Old Days of Eton Parish - CHAPTER IV - The 200 years Before The College was founded

MORE ABOUT THE TOWN AND PARISH, 200 YEARS BEFORE THE COLLEGE WAS FOUNDED.

IT appears that in the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I. (1216-1307) the Abbey of Reading held property in both Windsor and Eton, but there is no evidence of the monks being employed in Eton.

 A solitary relic of their presence is the Abbot's pile,' a wooden pile at the head of an eyot near Tangier Mill. This still forms the boundary-mark of the right of fishery belonging to the borough of Windsor.

Sometime before 1239, the close connection with the Priory of Merton came to an end; and the patronage passed into private hands. In that year Thomas de Lacel resigned the living and Hugo de Hoddeg, a sub-deacon, was presented for the vacant post by Hugo de Hoddeg, a soldier. After some delay owing to the defect in his qualifications, he was instituted¹ and is designated Rector as holding all the tithes.

The next recorded Rector was Thomas Holte, presented to the living by the family of Huntercombe in 1299 and holding it till his death.

 A list of the Rectors who succeeded him, until the foundation of the College, will be found in Appendix I.

There were no less than seventeen during this period. From the frequent mention of exchange or resignation, it was evidently not considered a very eligible piece of preferment.²

In 1288, the tenth of all ecclesiastical Benefices in England was granted to King Edward I. towards his expensive wars and expeditions. In order to carry out this taxation, a general assessment was made. The living of Eton, then, and until 1847, in the Diocese of Lincoln,³ is mentioned as taxed at £10 13s. 4d. in the money of the time. In the same return Clifware or Clewer was assessed at £10, Upton at £13 6s. 8d., Stoke at £10, and Dorney at £6 13s. 4d.

Probably in the same reign, stables for the King's horses were built in Eton. Hence the name King's Stable Street, where, as a map in the Woods and Forests Office shows, the Crown had house property, till the middle of the eighteenth century, known as the King's Stables. In 1319 King Edward II. granted to Oliver de Bourdeaux, the keeper of the castle and forest, his lands in Eton. Soon after he also gave him all hereditaments in Windsor and Eton which had belonged to John of London and Roger de Mowbray, on condition of his finding a man with a lance and a dart to attend the King's army.

In the fifteenth year of King Edward IIl. (1341) (just I00 years before the College was founded), a ninth part of the corn, wood, lambs' fleeces, and other profits was granted by Parliament to the King to meet the expenses of a war with France. In the assessment then made, the duties for Eton Parish were set down at fourteen marks; those for Old and New Windsor together amounted to twenty marks. The return for Eton is supposed to have been less than the full amount, as thirty acres of arable land and six acres of pasture were exempted from the tax as being Church property. In 1360, William of Wykeham, afterwards founder of Winchester College, was engaged on works at Windsor Castle, and his name appears in a commission appointed by the King to dispose of certain tenements and lands Belonging to the Crown, including unnecessary houses in Windsor, Eton and Upton.

Among the private owners of lands, mention is made of one Thomas atte Wyk de Etone (Thomas of Eton Wick) who held one virgate⁴ of land at Ditton, on behalf of the Abbess and Convent of Burnham.

The Brocas family was well known in the reigns of Edward II. and III. They fought on the Lancastrian side in the War of the Roses. For centuries they were hereditary masters of the Royal Buckhounds. Sir John de Brocas was chief forester of Windsor Forest and Warden of Windsor Hospital in 1351 and was entrusted with the work of enlarging the Castle. He acquired land in Windsor, Clewer and Eton.

A descendant of his, son of Sir Bernard Brocas who was beheaded in the beginning of Henry IV.'s reign, served the two following Kings, and received, among other rewards, what is known as Brocas Meadow. According to a local tradition this meadow was given to the town of Eton by a Lady Brocas, but for more than a century past the College has claimed the right of grazing cattle there.

In 1391 an incident occurred which brings Eton into notice, and doubtless caused some little stir in the town.

The citizens of London had caused the displeasure of the King by refusing to lend him a thousand pounds and also by ill-treating and nearly killing a Lombard who was willing to advance it. In consequence of this, the Mayor of London, the Sheriffs, and the best citizens were arrested and imprisoned. After a time, the Chronicler tells us, "the King was somewhat pacified and by little and little abated the rigour of his purpose, and determined to deal more mildly with them," and so sent orders that they should come to Windsor, " there to shew their privileges, liberties, and laws."

Whether it was that the town of Windsor was still so small, or that it was ill provided with a suitable place of meeting, must remain uncertain; but the inquiry took place at Eton, on the feast of St. Mary Magdalen, before Edmund Duke of York, Thomas Duke of Gloucester, and others. The commission decided that the City of London should be governed in future by a Warden, two Sheriffs and twenty-four Aldermen.

This decision was communicated to the offending parties by the King at a Council held in the Castle, and new officers were appointed.

This is the last incident recorded before the foundation of the College, which, so far as it affected the town and the parishioners generally, must now engage our attention.

For further particulars about the College, our readers must consult the many interesting books already published on the subject.⁵

1 Lincoln Episcopal Register—Bishop Grey.

2 It is possible that the Priory of Merton in parting with the advowson had kept its grip on most of the Church property.

3 The Diocese of Dorchester was now known as the Diocese of Lincoln, the Bishop having again settled in the latter city; as many ten counties were at this date under his care.

4 A virgate is a measure of land varying from 15 to 40 acres.

5 Especially Sir H. Maxwell-Lyte's Eton College and Willis and Clark's Architectural History of Cambridge, from which the present writer has drawn most of the information about the Chapel.

OLD DAYS OF ETON PARISH by The Rev. John Shephard, M.A. was published in 1908 by Spottiswoode and Co Ltd. The text is has been copied from the original book that is now out of copyright.

The Eton Wick Newsletter - December 2013 - `Our Village' Magazine

Have you given thought to our village magazine; to what prompted its publication, to the work involved and to the support needed to keep it going? 

The first issue was in April 2008 and has been distributed to every household in the village, from the railway viaduct to the Dorney Common Gate free of charge, three times annually since. It was the brainchild of the Village Hall Committee and prompted by an original idea in 1949. At that time the Village Hall was known as the 'Stute', being of course an abbreviation for The Eton Wick and Boveney Institute. It was just a brief few years since some state of normality had returned to the communities following an almost 6 years of war upheaval. In 1949 and again in 1951 the 'Stute' committee under its chairman, local builder Jim Ireland, produced a magazine titled 'Our Village' at 6 pence an issue.

They were produced on a duplicator and hand stapled together. The two issues, although quite 'tatty' in today's comparison, are surely now very collectable. The second issue has adverts for most of the then new council built shops to open in 1951, along the top of 'Meux the Brewers' Field, adjoining The Shepherds Hut public house. That issue also contained an article on Bell Farm, submitted by Mrs Smith, the wife of John, who was the Eton Urban Surveyor and responsible for the layout and design of the early post war council housing in the village. Mr & Mrs Smith lived in Bell Farm for several years. Here is the article: 

Bell Farm — Modern discoveries in our village — Do you know that in your own village of Eton Wick you have one of the oldest buildings in Buckinghamshire?

Built around 1360 Bell Farm still retains most of its original structure inside a comparatively modem front. The original beams and arches are still in a wonderful state of preservation. According to its history two rooms were added on the North side in 1580. Although covered by several coats of paint, gentle scraping reveals fine old oak panels mellowed by time. It is in the lower of these rooms, known as the parlour, that our most interesting 'find' has been revealed. For the past two years there have been falls of what resembled builder's rubble down the chimney, and when strong smells of something burning had been haunting the house for a month or so we decided to investigate. So one evening, having removed the furniture and rolled up the carpet we removed the broken Victorian fireplace. Result — clouds of dust, loads of bricks, birds' nests and soot. When the dust finally subsided there was a lovely Tudor arch, the original, in a miraculous state of preservation. 

So yet another example of the wonderful craftsmanship of the past has come to light and the arch forms part of our repaired fireplace. When the room is entered the light falls on the bricks which have retained their delicate colouring for the past 370 years, and are still a joy to look at in 1951. 

Article submitted by Frank Bond 

Frank Bond recalls discussing Bell Farm and the 'Parlour' room with Mrs Smith some 50 or 60 years ago, and suggests she may have been careful in her article respecting her Mother's views. Apparently Mrs Smith often felt the presence of 'another' when in the room alone. She never spoke of this to her Mother who was living at Bell Farm. 

Come one occasion when Mr and Mrs Smith were going out one evening and Mrs Smith said to her Mother "I hope you do not mind being left alone." Back came the reply "I am never alone in that room, and the presence of another who is always kind and friendly." This helped prompt the chimney disturbance, ever mindful of what they might find. 

Beverley Campion, the now resident of Bell Farm House, writes 

"I can confirm that neither of my late parents nor I have ever seen or been aware of any ghostly presence, but that the house has always had a warm friendly atmosphere, so if the spirits of previous residents are still here they have never seemed to mind sharing the house with us. There were however some nasty "spells" in the inglenook fireplace when we moved in, indicating some kind of witchcraft perhaps - which we simply burned, but as each of us suffered misfortunes in the years immediately succeeding, I would not discount the power of witchcraft.......  

Beverley also advised that according to Berkshire County Council's Head of Conservation in the early seventies, when boundary changes put Eton and Eton Wick into Berkshire, Bell Farm House is the oldest house in Berkshire. (Apparently it was the sixth oldest when in Buckinghamshire). Also. that when they bought the house in 1959, they were told that the two back rooms were added during the reign of Henry VIII (1509 - 1547), not in 1580 as Mrs Smith thought. 

The Smiths had told about the 'Parlour' fireplace and it is still possible to see the Tudor arch brickwork made up of tiny bricks, now supported by a modern brick fireplace. There is an equally interesting story about the Inglenook fireplace in what is now the sitting room. Apparently this had had a Victorian fireplace, but whilst it was being redecorated, the Smiths were banging about and realised there was a hollow sound, indicating there must be a space behind it, so they took the Victorian fireplace down and revealed the inglenook fireplace and what was left of the bread ovens. Beverley doesn't think this inglenook was originally in the house but believes she read somewhere that this was added when the house was over 100 years old, so would presume it was originally a mediaeval 'Hall House' with a smoky fire in the middle of the floor of what is now their front hall. 

Squirrels recently got into the roof of the Tudor bedroom and chewed holes in the fibre board ceiling. Contractors removing these chewed panels revealed magnificent beams, which also showed that the roof has been heightened at some time. The lower beams had small nail holes in them, indicating that laths had been nailed to these, so there must always have been a lath and plaster ceiling in that bedroom, whereas all the other bedrooms have exposed beams which go right up into the roof as there is no loft. This must mean that the beams in this room have never been exposed. Now that she has seen them Beverley wishes she could afford to have the fibre board removed and expose these magnificent beams. 

Our thanks to Beverley Campion for these added anecdotes.

Click here to read Our Village December 2013.

This article was originally published in the Eton Wick Newsletter - Our Village as is republished with the kind permission of the Eton Wick Village Hall Committee. Click here to go to the Collection page.

Eton Wick in the 14th Century

By the fourteenth century there were at least nine families in the village, for they are readily identifiable from deeds: Adam in the Lane, John Doget, William the Blakesmith, William Chapman, Thomas and William atte Wick, Robert the Shepherd and others. Where their homes are mentioned they would appear to lie north of the brook, between the field called the Hyde and the common pasture called the Mersh (or marsh) or near another called the Dene (or valley). These two areas or common still exist, though now perhaps a little smaller and known as the Great and Little Common respectively. Bradmere or Broadmoor was another area of pasture, but today this is arable and part of North Field. 

The meadows were to be found near the river and brooks, the Innings (today known as the Inner Ward Mead) lying parallel to the Great Common but north of the brook, the Wards, by Cuckoo Weir, and South Meadow.  The thirteenth century and the first half of the fourteenth century was a period of land hunger and there is clear evidence of land being won from the areas previously considered too marshy to use, such as the Water Slades mentioned In a deed as land 'newly cultivated'. This land lies on either side of the Eton Wick Road near the Willow Tree public house where the land still dips perceptibly.  The word slad(e)s can mean a hollow. In the eighteenth century there used to be a row of posts marked to show the depth of water lying on the road in the almost annual floods, giving warning to the carriages and waggons using the road. Even today there are still metal posts standing which were used during the 1947 floods.

There were four open fields, the Hyde, North Field, South Field and West Field, the latter so named apparently because It lay west of Eton rather than on the west side of the parish; in later centuries It appears to have been renamed Stonebridge Field.  Each field was divided into many strips and these grouped Into shots, furlongs or pieces with distinctive names such as Longfurlong, Middle Furlong, Stone hul (hill), Long Wythebedde, Broken Furlong and Rossey Piece. There was also land known simply as 'village land'. No hedges divided these strips and furlongs but, although each open field was planted with the same crops, the different alignment of the furlongs gave the fields a patchwork appearance.  The holdings of each man or woman, either owned or rented, were scattered throughout the fields and meadows. It is thought that originally each strip could be ploughed in one day and that the strips of land had been shared between the fields and its furlongs. By medieval times land had changed hands too often for any such pattern to be apparent, but certain families, such as the Brocases of Clewer, the Jourdelays of Eton and Eton Wick and many others were building up estates and farms. Small and large holdings were still dispersed among the fields as the dower settlement of Margaret Huntercombe of 1336 shows only too clearly. The Eton Manor was in 35 separate plots and she received a third of each of these, so that many were less than an acre and the narrowest no more than one pole

It is too much to expect to recognise any particular strip as surviving today. There has always been a certain amount of exchange and amalgamation as individuals found it more convenient to have their land in more compact blocks, yet right into this century strips are shown on the maps which accompany deeds and are separately itemized. The long narrow field just east of the College Sanatorium is the last strip of Broken Furlong in cultivation. The piece of land west of Haywards Mead, too, is part of an old strip that only became fenced in this century. In 1808 a Surveyor of the Royal Manor could write that 'there is hardly a hedge to be seen on the whole farm (Saddocks)*, and even today South Field is almost free of hedges with no permanent boundaries marking the boundary of the allotments or the land farmed by Mr. Paget, making these, perhaps, the last vestiges of the old landscape.

Strip farming in the open fields was also practised in Boveney Parish.  The part of Eton Wick that came under that parish was once part of the Tilstone Field and the Shepherd's Hut was built at the end of one strip in about 1830 when the rest of the field was still being tilled.  The name 'Tilstone' is intriguing; the earliest record of it occurs in a sixteenth century document when it was spelt 'Tyila's dene' suggesting that the name is derived from the dene or dip in the land owned by Tylla.  No records have been found to tell us who he was.

Rutted and dusty or muddy and full of puddles, the roads of the Middle Ages little resembled the macadam highway of today, yet already by the fourteenth century there was a pattern that is recognizable today. The Eton Wick Road was a public track though lying entirely within South Field.  Bell Lane and Common Road were both being used, their route following the edge of the Great Common and the Manor boundary. Haywards Mead, crossing the South Field to Meadow Lane, Eton, was one of the "King's highways', as was another road running through South Field and roughly parallel with the Thames, leading from New .Windsor to Boveney.  None as yet possessed their modern names; Common Road was BIakes (possibly Blacksmiths) Lane and one of those passing through the South Field by Cuckoo Weir was appropriately known as Mill Lane. Joiebalteslane is perhaps to be identified as the road running towards Little Common. The track which still runs north of the Great Common, alongside the Inner Ward Meads, was called Innings Lane. Connecting this track to Broadmoor and possibly continuing to Chalvey was Droflane. Though the position of this lane is not known, old maps of the parish show several footpaths crossing the North Field, and until the motor car changed the pattern of family life, these footpaths were regularly used by the people of Chalvey and Eton Wick.

This is an extract from The Story of a Village: Eton Wick 1217 to 1977 by Judith Hunter.

An event in 1391

An event of 1391 was, perhaps, equally exciting, but not so pleasant. This was the year that Elizabeth de Cheriton, daughter of John de Huntercombe, and lady of the Huntercombe Manor of Eton, died.  As she left no children her three aunts became co-heirs of the manor. However, they had only been in possession of their lands ten days when it was forcibly seized by Giles Frenssh, William Mathue and 'other evildoers'. Giles claimed that he was the more immediate heir by virtue of his marriage to Elizabeth's sister, Maud. The matter was brought before an official enquiry and the results can still be read in the records of the Chancery. They make astonishing reading, for Maud, it was stated, had been a nun at Burnham Abbey for seven years before her sister's death, but had been 'by force of arms ravished, violated and  carried away' by Giles and forced to go through a marriage ceremony with him.  Giles protested that Maud was not a nun and the matter was referred to the Bishop of Lincoln. The whole affair dragged on for two years but eventually judgement was given against Giles Frenssh and he was ordered to restore the manor to the three aunts, Elizabeth, Agnes and Margaret. Burnham Abbey still stands, though now a home of Anglican nuns, and since the dissolution of the original abbey no land in Eton Wick has been connected with the Abbey; yet a tenuous connection can still be found in the guise of Broken Furlong. Today it is the name of a road, but for many centuries it was the name of part of South Field and part of the land given to the  Abbey by Prince Richard and mentioned in the Foundation Charter.

Perhaps of all the medieval lords of the manor it is to Edward III that the claim must go of having the most lasting effect on the village. He annexed an Eton manor much enlarged by the previous lord, Oliver Bordeux, his chancellor, to his manor of Windsor in the year 1358. This was not long after the Black Death, that terrible plague that killed over a third of the population of the whole country. The records do not give any firm impression of how Eton Wick was affected, yet the resulting shortage of labourers may well have been part cause of King Edward's subsequent action. 

His expensive rebuilding plans for Windsor Castle were perhaps the more immediate cause for Edward in the order he gave to his Commissioners in 1359. This was that they should 'arrent as profitably as possible all the king's demenses in Eton to demise them at farm in fee (that is to lease the demense) or else for life or a term of years to sure tenants who are willing to take them and to extend in money all the customs and works of the king's bond tenants'. No longer would the home as part of the service they owned for holding their land, instead they paid extra rent (quit rent). The home farm though still intermixed in the open fields was leased to other tenants, and thus the king obtained, money for his building programme. Only a decade or so later a prosperous yeoman built a new house in the village. Its simple plan of an open hall flanked by a kitchen and pantry at one end and the solar at the other was typical of its time.  It still survives though enlarged, its timber frame visible only on the inside and its thatch long since replaced by tile.  This is Bell Farm, and it is tempting to suggest that it was built by one of the new tenants of the Crown who prospered.

But what of the village and villagers themselves?  The earliest reference to the Wick that I have found comes from the year 1217, a year when there was fear of a French Invasion and it is the carucage or land tax, imposed on each village and town to raise funds that makes mention of Eton Wick, in conjunction with Eton and Hedgerley. This suggests that the village was already large enough to warrant a separate mention.

This is an extract from The Story of a Village: Eton Wick 1217 to 1977 by Judith Hunter.