a yeomen, tradesmen or craftsmen, and those with but one homes for husbandmen, shoemakers, labourers and shepherds. Householders that paid less than 20s for their hearth tax, per annum, were exempt, as long as they did not own another property. This banding applied also to paying church tithes, rents and rates, and to those who were widows; Paupers also did not have to pay or the bedridden. Both Kersall and Kneesall were fortunate in that their geographic position by sitting on a trade route – the main highway between the Midland cities and London. When the Doomsday survey was made, there were fewer than two hundred persons in the borough. By the time Queen Elizabeth I mounted the throne that number had increased to five hundred. A further two hundred years saw over five times that amount then becoming an assize town, with buildings to match its importance The lord’s ‘manor court’, probably held at Kneesall Church otherwise known as Manor Church, was the place where disputes between all were deliberated and the results declared. The court operated every three or four weeks by the court baron, (perhaps the lord’s baliff} whose declarations became local law – no appeal even at the king’s court were countenanced. Other matters were not the business of the lord but for the hundred court to consider, presided over by the sheriff, on behalf of the king. The good behaviour of the citizens maintained by a system of frankpledge. These were groups of ten or so households called tithings, pledged to be responsible for each other’s good behaviour – usually fixed prices of goods and maintained weight and quality. The tithing men and ale tasters oversaw the assize of ale. The church was an important part in village life. Many sermons proclaimed the hope of salvation, which had the result of making attendances regular. For the majority this became a habit, celebrating and proclaiming the rites of baptism, marriage, and death celebrating too the Saint’s day, Christmas, Easter, Lent and Whitsun, all helped separate the seasons the peasant’s work on the land - the tilling, sowing, reaping and harvest, given a rightful place in the order of service. All these special occasions drew the congregation together. Saint Bartholomew Church, built c1440, in flint and dressings of local stone was given castellation’s and tower built in 1425, was the centrepiece of the local community and provided a meeting place for the village and courtroom and had its own cemetery, which was a privilege not a right whose priest was given an endowment by the mother church to sing masses for the founder’s soul. The chapel made oblations and donations for pious uses to St Bartholomew’s Priest. It was also used as neutral ground for local hearings particularly between the various religious bodies. A manor was a certain amount of land granted by the king to some baron or lord; the king also granted land to the church for absolution. Locally it was in two parts. There was the demesne, which the lord retained for his own use and the rest, which was parcelled out to the tenant’s freemen or villeins - held in villeinage, virgate or half-virgate land (A virgate is thirty acres) - in return for services. The land was allotted in hides or coruscate, which was an area of land, which could be ploughed by one team in one year. Each manor was a kingdom within itself with its own customs wholly at the mercy of the lord, who held the largest share of common pasture and wasteland. The tenants had certain liabilities besides supplying eggs and chickens they had to perform boom-works at harvest and ploughing time, these duties were not linked to him but to the land he held - was expected to provide ‘aids’. The legal possessor of the land – who occupies it - as ‘something passed down from generation to generation’, holds it as his ‘demesne’ (di΄mein). In the English village the lord of the manor lives in the manor house and owns, more often than not, ‘home or manor farm’. He also owns a number of strips in each field and sundry other parcels of land. When first marked out the greater part of the manor was divided up into strips or balks. These strips were separated from each other by unploughed turf. The strips were not all the same size but measured about an acre the length being a furlong - 40 poles, and the width, 4 poles. A furlong taken as being a suitable length to drive a plough pulled by oxen to make a furrow. A pole, rod and perch being the same length, the language difference being a purely local patois. Some strips were half-acres having the same length as an acre strip but half the number of rods wide. The strips lay side by side – separated by unploughed furrows, to make a number of separated strips – about a square acre. Each acre square separated by wider balks, which became over time overgrown, making a rough hedge. There was an important downside to this system of land share. The principle was that each year different strips were issued to every villager from the three fields – so that all had an equal chance of receiving the best and worst land. This collective issuing of land meant there was no incentive to treat the land well - knowing that it was to be re-allotted the following year. Another handicap was having to move any tools, hurdles and other farming paraphernalia to the new site wasted time and energy. All the tenants’ vassals in the manor were allocated a certain number of strips, in several fields, so that the best and worst evenly shared – some probably held land gained by military service. The head tenant was probably the sheriff, who held a virgate and considered himself a yeoman – a much-respected man in the manor. A lesser holding was the cotland holding five acres whose holder did not attend court, paid no rent or relief but provided services. Below the free tenants came the villeins – the baulk of the population – who did the main work. The villeins, customary holdings - tied to the land called copyhold land – copied into the rolls. The waste hold tenancy held less than an acre in return for a small rent. Sub-tenancies could be granted usually only by the head tenant from his own land, then the rent was due to him. People who owned no land - who rented, did not appear on the rolls. Below them came the cottagers who might be called allottees and lower still the serfs who were really slaves that could be bought and sold in the market at the lord’s pleasure. This became known as the ‘open or common field’ system of cultivation. The common land, or waste, was shared too; in a similar manner - for grazing and haymaking when the harvest on the strips gathered in this too put to graze using hurdles to pen-in the flock. Where the strips touched head to head a gap was left to become the ‘headland’ – the place where the plough could be turned round, this area of land could be cultivated, but only after all the strips had been ploughed. If the strips were situated upon a hillside, terracing, or lynches would occur. If one or a number of tenants worked thirty scattered acres of land this bundle of land was referred to as a virgate ‘worked by a villein’ therefore he became a villein tenant… the highest grade in the village hierarchy and served as jurors in the ‘Halimot’ – Court of the Manor. Even though a villein owned the land, he still had to pay rent. Uncultivated land, bearing beech, oak and scrub, was prepared for future cultivation. The felled wood split for building houses, furniture making and fencing, and the better pieces used in the manufacture of wagons and farming implements. This clearance prepared land for the new generation to occupy it also helped develop the basis for new highways. Clearing land exposed rocky outcrops, gravel beds and chalk hills all to be of use building roads and houses of the future old town. This manorial and monastical system, exacting rents and tithes for the use of the land, was, if fairly operated, for the good of all. The Lord and Bishop guaranteed security and stewardship… they needed the serfs, or villeins - to work the land productively, and ultimately, profitably, to maintain their position. The ‘freemen’ in the village were not subject to this tax, they owned their own plot of land or had a trade or skill needed by the lord. Unfortunately, none of the landlords were above taking advantage of their position, interpreting ‘the kings will’ to suit themselves - extracting more and more for their ‘rights’. This development of the land and the overseeing of best practice in the seasonal production of food was not haphazard. It was about husbandry – cultivation by open-field farming where villagers worked their own strips of land in the company of others all within a large field. The tools, harnesses and heavy equipment shared as were the oxen. After the harvest all, the livestock turned out into the field to manure the land and partake of the feed. All this was done in ‘common’ – with everyone else – as a communal undertaking. There was no time for disharmony or discussion, the land and weather dictated the course of events. The methods of cultivation and husbandry worked out over the centuries. Everyone had to pull together and make the system work. The strips of land allotted to each villager were long and thin specially designed for the ox-team to get in and plough. The action of ploughing over the centuries had produced steps, somewhat like terracing, seen today as a series of ridges. The strips grouped together in shots or furlongs and where the heads of the strips touched the unploughed parts were called baulks – over time became paths, tracks and byways. All villagers held a number of strips in three fields – one of the fields kept in rotation fallow, as pasture for the animals to manure. (Rents were not due for fallow land) The number of strips distributed by rank or standing in the community – allotted by the lord’s steward. His job was to see that this distribution of land was fair - according to age old custom and fertility of the soil – sharing good and difficult land. The three-year system worked tolerably well – one year to grow corn or peas, the next corn and beans and the following to lie fallow. The villeins stint – his allotted amount of work or share of the land, was five sheep for every acre of meadow, this also applied to the number of sheep he could turn out into the field-laying fallow. In the late fifteenth century, fees had to be paid to the Reeve for pannage rights – allowing pigs to root among the acorns in the wood and pasturage, conferring the right to graze cattle. Another, entitled the villager to turbary – cut turf or dig peat, estovers – to gather wood from uprooted trees and wyndfallen, gather wood from branches blown off trees. An amount had to be paid for the enclosure for grazing in Kersall’s meadows and on the common land beyond. The pig was the primary source of meat for the villager. Once again, pannage had to be paid for letting the swine feed and a strict watch was paid for how many and for how long the pigs ate. Too much rooting disturbed the growth of young trees and the mud baths created barren earth. Although there was clearage of forest, wood and bracken to form arable land it was appreciated that this would detrimentally affect the numbers of wild animals that could be caught and eaten and eventually strip the land of wood for building. As Kersall expanded – mostly by births not by an influx of workers, more trades and skills became available that brought prosperity to the village. The baker, butcher, ale sellers, cobbler, smith, carters, drovers, shepherds, shop keeper, tailor and weaver of baskets just a few of the trades that flourished. Whilst they were busy they could not work the land or the land they were allotted. Therefore, there was bartering, agreements and tokens to be exchanged. Each villager had an entitlement to use the wasteland – meadow, pasture, and wood. Mostly all villagers paid rent and tithes, and carried out some service for the community - threshing, winnowing, gathering, carrying, or stacking. The meadowland down by the river was specially set aside for the small herd of oxen owned by the Bishop - kept to do all the heavy work in the village. During the Reformation, Henry VIII made himself Head of the Church of England in 1534 – this was the pre-industrial age of English history. Henry’s act abolished control of the English Church from Rome, and as the church was very strong - played an important part in English society, Henry assumed total power over all aspects of the society. This was also a dynamic age regarding the economy, which affected both towns and villages. Queen Elizabeth 1 took the Title Queen in1558 and the Church of England was revived. As explained, the village of Kneesall and Kersall functioned using a high degree of democratic control through The Bishops representatives working in conjunction with village-meetings - expressing concerns and electing the populations choice of leaders. The economy was centred on arable farming, the dairy livestock, woodland crafts, and smithy. CAMPOP’s researches have shown that during the century after 1540 England’s population increased to 2.75 million to roughly 5 million. Thereafter stagnation – a slight decline. After 1740 an enormous growth occurred which has not stopped. Kersall grew in size - in the number of dwellings erected the increased population were materially better off than previous generations. The swing away from a purely arable to mixed farming – with an emphasis on sheep rearing improved per-capita wealth. Towards the end of the century, the common land was under pressure to be enclosed. It became essential for good stock breeding to separate animals, carefully manage the production of wool and dairy food this was a natural and obvious evolution in the production of food and animal products. The reaction of the small holding poor was one of fright and concern. The peasantry were being forced to give up their rights by the larger tenant farmers. The result was unrest. More commons were turned into pastures and the onetime tilled fields seeded with grass. The wealthy farmers began to take a great interest in better husbandry. Pastures were drained, watercourses diverted and ditches dug. Stones were picked up off the land and used to erect boundary walls. Fences erected and hedges laid. England began to take the shape seen today. In reality, the poor were being exploited by giving up their rights, which they receive little compensation for. Gradually the little hovels and hamlets were flattened and cottages abandoned. The poor drifted towards the towns to work in the mills. The dissolution of the monasteries by King Henry saw two-thirds of ex-monastic land sold his original intention was to abolish the whole monastic system. The monastic houses included abbeys, convents, nunneries and friaries their dissolution lasted four years between 1536/40, in all there were over eight hundred religious houses - the homes to many monks, friars, canons, and nuns. Initially lands were given to the church by the king and his lords to secure redemption – to be prayed for. By good husbandry, the monks developed the land making it very profitable. Before the dissolution, the bulk of the land was put to wool production, which was very profitable finding a ready market at home, and aboard. This made the various religious bodies’ very wealth. It was after The Black Death, which reaped a heavy toll on the population as well as the monks that the tillage system faltered. The land afterwards could not be maintained properly. To increase profitability the fields were turned into pastureland, which was easier to manage. Clearing the land of stone, building walls, fences and hedges the sheep were corralled production increased and profits kept pace. In 1538, the Vicar-General decided that the dissolution was not being accomplished fast enough especially on the larger houses. He sent out his secretaries who presented a ready-made deed of surrender to the abbot who in most cases readily signed the property away. Those who did so willingly were granted a pension for life and a lump sum of money. The sized property was granted to landowners or offered for sale, some given to the parish. The stonework demolished and reused lead and precious metals melted down. There were a number of priories raised to cathedral status with a dean, and a chapter of canons, that saved them from extinction. The redistribution of land meant a change of ownership not ‘change of use’. The system of paying rents and tithes did not alter - only now there were more owners. However, before the new order was established there was disruption and confusion – rents not paid - land becoming overgrown. Eventually, some of the church lands were returned to their original owners and order restored. This harmony was soon dashed by tenant eviction. The ‘open field system’ was changed to one of ‘enclosure’. The object was to make the land more productive, especially for the grazing of sheep this in turn gave an opportunity to advance a new farming technique - controlled dunging of arable land. The village people really affected by closure were the small tenant farmers of mixed farms, smallholders and those with limited rights. They were all paid a minimum amount to move minus that year’s forfeiture fee. In the 1530s, the price of farm produce – labour and grain, increased appreciably. By 1540, there was a series drought, which pushed prices up further. It was thought by some that this was exacerbated by the continuing enclosure of land – that sheep farming reduced the amount of land available for arable crops. Four years later the king sold off more land grants. The rents due on the land included the right to carry on collecting the old Landmole rents [ground rent outside the town walls, rent at a penny an acre – or measure of land, per half year]. Thus, the tenants on land had a new property owner not set free from their old duties of forfeiture. Over the next fifty years there was much selling of land, which consolidated holdings and redeveloped larger estates. The effects that came from the dissolution of the monasteries on the citizens of Kersall were small. Henry’s commissioners found nothing in Kneesall’s St Bartholomew’s chantry or any guild funds to lay their hands on. Those in the village who were staunch Catholics kept a low profile, moved away or emigrated. For the labouring tenants nothing altered their way of life. Having the Chantry and guilds abolished and their plate melted down meant little to them. In 1546, peace was restored between England and France. Mary I followed by restoring the Catholic faith in England nine years later, then it was the turn of the Protestants to hide. From this time the non-conformists began to form groups lead by dedicated missionaries. The dissenting chapels started being raised over the next three hundred years: The Baptists, Mission Halls, Methodists, and Wesleyans, The Independents and the Congregationalists and others. This move away from the established religious institutions marks out Kersall and the area around. The church was not the only institution going through social and economic changes. The expanding population that was ‘on the move’ was undermining the manorial system. It was a time of recession after a period of growth. The government brought about controls through Justices of the Peace who had the authority to impose fund-raising to relieve poverty. The administration ordered the Parish of Kneesall carry out legislation with a constable of its own. Gradually the manor lost its relevance. The importance of wool is recorded in 1586 as a commodity, as well as for local bartering and weaving - no longer thought of just as a by-product. Gradually the purely rural cultivation of land promoted ancillary trades which eventually developed more profitable skills – the wagon maker turned his hand to making more practical farming machines, the millwright devised machinery for cutting wood and the blacksmith produced cooking implements and furniture for doors and windows. It wasn’t long before these skilful adaptors became organized by entrepreneurs, adding yet another strata to the society. These new tradesmen maintained their position by organizing themselves into guilds - societies for mutual benefit controlled by a council. The domination of the underclass, by those who owned the land, was not seriously questioned – it was an accepted fact, and only worked when for most of the time a sort of fairness existed – some individuals changed their class through hard work, opportunism and good fortune. Those who held freehold land were guaranteed the right to vote for Parliament. The yeomen were the baulk of the lesser landowners – they could be tenant farmers if prosperous. They served a jurors, constables, churchwardens and bailiffs. In a village such as Kersall there were but few, perhaps three or four. It was to them that any credit goes if the village was run well. Husbandmen rarely owned land but had smallholdings with long-term leases, which were renewed. They either bought spare land to make theirs more profitable or became wage labourers for others whilst maintaining theirs. As families grew, larger and mechanical devises became available to increase farm production spare labour had to be found work. To start a cottage industry adapting skills and applying new ones small businesses began. Shoes, pots and pans, basket weaving, straw dollies, leather goods all gave a basis for work. The carter transported the work to market and local shops and did a door-to-door service. These industries included ‘putting out cloth’. Whole families combined to weave and spin, crochet and knit – children carding wool, women spinning it into yarn, and men weaving the thread. Cottages would be altered to accommodate the industry and families cooperated to form a production line. The lord of the manor: who may also be the squire and magistrate, exercised justice and good governance? The squire, usually the largest landowner, was the senior landed gentleman and managed the day to day running of the manor. It was a handed down, hierarchical existence, based on the gentry. This was not always the case if there was an aristocrat or Bishop in the manor who may have been in a higher class. However, neither of these tended to interfere in the running of the manor. Following on under the squire was the parson, then, the largest tenant farmer running the manor farm, the apothecary, the miller, the bailiff, the wheelwright, publican, postman and then the smallholders. At the bottom, the shoemaker and below him the agricultural labourer. Each member of the community dressed according to their station, affording those above him due regard. In the 1620s, the price for fine wool collapsed due to over production and the demand for undyed wool from the continent was banned. Six years earlier the London dyers persuaded the government to ban all undyed cloth. All the small south coast exporters felt the pinch from this ban and one by one faced extinction. Those that were worse off were the cottage industries especially those that served the export trade. Initially they built up stocks hoping that the government would realise their predicament but eventually this failed. Within the first quarter of the century the summers were recorded as poor this affected the harvests corn prices shot up. Many of the farmers still struggling from enclosures lost their livelihoods. In 1622, the cloth trade was in ruins. Broadcloth went out of fashion. Lighter weaves and cloths that are more colourful were in demand. Because the previous ban on undyed cloth had choked off the export trade, the continental weavers had made their own. Now the call was for quality cloth… This area of England was firmly behind Parliament and Cromwell. That does not mean to say that pockets of Royalists were not to be found close to stately homes, castles and the houses of landed gentry. Even so, the tenants, in-house servants, land-workers and tradesmen, of these rich men, were parliamentarians. By 1646, there were a number of minority religions. There were the Baptist, Ranters, Muggletonians, Quakers, and Congregationalists a new movement. The Congregationalists were members of the puritan Presbyterian communion; some of these were called Independents of the New Independent Church. By the end of the year, the First Civil War ended. The unpaid royalist army collapsed and the men made their way back home. Their reception was hostile and businesses taken over or torn down. Many of these disfranchised soldiers immigrated to Spain continuing their royalist sympathies. In 1649 The Monarchy, the House of Lords, and the Anglican Church were abolished. All lands sized by the Parliamentarians, the law of the land, were restored and boroughs regained their old charters. Parliament passed the Act of Uniformity, which made the Church of England the official religion. By about 1650, some yeomen were letting their houses to people outside the borough boundaries. We can make a judgement that this was the last century that yeomen farmers farmed their own land that includes copyhold or freehold land. Their status gave them automatic rights to pronounce on village matters, run the lord’s farms and to be the leaders in the community. Gradually outsiders replaced them some selling their holdings and others renting out. Their time was waning and so was the influence of the manor court. The medieval system with its emphasis on residence and inheritance lost out to new owners looking on their holdings as investments. They were not interested in maintaining the manor, the lord or his rights. It was the foundation being laid for industrialization. The agricultural sector was operating at a time of low prices, in a society, which was vibrant and expanding. Machines were needed to provide greater productivity. There was a windmill beside the Newark Road marked on the 1774 map which replaced an earlier mill known as Mettam’s Mill. In 1795 the mill belonged to William Taylor. Cromwell died in 1658, soon afterwards The Restoration took place bringing Charles II to the throne The Commonwealth passed and the House of Stuart restored. In a lifetime Darby’s coke, smelting process revolutionized the iron industry and Watt’s steam engines did the same for mining, weaving and lace making Nottingham being a major lace making town. Meanwhile the fashion was flippancy and lace. The new charter granted to the boroughs by Charles II in 1661, restored old liberties and rights. The Tory party lead by Earl Poulett stood shoulder to shoulder behind the new charter, but it was too late. William III and Mary invited to rule the Country in 1689, almost immediately they scrapped the Hearth Tax. With the new royal family came permanent toleration for nonconformist religions - by way of the Toleration Act quickly Meeting Houses were built and congregations formed. The religious non-conformists insisted upon having a mayor or officer answerable to the community they won the day a portreeve installed. (Today Kneesall is led by the Parish Clerk). The Dissenters were not averse to using the church for baptisms and burials at times they attended with everyone else on Sundays ever bearing their responsibilities becoming churchwardens or trustees. Church rates provided the money to look after the church fabric. There were a number of householders who paid rent for church lands and a number of non-residents. Burials inside and outside could be bought and kept over if not used. The Parish outgoing covered the repair of the roof, keeping the graveyard tidy and maintaining the tower. Gravediggers were provided from the populace, as were mourners and headstone carvers. From Reformation times the care of the poor and needy became the duty of the parish and a number of bequests were made to help provide clothes and sustenance. The court leet was to be held annually, to deal with town nuisances, drunks, highwaymen, field regulations, assizes of bread and ale. Gradually these concerns fell away leaving land registry their main consideration. The town’s budget rested on rents taken from ‘capital burgesses’ properties. Although there were seventy-five tenancies including by then shops, alehouses, businesses, and arable land etc., it was not always a fair levy. ‘High rents’ due to the Lord of the Manor. The shops paying rent to the portreeve are difficult to research. The court only occasionally fined shops and then mostly those selling bread or ale. This was to do with the contents and weight. The production of saleable goods – made in one place and sold in another, was allowed by statute but only then to badgers or kidders who were licensed by the county court. The rapid rise in the number of shops took business away from the established markets. The innkeeper did not just sell ale. Food in the form of bread, vegetables, and fruit was also sold. Only later, the village victualler or grocer became the badger and he sold by license all the common goods. These shopkeepers were from yeoman families. By the end of the 17th century, the badger became the grocer or chandler. In some places, the chandler was originally the tallow-chandler - the candlestick maker and seller. Having a reliable outlet he also sold provisions such as twine, string, rope, belts, nails and all manner of metal and wooden goods – to become the hardware store. In other towns provided linen and woollen goods, lace, and knitwear. Having a general store came from the entrepreneurial spirit of the owner who traded in anything that would provide an income. The Enclosure Act 1760 – 1844, saw the removal of the balks and the fields divided into blocks; hedges were now planted and greater consideration made to drain and fertilize the fields. Up to 1844 in some areas the open-field - three-field system, was still working. Enclosure was not just a matter of individuals putting up fences around their strips in the common-field. That is far too simple and almost reasonable. No, it was about the removal of everybody’s rights in the field and with those stolen rights the reallocation of the land to another. The ‘Act of Parliament for the Inclosing of the Open and Common Fields, Commons and Waste Grounds within the Parish of Kneesall’, went ahead. There were 1,611 Enclosure Acts, between 1760/93. It was done to make better use of the land - which could not be disputed. It was to whom it was allocated was the rub. The land was to go to those claimants who could use it properly… persons who already had land under cultivation - land that they owned. The lord of the manor and the Bishop, who already owned the largest land areas, had in proportion the largest share, commensurate with their holdings. This occurred down the hierarchy – those who had the most got the most but they had to give up the right to allocate the waste, lost the tithe. We do not know how the Commissioners measured those rights, what weighting given to common field land, pasture rights, existing enclosed land and house plots. We do not know about the deduction of corn rent, land usage, mineral rights, wasteland or spoils of the forest were. In fact, the new owners should have made some sort of payment to those who did not retain any land. The suppression of common and grazing rights caused hardship and often riots. Kneesall, and its satellite villages and hamlets, were close to commercial trade routes. The river provided substantial amounts of water for mill use. The local mill (probably watermill) gave power the rich pastureland provided food for the cows, and the sheep supplied wool for weaving and hides. Above all, the farmers tilled the soil that provided harvests to feed the population and the land gave yet more. The extraction of stone, gravel, clay and lime from rocky outcrops, quarries, opencast and underground mines kept pace with house and road building and allied trades – it was an expanding business through the centuries, although influenced by fashions and foreign competition. The wealth of the land was recognised in the Iron and Bronze Age. The Romans, who further developed the industry, knew about its potential well before setting out across the channel. Traders from Europe and from further afield, dealt in extracted minerals and the smelted ore. The quarrying of stone, recorded in 1235, was used for building. Both dressed and hewed stone and knapped flints- seen on buildings today. In Kersall, the extracted stone was a slightly different colour recorded in the field survey of 1599. The relatively small clay pit close to the brickworks suggests that local building materials were manufactured and used in the area. The Romans first introduced brick making to Britain in 43AD. The techniques they used were developed from brickworks in the Mediterranean. The term ‘brick’ was not used until the middle of the 1400s. Previously it was difficult to differentiate between descriptive words for tile or brick, the word tegula does for both. The nearest recorded word is ‘brick stone’ used in 1483 and ‘brickstonys’ in 1670. Buildings for the wealthy have always been made to be long lasting and secure. Homes for the lower classes were constructed to last ‘their lifetime’. The cost dictated style, endurance and comfort. The poor had their huts and hovels, which, with a bit of work and a call for more space, became a cottage that eventually became upgraded to a house. At first, all dwellings were made out of wood – as pole and timber framed houses, with wattle and daub as an infill. To ensure a more substantial structure a base of stone was used, perhaps, up to the first floor. When the hall-house had the central fire enclosed and the space partitioned into separate rooms load bearing walls were built. The expense of carting stone suggested a cheaper product. Cob took the place of stone, which was made out of a compacted mixture of clay, mud, limestone, and sand to make blocks, or the mixture tamped down between shuttering. A longer lasting item were bricks bedded in mortar. All these building materials were found on-site or close-to. When bricks were used, these too were fashioned on-site especially if the building large or a number of houses built in the same place. Making bricks was not an unusual practice. Many villages and towns had their own brickworks in the 1700s and later. A satisfactory composition for brick making is clay and sand. The term clay refers to fine-textured, silky material with a high alumina content with a consistency when wet of plasticene. This material mixed with a suitable silicate makes when fired bricks, tiles, drainpipes and domestic pottery. In general, brickyards are placed where there is suitable bed of loam, the clay, and sand carted from a local site. On three adjoining field there maybe three distinct types of clay, each composition suitable for a different job. In the 18th-century local bricks were kiln-burnt. The kilns were built in a similar style to those used by the Romans - straight sided, open-topped and, similar to lime kilns, built into the side of an earth bank or outcrop. Building into a bank gave the structure substance and insulation. Two tunnels were made at the base to set the fire in and the bricks for firing placed opposite at a higher level above vents, which extended the whole width of the kiln. The bricks for firing stacked in a manner to allow hot gasses to circulate. When the kiln was full a layer of burnt bricks placed over the top to form a roof. The faggots pushed down the firing tunnels to reach the back and lit allowing a gentle heat at first to dissipate the excess moisture in the bricks. Gradually the heat is raised and maintained for at least forty-eight hours. Brick making was a seasonal activity. Brick earth was dug in the autumn and left standing to ‘temper’ in the wind, rain and frosts. Moulding could only begin when there was no danger from freezing weather damaging the drying bricks. The moulds had to be sanded, to stop the clay from sticking to the moulds sides. The hods had to be scraped clean ready for the next day’s work. A brickmaker could make by hand a thousand bricks a day. The baking of bricks took place after mid-summer until the autumn when the whole operation started again. There was much to do to stack and care for the bricks, rebuild the kiln, gather wood, and order in other materials. It was not unusual to have in the same yard a limekiln. Chalk was either extracted at the site or carted in. As wood became scarce and the transport of coal made easier wood kilns were adapted to use a different material for firing. Conical extensions were built to regulate the draught. The manufacture of bricks, tiles and pipes often coinciding with the burning of lime formed an easy alliance. The transport of materials by road, canal and rail stimulated trade and ancillary businesses. Extracting unused minerals gave the road maker an easy source of ballast and surface grade materials.

Shoes were to the farm labourer a fashion accessory. Boots, on the other hand, were part of everyday life. To the researcher shoe is a basic descriptive term covering both shoes and boots. As part of his stock in trade George made gaiters, aprons, belts and a range of other leather goods associated with farming and farmers. It would have been rare, for him to be asked to produce a pair of shoes or top boots. Boots for best and boots for working were straight and blunt toed. Hobnails were adopted as standard wear for work. It would take another twenty years before rights and lefts, pointed and oval toed, and heels were to be added. Later, metal eyelets invented to take the laces. The prosperity of the shoemaker was very reliant upon the well-being of the farmer when he had hard times so did the shoemaker, cobbler and snob making shoes of a particular style unchanged from a century before. If any individuality required then it was a change of material and decoration rather than an alteration of design or pattern. The local trade included gaiters, buckets and straps as well as boots, shoes and binders. The boots were still heavy and clumsy although now fitting for left and right feet. They were made out of bark-tanned leather, with hand stitched soles and tongues with a welt. The threaded needle with wax-coated hemp passed through prepared holes. He worked from a shed at home, which was also his shop, soaking the leather to dress it – beating it to close the pores and make it supple. He had been taught by his father to tan the hide with oak-bark or chestnut. A metal tool – driver, very much like a smooth file, is used - to hammer the leather – to make it soft, the same tool used to drive in the sprigs or tacks. The bootjacks, awl, hammer, knife and rasp were in my grandads shed many years later – passed down through the ages. In 1777 Nottingham had 142 recorded shoemakers. The rural industry developed in response to a growing national demand for boots and shoes. Family history and local history in England by David Hey. The use of a heel, to retain the gaiter or trouser strap was no longer required. By the middle of the nineteenth century, heels returned, as built-up leather pieces, to give a platform of about an inch. The penultimate operation of the shoemaker was to use a heated iron to take out the wrinkles and tighten up the grain surface, before applying the wax. As with most of the cottage industries, the market fluctuates according to fashion and the state of the local economy. When the shoe trade faltered bags, slippers, straps and gaiters filled the books. All these items were passed to the local carrier to take on his round to sell to those unable to come to the shoemakers shop. The village Carrier’s cart would hold all these items and many more including, baskets and besom brooms to sell on making a flippancy in wearing apparel and the dictates of a boasting aristocracy. On the continent, the craft goes back a further hundred years. It was a similar story for the lace trade. The years of the Restoration of Charles II saw the highest point of English lace fashion making not just for the number of people employed but the delicacy of the quality and design. The trade had many unproductive setbacks caused by trying to maintain a production line during times of war and public unrest; later, having to pander to high fashion and more prosperous times. In 1698, Nottingham shows how lace production contributed greatly to the wreaths of towns. It was recorded in this period that there was not a cottage in all Nottingham’s villages where white lace is not made – to supply the whole kingdom and to export. There is recorded, young children earning 1s .8d per week. People from France and the Netherlands seeking refuge from religious and political persecution brought skills and new methods of manufacture that were greater than our own. They introduced different designs entailing complicated patterns and finishing. The immigrants, worked in a close-knit communities - lodging where there were already fellow compatriots living – making ghettos in mainly town and city locations. They gradually took delicate work away from outlying centres leaving the simpler work to country locations. However, Honiton still retained its secondary place to Nottingham - retained its position for lace making as the main centre for the upper end of the market sending the bulk of the production to London. In the early 1700s, there was a decline in the output caused by the importation of cheap, intricate lace forms from Flanders. Later, that century there was a decline in the death rate – people lived longer, and an increase in the birth rate – more children survived. In the first forty years of the new century, the population doubled… by the end of that period, the rural numbers were at their highest. From that, time on there was a migration, particularly for the young, away from the village to the town. Lace making was a cottage industry, an expression used to describe a woman’s earned income. It was paid at piecework rates – so much for a number of items produced. The work was taken on whilst their husbands were at work to augment their husbands poor wages. The women’s fingers - so much more delicate and nimble, enabled them to work faster than men, although there were some men who made lace, either because there was no work on the land or house bound through circumstance. Lace buyers would come round the villages every month to buy up and to exchange lace for thread and pins. They had their own districts and routes - looking on their contacts as members of their team. In the sixteenth century, the pins needed to pattern the thread had no heads, which caused sore fingers. This was corrected by dipping the pins in sealing wax – to give a head. Still, the call for lace was strong enough to entice inventors to create mechanical processes. In 1768, hand lace making began to give way to these mechanical innovations, which understandably, produced less complicated designs. This mechanisation lowered the cost per item that promoted greater interest in the uses of lace. It was an adaptation of a stocking frame, which made a net of not very wide proportions it, helped save the industry and gave additional work for women to link those strips together. However, for detailed, complicated designs, necessary for high fashion of the period, hand lace making continued. When it was warm enough, women sat outside their cottages, with their pillows or bolsters, using the strong daylight to follow the pattern. This may strike one as being quaint, even attractive – certainly following one’s idea of a true Victorian watercolour, but in fact, it was essential - necessary to make ends meet! While the very young children had an afternoon sleep, the wife spent an active hour at her pillow. It was to earn a little extra for the children’s clothes. Babies were not as a rule weaned until they were over a year old. It was cheaper, healthier, and more convenient to breast feed. It was thought fitting that they should sleep most of the time and not be mentally or physically stimulated. They were not allowed to sit up until they were six months old and not allowed to walk until they were two. Lace makers produce both individual and repetitive patterns in the form of a netted tracery, which can be sewn together, or in sequence; the same operation used whether making a continuous tape, fringe, border, or circular design. It relies upon a pin-threaded sequence using pairs of cotton-wound bobbins at their head, the cotton – using the bobbin as a reel and at the bottom - seven beads linked to form a ring – prevents the bobbin twisting on the pillow. Twenty-four bobbins, a common number, to form a doily. The pillow, is mainly for small circular and floral work, is fourteen inches in diameter and four inches deep - at the sides, a further inch thicker towards the middle. The term pillow applied to both the round and the square, bolster type. The former, more suitable for Honiton type sprigs, and the square - the Bruges, better for lengths. Pillows, as described, were pads - rather like a round kneeler, with a raised centre and held on the lace-maker’s knees. The bolster, made-up with exactly the same material, used for plain straight-edged, scalloped, or diamond-patterned borders: for cuffs, collars, table cloths etc. In size, were two-foot six inches in circumference by two-foot long, resting on the crossbars of a wooden horse. These workings, both patterned and straight-laced, sometimes joined to make-up the whole or part garment. The pillow fabric was made of strong cotton or linen cut into two circles joined by a strip with an opening. The pillow was turned inside out, with the seams inside, stuffed with chopped barley or oat straw; evenly packed, pummelled, beaten and shaped into a very hard dome, left to ‘settle’ to allow more space to be filled. When finished the pillow sealed - by stitching. It is important not to include in the stuffing the nodes of the straw - too hard for the pins to penetrate. The pillow then covered with one or two linen cases -the upper is the surface worked on. This is pinned by each corner under the pillow. This operation became known as ‘dressing the pillow’. The original daft - a design on graph paper, called ‘the pricking’, consisting of fine holes. This pattern was again pricked through with a needle, onto a sheet of parchment or good quality writing paper - about fourteen inches long by eight inches wide. The transferred copy had linen loops or tabs attached to the ends so that it could be tacked to the pillow – kept taut on the case. As the work progresses, covering cloths, folded in half – [folds facing], are pinned at the side of the pillow - to expose the area to be completed. These cloths kept the finished work clean allowing the weaving thread easy passage over the imbedded pins of finished work. Horn ‘sliders’, today stiff plastic, half-slid under the covering cloth - allowing new work threads easy passage over the pinheads. The lace thread is carried on bobbins, the size of 3-4 inch pencils with tapered necks, of which, there may be thirty-six. The bobbins, each pre-wound - by hand, or using a bobbin winder, wound onto the second neck of the bobbin, called the long neck. The skein of thread was wound round pegs placed in crossed arms, of the blades, or ‘yarningles’– the blades had a number of peg holes to carry a larger size of skein. The free end of the thread is given a couple of turns round the long neck, which is about three-quarters of an inch long then the bobbin placed in the spool. Turning the handle of the winder operated the belt linked to the spool when spun, pulls the thread off the crossed arms. The wound bobbin, with its two to three inches of thread, is now ready to take the place of an empty one meanwhile, kept looped in pairs, in a bobbin-case suspended from the pillow. The turned bobbins, generally made of fruitwood, are light in weight, with small heads. Below the head is the short-neck - which is just a notch, or turn, made when the bobbin is manufactured the thread is unwound slightly off the long-neck and a couple of turns wound onto the short neck ending with a turned-over loop, to stop the bobbin unwinding. The remainder of the bobbin is called the shank. The bobbins, sometimes referred to as lace-sticks, laid flat upon the pillow whilst not in use. Below the shank – the body of the bobbin are threaded beads – carrying perhaps seven, looped in a ring; this extra weight gives tension to the thread and prevents the bobbin slipping and twisting on the pillow. The results of the lace maker, was very much like plaiting or crochet - where one twisted thread is laid over another - in sequence. In this instance pins one-inch high form the pattern - these, the thread wound round. As the pattern progresses the last pin worked round is pressed into the pillow... successive pins inserted along the pattern. It is the number of twists made using a pair of bobbins which maintains the pattern – stops the whole from unravelling, and the different gauges of thread (‘gimp’ is course) multiplies the opportunities for outlining and strengthening. Much of the work from was ‘trolly lace’ which refers to the single neck of a rather shorter, heavier bobbins called ‘a trolly’ - for gimp thread – a thicker thread, used for outlining the design. The young girls of six or seven would use fewer bobbins, probably no more than eleven pairs, to make a simple fan, or shell shaped strip or fringe. The older girls would make point, honeycomb and Kat stitch, with picots loops on the scallop fringe. As most of the lace ended up in Honiton or Nottingham most of the workers were familiar with the flower motif which was sewn onto dress collars or a wedding veil, a number could be linked together to form a complete item. Hanging from the lace maker’s pillow was a pincushion made of bran sewn into a heart shaped pad. A bobbin bag, with two pockets, one holding re-wound bobbins and the other empty, is hung over the pillow. Girls, of sometimes five, others perhaps older, worked at the ends of their mothers pillow practicing their stitches. It was believed that this habit laid down a good basis for a future life of work – made the child control their, ‘more casual demands.’ Much lace work was still done outdoors at the turn of the century but it was soon to be phased out by cheaper production methods. Using daylight, rather than sitting indoors using candles, was better for the eyes and allowed finer work to be made. Later, special rooms were built into the upper floors of outworkers houses – a cottage industry flourished; in some cases, two or three cottages were linked together - walls could be knocked through to form one large room. Special candle lit light globes and mirrors used to illuminate the workers lace. Extra wide windows - a number of windows linked together, were a feature of these building and still are seen today. Girls sat round a table, in groups of two or three, so that each worker received the maximum light available from the candles and their light-reflecting globes. Quite often work continued right through the night leaving the girls exhausted. The lace makers who worked together in these large rooms did so under a Head Lace Hand. The workrooms were heated by earthenware pots of hot ashes and charcoal, known as ‘dickey pots’, giving off fumes and smoke which clung to the ceiling between the beams. ‘Outworking’ still went on, but the whole industry became more organised; ‘the gentry’ who wanted particular intricate designs dictated the fashions of the day. Though the Workshops regulation Act of 1867 forbade the employment of children under eight in any handicraft and stated that those aged between eight and thirteen must attend school for at least ten hours per week it became difficult to enforce the law. Lace makers children were expected to contribute to the family’s income by working at every spare moment - they had to sit down each night and do a certain amount of work – complete so many heads of lace, before ‘play’ was allowed. The hand-made lace industry was destroyed by machine competition during the second half of the nineteenth century. In Bedfordshire the numbers declined less from 5,734 to 1,144 during the same period. Straw plaiters started work at an early age and the occupation was a common one in the South Midlands counties. Bedfordshire female plaiters declined in numbers from 20,701 in 1871 to 485 in 1906 as wages declined from ten to two shillings. By the end of the Victorian period cottage industries no longer made much of a contribution to the family income. In 1800, machine net making began to be discussed by the workers and trades people. Gradually mechanical innovations to the existing looms crept in - making inroads into traditional work - producing a cheaper product. In lace-making areas, it was then very usual to find a mother and two daughters all making lace together. Their combined work brought in about a third less than that of a father and son. Whereas the men were out all day, at least until six or seven, the women were doing household chores – combining earning with building a home. This was for a five-day working week, the money earned allowed one-third to be saved for dressmaking and the remainder ‘put by’ for a rainy day. Lace continued to be made in many counties but the greatest being Honiton in Somerset and the East Midlands. Three years later, cotton had overtaken wool as Britain’s leading export. The first mechanical means of increasing production was the mill driven by natural forces. Wool, in its natural state could be used as a covering – woven, made it versatile. The development of the loom increased production and quality. Using steam, as a driving force, gave the industrialist a choice where to set up his factory – close to both labour and customer. William Lee of Nottingham, from the parish of Calverton, invented the basic wooden framework for knitting in 1589. By 1669, Nottinghamshire had a hundred frames. Some of the Midland villages with a large number of framework knitters had other allied workers: framesmiths, woolcombers, carding-makers, yarn-makers, cloth-dressers, dyers and slubbers (those who prepare the yarn for spinning). Most of the villages of rural Northamptonshire were still built with wattle and daub and roofed with thatch. In the 1730s it was common for families to keep two horses and two cows. The immediate result of enclosure meant cottages were unable to meet their share of the cost of enclosure and were forced to sell up during the interval between the act and the award. The enclosure of the land begun 1819, allowed scrubland to be brought under cultivation. The total enclosure of the common took twenty-five years throughout this time ditches introduced to drain away excess storm water. It was unusual for French drains to be dug and piped land-drains took even longer to be laid. There was a fear that there still would not be enough corn harvested to provide bread for the poor. The price of wheat fluctuated dramatically due to bad weather. Corn was imported free, which promoted a backlash of political unrest - demands for a law to ban imports. Between 1750 and 1850 some 6 million acres of open arable land, fields, common land and waste land were enclosed by about 4,000 private acts of parliament. Domesday of English Enclosure Acts, edited by M E Turner (Reading University, 1978). At times, the lot of a farm labourer was very hard particularly if injured or became ill. His only recourse was The Friendly Societies or the Labourer’s Friend Society, founded by prominent businesses men and politicians. The weaving trade still relied upon waterpower to work their looms. Soon steam began to make inroads in the production processes giving greater flexibility to where new factories built. By the early to mid-nineteenth century, there was a baby boom - an increase in the population. As these children grew up a number of poor harvest, wet summers, put pressure on grain stocks - the poor were beginning to go hungry – particularly the children. At the same time there was experienced another period of prosperity in Nottingham - which saw the building of a new weaving mill, for the production of lace. On the farms the husbandry of animals had begun to be improved… there was a move to increase the numbers per acre In the middle of the nineteenth century grazing one sheep to the acre was considered average and maintaining fifteen areas sufficient for one man. A farm labourer earned eight shillings per week for a twelve-hour day, usually from six to six. This was the start to the industrialization of Britain, naturally of Nottingham too which was to have such a dramatic effect on the life of country dwellers. You would think that as food production increased wealth would remain where it was produced but it did not. The wealth of the country was in the towns, not any town but industrial towns and that is where the population flowed. There was full employment and nearly half worked in the four lace mills making ‘plain net’ lace. As with all weaving mills, the workers had to get use to the vibration, noise, dust and danger. The working day was organized in shifts and turns linked to time and the insistence of good work as a way of life. The remainder of the working population retained a rural life – worked at the same job for life working their way up the ladder from junior to journeyman, farm boy to farm worker. It was a steady existence regulated by the seasons and nature. What was certain was that their working hours were flexible, frequently exhausting, certainly long, and poorly paid. This secondary group of workers were in the main craftsmen doing jobs very much like those a century before: building, metal working, leather work, making carts and farm implements, and carpentry. Farm work was noticeable so too domestic service. It would be safe to say that the majority of children worked too from the age of nine upwards. Of the fifty percent who did not attend full-time work by far the largest percentage were housewives then children under fifteen. Only a very small proportion of the population lived beyond seventy. In the 1840s short time was ordered at the lace mills – there were some closures. This caused enormous suffering. There was no work on or off the land and over a period of months, the situation got much worse – militancy began to be formed amongst the unemployed. The Chartist movement had support and there were disturbances. The mill workers from a number of mills ganged together and picketed and the troops were called out to back up the special constables. The mill-workers marched to try to engage more strikers. Eventually the gangs were dispersed. \the next day saw virtually a general; strike with all workshop and shops closed. Over a thousand people attended a meeting. It was a difficult time, which was not forgotten. Eventually the workers returned to work but they were hard times, it took the Crimean war 1854-56 to bring about any sort of industrial expansion. By the middle and late nineteenth century there was almost twice as many lace makers in Buckingham as there were in Devon. Thirty years later the statistics had changed to the opposite position - Devon outstripped Buckingham although Nottingham held onto its premier position. In the use of finished work – making lace up into garments it was eleven to one; Devon had considerably more dressmakers than any other county in Britain, similarly for glove making. In 1864, the school leaving age was twelve, if not required to work at home. If the lad was not to go into the mill it was to the farm he went – to work on the land. His first job was pig minding on the corn stubble and in the woods on the common. Other days were spent rook scaring rattling his cans at the same time he would be picking up stones from the field. For this, he was paid sixpence a day, which he gave to his mother. If he were lucky, he could go back to school to finish off his schooling. Unfortunately, parents often continued taking him away from school the older, the boy got even though the law stated that twelve was the correct age to leave school. By the time he was twelve he was able to follow the plough which meant being up at five o’clock and under a carter take out a team of four horses. Their life was hard. There were no days off and no holidays. If he was not required for ploughing, he took his turn carting corn to the mill. The horses were decorated with bells and either he was paid with a bundle of straw for beer money or given a shilling or if he were lucky the miller would give him a small jug of beer. In the early years of the nineteenth century, agriculture had been in the doldrums. There had been a period of continual cultivation without proper husbandry with the result was that crop harvests decreased and the land began to become sterile. The old ways of laying fields to fallow - crop rotation taking place, was put aside and forgotten. The landlords demanded results without expenditure. Economies were put in place to try to make up for the shortfall. This did not happen for it needed the spur of increased prices to make cultivation profitable again. A series of social changes stimulated the turnaround, the first being the invention of machines to increase manufacturing output. The machines were housed in factories. To feed the factories required heavy wagons. These travelled over poorly made roads. To satisfy demand more factories were opened increasing the demands on the transport system. The construction of canals linking up industrial towns and cities to transport heavy freight was the answer. The factories, canal construction teams, the freight haulage and all the other feeder businesses required labour. The men and their families had to be housed and fed and now they had the money to be able to do so. Some of that money went into the farmers pockets. Food became profitable to grow and cultivate. The need to make harvests more abundant required the land to be made fertile. The increase in meat production helped the land to be manured. On the coat tails of the canals came the invention of the steam engine. Steam power was first used to drive beam pumps to drain mines. It wasn’t long before the reciprocating engine converted to rotary motion and the railways born. Quickly steam power took over the job of the watermills and factories became free from having to be alongside rivers and streams. In the early eighteen hundreds farming was a matter of handed down, gained experience and intuition. This experience gave some knowledge of chemical and physical action that contributed towards: the fertility of the soil, action of insects and small mammals, reaction prompted by the elements - sun, wind and rain, irrigation, rotation of crops, choice of seed or strain, areas of country and local geography, past land use, amount of self manuring, availability of trained staff and profitability of the farm past and present, these all contributed towards the quality of the harvest. By the mid eighteen hundreds all these factors were know and partially understood by all farmers. A few took the chemical side more seriously and the knowledge gained was circulated through pamphlets, technical papers, and local farmer’s clubs. Still it took two world wars to advance all farming beyond plain experience into theory and best practice. The open-field system was still operating in the country. The local market catered for the purchase and sale of stock. There were only a few well made-up roads and the fields small with high overgrown hedges, few ditches, and little provision for suitable land drainage. Oven still pulled the heavy wooden plough and the corn still hand cut with scythe and sickle. Probably the single most important discovery to achieve almost immediate benefit to the grower of crops was an understanding of the nutrition of plants and the composition of the soil. This understanding was driven ahead by the German chemist Liebig. His book made popular by Voelcker. In 1851, nearly 1:4 of the national workforce was employed in agriculture. Thereafter numbers declined until by the First World War agricultural workers formed only 1:10. Rural villages depended not only on the land for a livelihood but also who owned the land. From the 1830s onwards parishes were distinguished on whether they were closed or open. A closed was one where the squire or Lord of the manor limited the number of cottages available. This restricted immigration – the landless, who might be a burden on the poor rates. An open parish had no such control – the land was owned by smallholders and cottagers. A closed society was ordered and controlled whereas the open society random – free from restrictions. Dr. B A Holderness published in the Agricultural History Review, vol. 20. Part II (1972), pp.126-39, shows us that a closed parish remained a mid-Victorian scandal until the Union Chargeability Act of 1865, substituted a system of rate-assessment by poor-law unions for the old parish poor rate. Closed parishes were particularly numerous in Nottinghamshire. Johnston, and their experimental station helped form the Royal Agricultural Society, incorporated in 1840 and four years later the Royal Chemical Society, and in the same year the Cirencester Agricultural College. In a way, it is unfair to single out one particular moment or one particular thing, which contributed most to the massive leap forward in agricultural improvements. What one can say is that by the time of The Great Exhibition agriculture became an art. Good drainage was understood, proper fertilization proved essential and rotation of crops known to be beneficial. Each contributed to changes in the chemical component of the soil. It was understood that the farmers had within their own farms the means to improve their crops. They had the hay and straw to break up and loosen the soil, manure which contained all the constituent parts to ensure fertility and the distribution of sown crop – their roots to add their own particular action to the composition of the soil. All these were rich in both organic and inorganic substances, combining both nitrogen and minerals – the object being to restore elements of fertility each crop exhausts. The correct grassland, hay, and root produce the three ems: meat, milk, and manure. The farming system in the middle of the nineteenth century was traditional and caused no real problems for the villager. It was based in the main on sheep and corn – an age of High-Farming. The sheep were hurdle flocks, feeding on the wasteland in the summer, fallow field mainly after the harvest - in the autumn, and strewn turnip and mangels in the winter. It was a period of plenty and gave an appearance of well-tended stock on well-maintained land. The scientific approach to farming was not something the farmers contemplated, studied nor sought. That they yielded to better methods learnt through contact with their peers – information passed on through word of mouth not by reading about it. They were willing to try new methods if someone they respected advised them to. If that were backed up by proof by seeing increased yields and their associate receiving greater monetary rewards - the acceptance of a new method assured. The talk at the animal pens in the market as the buyers and sellers saw the larger animals, and the sight at the mill of larger ears of grain - giving more flour per ton weight, convinced the farmers that these new-fangled ways were beneficial. The wants of plants and animals to give greater yields was slowly being recognised. That these things could be done artificially, using chemicals unheard of was a revelation. Farmers, by this time, knew about the beneficial nature of lime, chalk, grit and ash… they were also aware of the positive effects of turned over stubble and root. Village horticulturists used soot, crushed bone meal, seaweed, and shoddy, to augment the more natural manure. They were experienced enough to tell if a soil was going to be productive by its feel, look and colour. However, they knew nothing about superphosphates, guano, nitrates, potash, and dried blood – a whole variety of compound chemicals. What are different today are soil test kits that give chemical composition, that if poor recommend what chemical, or composition of chemicals, would correct the deficiency. When the soil test shows a reasonable content then the farmer adapts this to the crop, which varies according to the crops natural requirement. Knowing what is lacking necessitates a judgement as to whether the cost of application is going to make the difference, from an economic point of view, considering the forecasted weather pattern, present state of the ground, long-term retention, by the soil. There is no point in spreading chemicals if not retained in the ground - washed away, quickly diluted, lack penetration. Soil erosion caused by heavy rain was, to a large degree, prevented by suitable ploughing. The object of good ploughing is: to turn in surface weed, stubble and root; prepare – break-up the ground for sowing; allow the elements - air, light, wind and rain, to have a greater beneficial effect; help retain water – hold back, prevent ‘run off’ - an action that erodes lighter particles of the soil – mainly denudes the soil of limestone this causes the soil to become acid. Soil needs four constituent parts: sand or silica, 60%; clay – hydrated silicate of alumina, 25%; limestone, – calcium carbonate, 7.5%; humus - decayed organic matter 7.5%. By the third quarter of the nineteenth century, most farmers were aware of the facts that were talked about and passed on; some gave the subject more importance and made a study of them. The Royal Societies promoted better land husbandry accepting the scientific results of experiments. Another rule of good farming practices was proper land drainage the theory being the removal of surface water, creating a change to the physical structure of the soil, allowing what chemicals that were present greater influence and improving the temperature of the soil. The beneficial nature of good land drainage was applied according to the geophysical nature of the land and soil. As the land became more productive and the farmers received, larger benefits it became necessary to either employ more labour or find some other means to compensate. Throughout history, man has always come up with some tool to bridge the gap – to replace his fellow man or solve a production problem. In this instance, the age of industrialisation helped. About this time a whole host of mechanical devices designed… some found their place in the development of farm machinery others fell by the wayside. Probable the first was a devise to lift potatoes… all, of course, powered by the horse. This in no way prevented the machine becoming later adapted for the tractor. From the middle of the nineteenth century, all machines superseded the labour intensive workings of the farm. The ten-year period between 1853 and 1862 were the golden age of English agriculture built upon the principles discovered by Sir John Lawes and Sir Henry Gilbert; the aim and objectives, method and effects of manuring. If there is such a thing as a period of boom this was it! It would be naive to believe that these discoveries, and the results obtained from them, would remain a secret, or not adopted elsewhere, especially when they were broadcast at the various Royal Societies and written about in trade papers. What transpired here became common practice aboard; the difference was their fields were much bigger – giving them a surplus. The Kersall farm labourers were local lads raised by local people to live and die- in the place they were brought up, which they were happy to do. They knew their neighbours, their relatives lived locally and they all attended chapel together. When they courted, it was to local girls and when they married and had children, they perpetrated the life their parents had lived. They did not reach out beyond the parish boundaries – they stayed in their own small world. This comfortable existence was about to end with the means of movement - the age of mass transportation of people and goods broke the mould. However, hold on, this did not happen overnight, especially in a place like Kersall. Ships had to be built, railways had to be laid, and Mister Ford had to start his conveyor belt whilst mixing his black paint! This rosy picture ended when imports started to arrive in Britain in 1875. Thereafter, the rising population in the cities were offered cheap imports of corn, and lamb and mutton gave way to beef. The production of milk products began to make itself felt and the nations diet changed to prepared cereals. The industrialization of Britain continued unabated and the population kept up with it. The yearly harvest could only just manage to provide sufficient food and it seemed likely that food shortages would come about. The imported grain surplus from America and Canada flooded the markets and the new refrigerated ships from Australia and New Zealand provided the lamb. The twenty-year period between 1879 and 1890 saw prices halved. This very quickly resulted in farmers going to the wall, land being sold, marginal land abandoned, Downland left to grass and farmhouses and outbuildings fell into disrepair. This was no five-minute downturn but a long-term disaster. Thousands of farmers who had managed through generations to husband the land went bankrupt. Landowners despaired of ever finding tenants. Estates were put on the market at rock bottom prices even so, much left neglected – land was considered a liability not as an asset. Gradually, as in most things, the problem of cheap imports became absorbed farmers diversified, adapted, and slowly recovered. The displaced labour found their way to towns and cities. The difficulty finding work began to be felt not in all trades at once though. It was a predictable consequence of mass production of factory products, providing for an increased population. Many local trades began to disappear, as the workers retired not being replaced by young trained journeymen. A pressure could not be dissipated except by having fewer young people needing employment. The gradual move away from the home-village began, helped by the greater numbers of bicycles available and the expanding railways. The new mass production methods affected cottage industries as well not just, because those skills could be reproduced by machinery but modern methods required different dress – fashions changed – there were new ways of doing things and these advances and changes could be read about, discussed, and acted upon. The social and economic changes did not just happen here in England but further afield too. Imports had their effect and the supply of raw materials had to be kept up and increased. As this change came about workers tried to stem the tide – slow down the effect of industrialisation, by working longer and harder. (This compensation by workers to increase productivity to slow down change happens in all industries at all times) Children were brought into the production line sooner. Women persuaded to take on outside work, work all hours – into the night. This increase in hours worked was sufficient to fill order books but only for a limited period. Workshop Regulation Acts, Factory and School Inspectors saw to it that these long hours of work in bad conditions stopped. David Hey quotes William Cobbett, “the more a corn country the more miserable the labourers.” The North Country could rely upon industrialization to provide occupation whereas the south had only a rural society holding back growth and income. The girls in the village were keen to start work after leaving school. Nearly one in three, between the ages of ten to fifteen worked as a lace-maker. When completed the lace was sold by the parents to a dealer who collected the work on his round. Workers were enticed to buy their threads, pins, patterns and material off the same man. This was convenient for outlying areas but the price was increased accordingly. The workers at the mill required boots and shoes. By the middle of the century money, a shoemaker made just enough money to pay the rent, buy food, and clothe the family. His children would have had very low priority for schooling. A middle-aged couple relied upon their children to help with the household chores especially the girls. The eldest son - was thirteen, helped his father in the cobblers shop as a snob - serving as an apprentice. His brother had to find employment outside the home as a ploughboy. Daughters were sent to the local ‘big’ house as scullery or kitchen maids. If children went to school at all, it was only for one year at the cost of a penny a week. The attitude of country folk of the times was, ‘that it was more important that children worked in the home or field, to earn their keep’. If there were a school, it would probably be at the Rectory. There was no compulsory education in the early eighteen hundreds. It was not though necessary to have children taught who were only going to work on the land or to do jobs associated with farming. Even in those areas that did have a school the cost of lessons – charged according to the ability to pay, was one penny. Even this was considered wasteful. Lace and plait schools were set up later that century in cottages catering for, ‘as many as can be seated’. This overcrowding made it almost impossible to teach sensibly. It was found by Inspectors that children could read but not write and that proper registers for attendances were not kept. In those lace workshops engaging young women a percentage of the wage was paid, ‘in kind’ – tea, sugar, flour or bread rather than cash. As these items were essential for feeding the poor’s, large families, any payment were welcomed, furthermore, when cash was demanded the relative payments less that the bartered items, so demands were exceptional. At the end of the nineteenth century, education for children was placed into law by the passage of the 1880 Act – education for children up to ten. There were various bodies who tried to promote lace making as a cottage industry but these did not stand the test of time – the industry declined. Even towards the coast in Dorset, a body of people specialized in making net, which, because of its particular nature, found a ready market. This cottage industry floundered just before The First World War. (In the Second World War the net became material for parachutes) England’s rural economy declined to be precise, in-between the years 1861 – 1881, the agriculture industry lost twenty percent of its workers, and even more females. Children under eight and soon to be fewer than ten had to go to school removing their contribution… These losses to the industry pushed up the price of food and increased the import of grain. These absentee farm workers found their way into town businesses, the mining industry and the factory floor. This was the year Queen Victoria died. The Commonwealth of Australia came into being and Lord Sainsbury’s Unionist government had been in office for fifteen years. Home Rule for Ireland, was the hot topic of political conversation, and most of the six and a half million children were at school. The previous year Keir Hardie was elected for Merthyr as the first socialist MP, and two years later Mrs Pankhurst stared a new Social and Political Union. The Edwardian age was an interesting time for political commentators and the Collins family. Through good farming practices, in about 1860, increased grain tonnage. This was a time after the Napoleonic Wars as home prices rose for grain products - again it was profitable to plant and harvest corn. It would have been noticeable, to the interested bystander at the turn of the nineteenth century, the changes made by the Enclosure Acts. The common land, which occupied the land beyond the village, became enclosed fields and ploughed taken over by stealth by wealthy farmers and landowners. Some of the poor, living in their hovels built higgledy-piggledy on scraps of land in and out of the woodland, was ordered off. They were as entitled to be there as anyone, had squatter’s rights, but had not the power or support from the community to resist. In the middle of the nineteenth century, agriculture was the principle employment for men and boys. For women and girls it was domestic service. This state of affairs was changing – fast in areas close to town but slowly in outlying areas. The depopulation of the village started when the harvests were poor, as machines took over from the horse and industrialization enticed men away from a hard rural existence. This decline in the population had a knock on effect making struggling businesses even more difficult to continue. Cottage industries took up some of the slack. Lace making, mat making, straw plaiting and knitting bought in a little money to make ends meet. It was welcomed news to hear that the mill was to be kept going. Cotton arrives at the mill in bales, which is turned, into thin rope by blending, carding, and combing. Spinning draws out and twists the thread, winding the thread onto spindles. Richard Roberts designed the first fully automatic mule [rotating the thread from delivery, inserting a twist then winding the thread onto a bobbin] previously they had been either hand operated or partially automatic] at the time, the mule spinners joined the union. The first power-loom invented and perfected by Cartwright in 1784. Dressing the threads further perfected weaving - giving the thread strength. By the time of The Great Exhibition, spinning and weaving mechanically perfected. It only required the introduction of the refill of the shuttle, by a rotating hopper, designed by the American, Northrop, to complete the development. The slump and national strike of 1926 saw the start to a savage decline in Britain’s industrial might all these happenings affected the mill workers of Nottingham. The first lace mill was built on in 1821 turning out plain net. The weaving mill in the Old Town was taken over by, which was the start to the area becoming well known for lace production. By 1830, could boast four lace mills becoming a centre for the production of clothing, curtains and military products. A machine called 'the bobbinet’ was perfected in 1808; this led to the 'Levers' - a control mechanism, which further developed the lace making industry. The early looms had to be stopped every few minutes both to adjust the cloth and to ‘dress’ the warp threads as they unrolled. The weaver had to brush a flour paste on the threads to give them strength This, at the same time as Arkwright’s ‘Spinning Jenny’, Kay’s ‘Flying Shuttle’ and Heathcoat’s ‘Lace Making Machine’, came together in the 1820s to industrialise production. Up until the middle 1830s all lace made around the town of was made by hand and called bobbin lace, (needle lace - another process, was made in other areas). In 1837, flowered nets invented, although originating in France copied in England - known as Blonde - made in nine-inch strips. The further invention of a net making knitting machine opened the way for greater widths to be worked. Now the method of powering the mills was steam. At this time there was a great effort made to stop workers from joining Trades Unions. Poor parents of young children expected their offspring to work as soon as possible – even before the age of eight. The Workshops Regulation Act of 1867 gave some protection allowing children to work shorter hours. This did not stop the exploitation even though Government Inspectors were given the power to fine the perpetrators this continued until the hand lace trade declined after 1870. The English braid and pillow lace industry suffered in a far greater proportion than producers on the continent. The English fashion industry brought about the change. Peasants, and particularly religious institutions, in France, Flanders, Spain and Italy still desired lace produced in the traditional manner - which showed complicated designs. Now the trade began to reverse more lace imported into England than exported quality dropped and skills lost. Many lace-makers went into service, which was the only trade suitable for them. Records thirty years later indicate there were no lace makers in ‘Farmers’ households. This could only suggest that lace making was a country cottages industry, not occurring in town houses. Lace makers were wives, daughters or granddaughters of male ‘heads of households’ who usually worked as a farm labourer. The next most common trade for men was shoemaking. This describes the economic position the local families found themselves in – as people from a rural parish. Towards the end of nineteenth century, there was a general falling off in the more elaborate side of the handmade lace trade. The workers were mainly women between the ages of thirteen to twenty-two, although much younger children did participate - even to as low an age as eight. Most women wore under garments trimmed with lace, which gave lace-makers a great deal of work. New patterns were brought over from France and then skilfully copied. However, the bottom dropped out of the lace making by the end of the century. The Lady of the Manor gradually ceased to employ a needlewoman. Home sewing started again with the advent of the sewing machine - made at an affordable price. This was the end of the ‘age of lace’ especially for collars and cuffs. Ladies and children’s wear, handkerchiefs, tableware and chair-back and arm covers were some of the items, which kept lace makers busy for few more years. As a means of employment, the net making industry came at the right time. By the middle of the next century, production was well established. The manufacture of plain net was begun in an old wool-weaving shed in Mill Lane, in 1822. The venture, proving to be successful, transferred to a larger factory, in 1830. Patterned lace still had its customers who preferred the old-fashioned style for cuffs and collars, this work continued to be made by hand. The mill in Chard began making bobbin lace in about 1836 and by 1840 could produce a pattern. At the same time, converted the watermill at to make bobbin lace. Five years later the mill was leased to be a skilled millwright and engineer who adapted and developed the mill’s machinery. The finished net was taken from the mill to Nottingham’s ‘Finishing Shop’ (closed several years ago) to be dyed and dressed. In the middle of the nineteenth century, when Britain was fighting the Crimean War, workers’ wages gradually increased for a period of twenty years. Thereafter, after a slight hiccup in 1879, wages continued to rise, staggering in 93 to resume until 1902. However, the starting base was low, and even though this upward movement was reported farm workers were, still the lowest paid. The building of canals then railways soaked up many unemployed and kept wage rises moving upwards. The twenty-five year period between 1850 and 1875 saw a massive influx of Irish workers eager to find work and remove themselves from poverty and starvation. The industrialization of Britain and the rise in homebuilding gave these men a future and took the strain of agricultural workers who might otherwise have suffered more. Most key mill workers, and some of those retired - lived in ten three-story factory owned cottages, close to the mill. The offices and canteen adjoined the factory. Behind the cottages lay the millpond, or impoundment, which fed the waterwheel through a channel, or millrace. Driving the massive mill wheel, runner stones, and wallover wheel, in turn, they are set to power the looms and engineering machines. The other employees, the bulk, were ‘outworkers’ who lived in amongst these outworkers were juveniles. The 1851, census records that there were children as young as five upwards working in the lace industry, and that by the age of nine, seventeen per-cent of children were at work. There were four lace mills working in one of them being the owned by, employing between fifty and a hundred workers depending on the fluctuating business. As one of the Guardians of the Poor Law Union (‘The Union’, a number of parishes linking together to run a workhouse, in this instance thirty-three, set up in 1836, the inmates, mainly young people were obliged to work) he oversaw the working of the workhouse helping to find work for the inmates and provide medical care. There was a great distinction between the social strata in England – differences of wealth, education and leisure. The wealthy tended to attend the Established Church whilst the poor worshiped at the nonconformist chapel; the upper classes voted Tory and the less wealthy the Liberals. The barriers could be observed regarding schooling where the fee-paying child followed hunting, rugby, cricket and tennis and the state educated child fishing, football, pigeon and horseracing. The difference between many towns, and others of a similar kind, was the closeness of its society - due to town limits, inter-mingled community housing, local schooling and religious nonconformity. Although there were ‘Chartist’ agitators amongst the mill workers in it does not seem as if the unrest travelled to the Nottingham mill – no picketing and strikes recorded. In the 1870s, the mill sheds had many rows of looms each lace-hand allotted three or four looms to look after these were packed together, with very little space in-between. The mill wheel drove the gearing and shafts that turned the belt-wheel operating each loom the motion, in-turn, spun the bobbins and drove the shuttle that producing the woven net. It was expected, lace hands to do all their own cleaning and oiling to pull the cuts off the roller and fetch their own weft. When a weft thread broke or the spool ran out the waver had to lift the shuttle from the loom, change the spool and reconnect the weft. Young girls and boys who had just left school helped the weavers clean and oil, by squeezing under the looms. There was very little heating provided in the winter and no cooling in the summer. The atmosphere was purposely kept damp to make the warps weave better. In the summer, water was sprayed on the floor to keep moisture levels high. In the winter, condensation was always dropping from the shaft and belt wheels. There was a tremendous racket made by the clack of shuttles and the whirring of spinning bobbins the slap of driving belts and rumble of the millwheel and shafts all made any conversation impossible. It was estimated that in 1891 thirty percent of country folk over the age of sixty-five received some kind of poor relief. Initially poor relief for those living in their own homes had been paid to the elderly rather than taking them into the workhouse. This was in the order of one or two shillings a week depending on circumstances. To operate a lace factory - that relies upon complicated machinery, it is essential to employ a tool shop and engineering department. Owners developed the engineering branch of the factory not just to service the machinery but also to serve his own inventions and patents. To accomplish this dual goal he had to purchase many machines and tools a normal engineering shop would not stock. A comprehensive workshop relied upon outside sources to supply iron girders, sheet steel, details and a host of other components. The engineers would maintain their own machine tools and those of others, designing improvements as they did so. Riste and Gifford were two such designers who patented their own inventions. In times of low production, these skilled engineers took on outside contracts making and maintaining agricultural equipment, steam engines and specialized foundry work - who now owned the factory, continued to operate the machine shop on a variety of jobs to keep the men employed. Gradually these engineering side-lines and their subsidiaries became dominant, changing the core work of the area. Within these changes worked by now self-employed - as an independent engineer. At first, the changes brought about by The First World War were not immediately apparent – they came about slowly – especially in places like The happenings in London’s society and the advent of the ‘Bright Young Things’ were of no account to and his family. They were more concerned about their children and the order book of the mill. Life was little different since Queen Victoria’s coronation. Of course, there had been The Great Exhibition and the coming of the railways, but most of that was all so very far away. The General Strike was certainly felt and the slump, which followed, did affect the local economy. There was a great deal of unemployment and try as they might the local authority could only find more roadside walls to build and ditches to dig - to provide some work. All children were now educated and as result expectations had been raised especially for the boys. The girls looked longingly at the magazine photographs of the latest fashions. The aristocrats and gentry never expected their girls to work anyway and passports would describe the men as independent gentlemen. In the local ‘big houses’ the butler was held in as much esteem as the owner and the cook reigned supreme. The Lady’s Maid and the Governess lead lonely lives – they did not fit into either camp. Social etiquette was closely adhered to for each section of the house ‘knew its place’ each maid and footman fitted onto their own rung of the social ladder. Many of the estate workers lead very happy lives and the workers living conditions was a great improvement on those left behind. If suitable and had proved themselves to be loyal they had a place for the rest of their lives, including the availability of an estate cottage when they retired. The employers were on the whole considerate towards their staff, if distant – acted unaware that they were there, until something went wrong. Unsolicited opinions and voices of discontent would lead to dismissal without a reference. This would lead to disaster – instant homelessness, the offender unable to seek further employment. If the recourse were to return home that would mean another mouth to feed from an already bare larder. An individual’s class was not judged by ability or character but on what the father’s occupation was. Money and possessions accounted for possible access to a higher rung not the top! It was not normal for working men to own their own home and there was no stain on those of the middle class, who also rented. It was the general rule – to own your own home was an exception. Politics was rarely discussed and it was certainly not broadcast whom one voted for. There was a tendency for children to follow their father’s preference and for estate, workers to vote as they thought their employers would. Children of different class did not mix – farm worker’s children did not play with the farmer’s children and farmers children did not play with the estate owner’s child. This lead to loneliness and isolation. It occurred between professional men’s children and the owners of small businesses, too. As children, you only spoke when asked to; you were not to speak to strangers or your inferiors and certainly not to those who were of a higher status. It was a hard life particularly in the winter. It was a large family and they all crowded into the living room in the evenings playing cards or shove-halfpenny on the dining table. They suffered chilblains for the range although hot its heat never reached the extremities of the room. The kitchen was worse still for there was no heating except for a paraffin stove. The girls had liberty bodices with suspenders to hold up thick lisle stockings and the boys had to pull up their long socks over their knees. Their life governed by the seasons and church festivities. Helping in the home was done on a shared basis the tasks taken in turn. The start of the summer holidays were six weeks of fun damming the river and doing odd jobs on the nearest farm, helping uncles and aunts pick their produce and feeding the chickens.Terence Kearey 06:22, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

References: Southwell and Nottingham Church History Project. Manuscripts and Special Collections: University of Nottinghamshire: Biography of John Holles, 3rd Duke of Newcastle upon Tyne and the 4th Earl of Clare (1662-1711). Holles, John, Lord Houghton (1662-1711, of Haughton, Notts. And Warwick House, Holborn, Mdx. History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 16 March 2016. Kneesall, Kersall and Ompton: Manuscripts and Special Collections: University of Nottingham: Parishes in Nottinghamshire until 1842. White’s Directory of Nottinghamshire 1853. Manuscripts and Special Collections: University of Nottingham: East Midlands Collection. Nottinghamshire History > Arthur Mee, The King’ England: Nottinghamshire, Hodder & Stoughton, 1938. Nottinghamshire History, Nottinghamshire Guardian, 1947. Nott’s village in which Stuart king surrendered. Nottingham City Council Local Studies and Family History. Nott’s Villages by W E Doubleday. The Nottinghamshire Guardian. The Medieval Town. A reader in English Urban History 1200-1540. Ed. By Richard Holt & Gervase Rosser 1990. Family History & Local History in England by David Hey. Pub. Longman1987. Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies. Ed. Harper Perennial Pub. 1991. en.wikiversity.org/wiki/The_Collins_of_Chard/… Country Ways by Terence Kearey. Pub. Memoir Publishing.