How interesting to find some new! but actually old information on Knightwick. I found several pages in a book in the Hive in March 2024, I have re-typed everything out; hopefully no mistakes to the original. They are all cuttings from Volume 2, Worcester Herald, and Berrows Journal 1927 - 1937, by Stroller. Hopefully anyone who delves in to them will find some slightly boring facts, but others have a definite meaning and compliment some of the information already amongst the many pages I have on this Knightwick part of my genealogy site.
Famous names already mentioned can be found with a story relating to their family, lives, and importance to the history of Knightwick; along with other names you may never have heard of but who also in the past had much to do with this small village.
Click on the drop-down pages below to open or close each one. Any names you see will be inside that drop-down page, with links to a page with more information about them.When visiting linked pages, using the "Go Back" button on that page will bring you back to this page; as you left it.
[may not work in some browsers] Using the images to link back to this page; will show all the windows below closed.Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 1 - Godfrey, Bishop of Worcester
Page 66KNIGHTWICKE
In the lower division of Oswaldeslow hundred, and in the deanry of Worcester, boundeth east on Bradwas, west on Whitborne, Hereford, north on Martley, south on Lulsley, Suckley, and Alfrick.KNIGHTWICKE anciently belonged to the priory of Great Malvern, but was afterwards taken from them, as appears by their complaint made A,.D. 1314, when for their relief the parsonage of Powick was appropriated to them. It appears however that the prior of Malvern, before this complaint, surrendered the manor of Knightwicke to Godfrey bishop of Worcester and his successors, to hold the farm, paying a pound of cummin, by deed dated Saturday next after the feast of All Saints, in the eleventh year of the reign of Edward son of king Henry, which was confirmed by the king, November 7, the same year, at Acton Burnel. Richard abbot Wesminster, and the convent there (to whom the priory of Malvern was subordinate) confirmed the said grant [a] The manor still belongs to the bishop of Worcester though the dean and chapter leave likewise a manor in Knightwicke and Dodenham.
King Edward I., granted to the bishop free warren [ b].
A meadow, near the house of Mr. Freeman, containing about six acres, surrounded by lands in the parish of Whitborne in Herefordshire, is said to be in Worcestershire, and to belong to Knightwicke farm [c].
6 Edw. III. Adam, bishop of Worcester devised to William de Masyngton and Agnes his wife, for term of lives, the manor of Knightwick, at the rent of five marks yearly. And long after, John bishop of Worcester let to Thomas Rumpney of Lawlessly, Isabel his wife, and William their son, the site of his manor of Knightwicke, with houses, lands, feedings, meadows, pastures of the demesne,
with rents of tenants and perquisites of court, excepting wards, marriages, reliefs, escheats, fines, and herriots and besides, all the lords woods, for the term of threescore and ten years, at the yearly rent of 81. finding all manner of expenses of the bishop's steward and receiver at the courts there to be held. Dated, 39 Henry VI. 1460.The True Value of Knightwick
16 and 17 Rich. II. was 5 6 8
9 Henry IV. 7 13 4
20 Henry VIII. 10 0 0 yearly.
The Alderford’s had an estate in Knightwick, which they obtained by Walter's marrying Joan the daughter of Thomas Brook of this parish. After the dissolution of religious houses he enlarged his estate by purchasing Pithouse and Pitgrove, which belonged to the priory of Malvern; but they were granted afterwards to William and Francis Sheldon.20. Eliz. the lands of Alderford passed to John Was borne, and from that family to Mr, John Clent. The arms and pedigree of Alderford of Knightwicke were entered in the Heralds college in the year 1569, where are extracts from their deeds.
In Register Heath, f. 30. an award is mentioned to be made by Richard Pychard gent. and Thomas Hanbury, vicar of Codrige between Richard Sponer, parson of Knightwicke, and John Alderford gent. of the same, that they should be lovers and friends, and forgive one another all manner of actions, suits, quarrels, debates, and commands whatsoever, that have been between them from the beginning of the world to the present time, and so always to continue ; the parson to receive twenty load of dry wood, as near as possible to his house.
[a] See Reg. Gifford, fol. 195 and Thomas Antiq. Malvern, p. 143, et fcq.
[b] Lib. Alb. Epif. Wig, f. 46.
[c] From the information of Bartholomew Richard Barnaby, esquire.Knightwick contained to families; now 24. It pays to the land-tax at 4s. in the pound, 8s. It paid to the poor, in the year 1775.
Page 67
DODENHAM
Doddenham is a chapelry in this parish, about four miles in circumference, situated in the lower division of the hundred of Dodingtree, and in the deanry of Worcester, bounded on the east by Wychenford and Broadwas, west by Knightwicke and Whitborne, south by the river Teme, dividing it from Suckley, Leigh, and Lulsley, and north by Martley's steep hill, about four miles in circumference.
At the time of the Conqueror's survey Gilbert Fitz Turold held Dodenham of the king. Celmar held it before, and could go where he would. There was one hide which gelded. In demesne were one carucate and three villans, and eight bordars, and four cottagers, and a miller. Among them all they had seven carucates. There were two herdsmen, and a mill of 12 shillings. Before the Conquest it was worth 20 shillings, and at the survey it was worth 42 shllings [d].
Before this manor was given to the priory of Worcester, it was held of William de la Mare, which William held the same of the earl of Gloucester. Some time after the Conquest the manor and patronage fell to the church of Worcester by grant, about the time of Roger, son to Robert earl of Gloucester, natural son to Henry I. who was bishop of Worcester, and confirmed the same before the year 1179. - Simon de Mans, lord and patron of Dodenham, for the health of his soul, and souls of his wife and ancestors, gave to the priory of Worcester the advowson of Dodenham and Knightwicke, and the lands of Ralph de Chedeburne and Armi de Chedeburne; which grant William de Mara and Thomas de Mara confirmed in the time of Henry bishop of Worcester [e].
Simon de Mauns had two sons, Walter and William: to the latter, with the consent of Walter, he left lands and a mill at Dodenham, and Walter himself gave him a yard land here, which was Walter de Herefey's and several other lands, all which coming to William de Matins, the son of Walter the elder, he confirmed the grant of this advowson, and of all other lands his grand-father had bestowed in Dodenham and Ancredham to the same priory, subject to the payment of a pound of cummin feed yearly.
Walter de Mappener [f] the on of Walter de Mappener, confirmed to the priory of Worcester the grant of his uncle William de Mauns.
Robert the son of Martin de Ancredham [g] gave to the fame priory 5s. annual rent out of the lands of Godfrey the son of Gilbert de la Heye, at Dodenham, and three selions at Bracredeham. And Gilbert the son of Walter de Ancredham confirmed the gift of his uncle Robert. Walter Pain and Helen his wife confirmed the grant of the same; and after this, Robert de Possewicke, and Ada the son of Walter and Helene like wife confirmed the same grant.
The priory of Worcester [h] exchanged lands at Dodenham with Adam lord of Ancredham, and gave him those near his house at Ancredham, which lands were given them by their benefactors the Manses.
Exchanges of lands were also made between the laid priory and Adam de Ancredham, in Ancredham, Dodenham, and Broadwas, with reservation of dower of Claricia, widow of Sir Robert Possewyck, and Helen once wife of William de Seggesbereg. Witnessed by Sir Roger le Poer. There were many other benefactors to the priory of Worcester who had lands in the villages of
Dodenham and Knightwycke, as William de Mara and Thomas de Mara (of which name were formerly several lords in this county),Rodolphus Ormi, William Druggell, Alured Fitz Semer, Hugh Fitz Seward, Walter Fitz Pain, John le Engleys, &c.
Walter Staple of Dodenham, a person of great estate, having a daughter, an heiress, named Eleanor, who married Robert Waterborne of Wichenford, left to their issue their Dodenham estate, a good patrimony, to supply what was given away on a match with Salewey.
[d] Tab. X. cpl. b. [e] Vid. Reg. i f. 14. a, and b.
[f] Vid. Reg. 1. Dean and Chap. f. 16. b. [g] Ibid. f. 15.
[h] Book of Aids, 20 Ed. III. John prior of Worcester held two hides and a half in Dodenham
which his predecessors had. Book of Knights Fees. 7 Hen. VI. confirms the same. Salewey.Page 68
From the above Robert Washborne and Eleanor Staple the Washbornes Wichenford are lineally descended.In the parliament survey taken A. D. 1649 the manor of Ankerden is valued at about 116l. per ann. The quitrents at 1l. Is. 4d. and the rectory of Dodenham at 50l. per ann.
The chapel of Dodenham is dedicated to St. Andrew. It pays to the land-tax at 4s. 76l. I7s. 4d.
It paid to the poor, in the year 1776, 12l. 5 Eliz. Dodenham contained 18 families ; now 16, according to the return made to bishop North at his primary visitation, A. D. 1776.Ancredam, now corruptly Ankerden, lieth a mile west, and a little by north, from Dodenham chapel; it is the furthermost limits of the parish, and of Worcestershire, (the Teme dividing it from Herefordshire) in the chapelry of Dodenham, and parish of Knightwick.
10 Ed. 111. Waltier de Acredham was lord here, and obtained leave to alienate to the church of Worcester his lands in Dodenham and Ancredham.
2 Ric. II. the prior and convent leased out to Richard Cowarne, and John Damalis, citizens of Worcester, their manors of Dodenham, and Ancredham, with their appurtenances, and flock thereupon, viz. 8 oxen value 8 marks, ten cows value 100 shillings, one long wain ironed, value 13 shillings, one gander, four geese, one cock, six hens, one cart, one plough, one harrow, one horse,
with three load of good hay, for the term of eighteen years, paying to he eleemosynary at the four usual terms of the year the sum of eight pounds, binding themselves, and their heirs and executors, in a bond of ten pounds, to leave the same flock thereon at the end of the term.Page 69
KNGHTWICKE.
knightwicke cum capella de Dodenham
PATRONS:
Prior et capitulum
Wygorn.INCUMBENTS:
Johannes Boter, 7 kal. Sept. 1314.
Magistler Joh. de Bosco, 24 Jun. 1334.
Robertus de Alureston, pbr. non. Febr. 1336
Will'us de Clifford, If kal. Apr. x 338.
Philippus Ullingwyke, 16 Oct. 1339.
Philippus Drym., 26 Jan. 1346.
Johannes de Tyso, 1367.
Johannes de Bradewas, cler. 19 Jan 1379.
Thomas de Wolverton, 8 Jan. 1381.
Johannes Henley, pbr. 26 Jan. 1388.
Mr. Johannes Dorlton, 30 Sept. 1389.
Johannes Trowcester, pbr. 24 Dec. 1390.
Johannes atte Brugeende, pbr. 2 Apr, 1392.
Walterus Mouselowe, 15 Dec. 1395.
Thomas Whytyng, cap. 1448.
Robertus Spencer, LL. Bac. 6 Julii, 1498.
Nicholaus Stokesleye, cler. 3 Dec. 1500.
Nicholaus Smyth, cap. 20, Jan. 1510.
Ricardus Sponer, 10 Nov. 1520.REGISTERS:
Mayd. f. 14. b.
Mont. V. 1 . f. to. b.
lb. f. 26. b.
Hein. f. 15. a.
Wolst. V. 1. f. 29. a.
lb. f. 103. b.
Wittlesey, f. 30. a.
Wakf. f. 13. a.
Ib. f. 29. b.
lb. f. 55. a.
lb. f. 61. a.
1. 70. b.
lb. 1. 90. a.
Tidm. f. 2. a.
Carp. V. i. f. 64. b.
S. Gygl. f. 7. b.
lb. f. 12. a.
lb. f. 67. a.
Jeron. f. I. b.Thomas Tovy de Bradwas ex concess d. et}
Will’us Tovy, cl. S. T. B. 4 Oct. 1585.
Henricus Mawle, cl. 26 Junii. 1598.
Thomas Taylor [a]. A. M. 28 Oct. 1644.
Stephanus Richardfson, cl. A. M. 7 Julii, 1674
Jeremia Oakely, cl. A. M. 28 Febr. 1684.
Gulielmus Ley, cl. A. M. 24 Apr. 1686.
Johannes Medens, cl. A. M. 31 Martii, 1702
R. 32. Freak. f. 31. a.
Ib. Bab. f. 75.a.
R.33. f. 30.b.
R. 34. Bland. f. 21. a.
Ib. Thomas, f. 38. a.
Ib. Thomas, f. 41. a.
Ib. Lloyd. f. 80. a.Dean and chapter
of Worcester.}
Samuel Pritchett, M. A. 12 Dec. 1734.
John Arnold, M. A. 25 June, 1771.
Gregory Parry, M. A. 2 Sept. 1775.
[a] Thomas Taylor was deprived, and one Matthew Bolton got possession 1654. See Walker’s Sufferings of the Clergy, f. 385.
[a] Heming. Chart. f. 328.
Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 2 - Knightwick and Suckley Stations--Rosebury Rock--The Manor--HouseRobert le Despenser--Bishop Heath--John Romney
John Wasbourne--The Clents
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [1]A Hot Bed of "Royalists."
Knightwick and Doddenham, two ancient parishes, which in Victorian times became one for ecclesiastical purposes, though still distinct for evil ones may conveniently be combined in one ’stroll’ the two lie adjacent, separated by the River Teme, but connected by Knightsford Bridge; a principal land-mark in those parts, and the chief centre of population.
Near the bridge, also, stands the church erected in Victorian times for the united parish; nesting beneath Ankerdine Hilll, a conical elevation, very prominent in the view from Worcester, and a link in the chain, attributed to earth convulsion, extending from the Malverns to Abberley.A Holiday Resort.
Standing apart from other hills, Ankerdine commands superb views in every direction, and particularly over the river, which flows nearly five hundred feet below; and it is a favourite holiday resort of Worcester people, who have convenient routes by road or rail, through charming country.
Communications.
Both Knightwick and Doddenham are traversed from east to west by the road from Worcester to Bromyard. This passe over the bridge, south of which diverging roads connect with Lulsley, Suckley, Alfrick and Leigh.
Worcester is eight miles distant, and Bromyard five; and the Worcester to Hereford railway passes through Knightwick parish, with two available stations, Knightwick on the east border and Suckley on the south-west.Areas, Populations and Occupations.
The parish of Knightwick contains 857 acres, with about a third arable; and Doddenham 908 acres, with about a fourth arable.
The population of the united parishes, at the census of 1911, was 432; with about two thirds in Doddenham; and agriculture is the sole industry.
Mr. Noake, eighty years ago, complained that the land was not made the best of. In Doddenham , in particular, he found six percent of it taken up by wasteful fences.Drainage.
The drainage of both parishes is by the Teme; which at this point receives the outfall of a rather considerable stream, having sources at Clater Park, on high ground midway between Knightsford Bridge and Bromyard; and in the lower part of its course forming the County boundary against Herefordshire. This I assume to be the mill stream which, in 1660 bore the picturesque title of “The Thunder Brook.”
Amenities.
Village amenities include a Post Office, with full services, a doctor, a water mill, a builder, two coal dealers, a carrier, and a bootmaker.
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [1]
An object of surpassing beauty is”Rosebury Rock,” a precipitous richly wooded, and gorgeously coloured cliff, rising abruptly from a natural lawn of rich pasture, abutting on the sparkling river; the whole a vision which in summer is perfected by a grazing herd of noble white-faced “Herefords.”
The rock rises to a height of 378 feet, and was described by Jabez Allies as abounding in botanical and geological interest, and, according to local “Folk-lore,” a favourite haunt of fairies. It deserves to be! Mr. Allies says that the original name was “Osebury,” derived from the osiers or willows, growing by Teme side, below the cliff. If so it is a case in which moderns have improved upon their forefathers, and are not likely to revert.Knightwick Parish.
Knightwick lies south-west of Teme, on the extreme verge of the County, where romantic Sapey brook, after quitting Clifton and Lower Sapey, and transversing the Herefordshire parishes of Tedstone Delamere and Whit bourne discharges its petrifying waters into the river.
The parish is bounded north by Doddenham, south by Suckley, east by Lulsley, and west by Herefordshire.
The soil is loam, clay and marl, on subsoil of marl; and the chief arable crops are cereals, beans and hops. Much fruit is grown; both on grass and tillage.The Manor House.
The village of Knightwick stands about a mile east of Knightwick Bridge, and west of it is Knightwick Manor House, a Queen Anne building on foundations of an earlier one of the previous century, and containing features probably transferred from its predecessor. These include Seventeenth Century panelled chimney-piece in the hall, panelling and carved overmantel of same century in the parlour, and early Eighteenth Century stairs on the upper floors.
“The Old House.”
In the south-west of the parish near Suckley Railway Station, is an early Seventeenth Century half-timbered house, now a cottage known from time immemorial as “The Old House,” and adjoining it is an old half-timbered cart-shed.
Knightwick Manor.
The manor of Knightwick was an ancient possession of the Church of Worcester, probably acquired as a member of the more important one of Grimley, under a grant of 851 from the King of Mercia.
In 964 the Church ownership was recognised by King Edgar, by whom the Manor, as a member of that of Grimley, was free from liability of Crown taxes.Norman Lords.
As Church property, Knightwick was specifically assigned to the support of the monks of Worcester, but at Domesday was found to have been leased by the Priory, though “only for so long as the brethren could spare it,” to a nun named Edith, who was still living. This was one of those irregularities in the management of church property, of which the Normans were always prompt to take advantage, as excuse for ignoring claims of the Church; and apparently at the Conquest they disregarded both nun and monks. In the division of the spoils of victory, Knightwick fell to Robert le Despenser, brother of the Sheriff, Urso d’Abitot, and suggested ancestor of the Despensers of Martley.
The Underlords of Knightwick.
Under the Despensers as overlords, the manor of Knightwick was held by Mans or Le Mans, a family who were succeeded in female line by Mapnors; and by successive grants from Mans and Mapnora portions passed to the Priories of Little and Great Malvern.
A Priory Manor.
The share of Little Malvern Priory, on its dissolution in Tudor times, went through the hands of various lay owners, including Sheltons, Washbournes, and Berkleys, all important County families; and by early Stuart times had passed to Clents of Knightwick.
The Clents also acquired the outstanding portion of the manor not included in the grants of the two priories; and which had been long retained by Mapnors and their representatives.The Bishops’ Manor of Knightwick.
The share originally granted to Great Malvern Priory, and which was probably the most important, was in 1283 exchanged by the Priory with Bishop Giffard, and attached to his See of Worcester. It so remained for nearly three centuries; and Giffard, being a keen sportsman promptly obtained from the King a Charter of Free warren for his new manor, the benefit of which has passed with it to succeeding owners, both ecclesiastical and lay.
A Queens favourite.
Bishop Heath of Worcester, successor to Latimer and who in 1541 had been commissioned by Henry VIII, to oversee, “The Great Bible,” was in 1550, in the reign of Edward VI, appointed with others to prepare a form for ordination. One, drafted by Archbishop Crammer, was accepted by his colleagues, but Heath, while professing willingness to use it when law, declined, by signing, to assist in making it law. For this “contumacy,” he was deprived of his Bishopric; and opportunity was taken by the Court to lop of some of the superfluous endowments of the See. Among these was the Bishopric Manor of Knightwick; which was conferred on one of the rapacious Dudley family. We have met with several other episcopal manors, which at the same period were granted to the elder Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, but the Knightwick property was given to his younger son, Robert, destined in future years to fame as the Elizabethan courtier and favourite, the earl of Leicester.
The death of King Edward VI, a few months later, was disastrous to the Dudleys. The father, as principal instigator of the plot for placing Lady Jane Grey on the throne, was sent to the block, together with his son Guildford, Lady Jane’s husband; and Robert also was attained, but as a merely negligible accomplice, spared and ultimately pardoned.
Bishop Heath was reinstated in See and Manors; but on the accession of Elizabeth there were re-arrangements of episcopal endowments and the opportunity was taken of restoring the Knightwick Manor to Dudley, then earl of Leicester; by whom it was promptly converted into a form of capital more useful to a rising courtier.The Romneys of Knightwick.
During the episcopal ownership of the Knightwick manor a qui red by Bishop Giffard, it was the custom to lease it to a single tenant; and in 1460 it was so let, for seventy years, to Thomas Romney, of Lulsley; one of a family with interesting history, and whose name has not died out in Worcestershire; and on the sale by the Earl of Leicester, the Romneys bought the freehold.
Romney the Royalist.
In 1628 John Romney was outlawed, on a charge of murder. This probably arose out of some fracas, with accidental fatal result, and in respect of which Romney had temporarily evaded arrest; for later he was “restored in blood.”
Lancelot Romney, probably the outlaw’s son, “served in arms” for the King, during the Great Civil war; and at its close in 1646, though he had then been dead for three years, the family estate was sequestrated by Parliament, on account of his delinquency.
A more notable case was that of Lancelot’s son, another John, left an orphan of nine, and on whose behalf his grandfather and guardian, John Evett, applied for leave to compound for Lancelot’s delinquency, and so redeem the sequestrated property.
After customary investigations, and delays multiplied by the special circumstances, the fine was assessed at £140, or approximately two year’s rent, probably equal to £800 of present currency, and sumciently onerous to be borne by the infant family or a yeoman.
Before the formal routine of settlement could be carried through, John Evett himself was arrested for debt, and cast as a prisoner into “Worcester Castle,” leaving no one in a legal position to deal with the Romney emergency.
An uncle, Henry Evett, intervened, and petitioned for leave to pay the assessed fine, pleading the unfortunate position of the unoffending boy, and of his four brothers and sister. The time prescribed for payment had, however, passed, and a formal new application to compound, backed by the new applicant, and involving new inquiries and re-assessment of fine, had become necessary to conform with official practice. In the meantime the sequestration was maintained.The Muster of Pitchcroft.
After such a chapter of mishaps, and with the issue still in suspense, it is scarcely surprising that when the “King of Scots” came to Worcester, in 1651, young John Romley, was still only nineteen, and penniless, weary and reckless, joined his neighbours, John Washbourne, of Wichenford, and Robert Blount, of Kenswick, at the Royalist “Muster” on Pitchcroft.
Like them, he subsequently made excuses, alleging compulsion by Scots soldiers, quartered at his uncle’s house, where he was living; and protested that he had not actually taken part in the Battle. His mere boyhood seems to have saved him from personal punishment; but the pending negotiations for “compounding” his father’s delinquency were cancelled, and the family property declared forfeited by his own treason. When some years later, on appeal for mercy, backed by the military governor of the County, and made to the Lord Protestor personally, the case of the Romneys was reconsidered, the original fine had already been covered thrice over, by rents received by the Sequestrators, but they still clung to their prey.
Sir George Booth’s RisingExasperated by repeated rebuffs, John Romney in 1659 took part in Sir George Booth’s premature attempts to promote a Restoration of the monarchy; and in doing so risked nothing, for he who has already lost all Romney’s possessions still subject to the earlier one.
The Restoration.
At the Restoration the alleged compulsion of Romney by Scots, was doubtless recognised as a mere pretext. And full credit was given to his loyalty. The sequestrated lands were restored, but only after being lost for fifteen years; and the records of the Parliamentary Committee disclose that, while the forfeiture lasted, the rents diverted had aggregated more than fourfold the amount of the original fine. Of this there was no restitution.
In 1666, John Romney, like many of his contemporaries, impoverished by exactions, was glad to sell to Thomas Foley, of Witley Court.A Victorian Romney.
Some seventy years ago, I was intimate with a Worcester law student named Romney, who came from the Teme Valley, and according to family tradition was off old local stock. I believe he was left representatives, and as the family have always lived in the district, it should not be difficult to trace so much of the pedigree as would bridge the gap of about a century, seperating my friend’s grandfather from Romneys the Royalists.
Romney Connections.
The Herald’s Visitations of Worcestershire disclose that the Knightwick Romney’s were a cadet branch of an amorial family, and intermarried with others who ‘bore arms.” These included the Actons of Burton Court in Lower Sapey, ancestors of the present Actons of Wolverton, near Pershore; and the Gowers of Woodhall, near Worcester. With both these interesting families we have met in previous strolls.
The Clents of Knightwick.
The Clents, who somewhere about the coming of the Stuarts bought the manors in Knightwick held in mediaeval times by the Priory of Little Malvern, and by the Mapnors, can be traced in the parish Register for more than a century. We have met with occasional references to them in neighbouring parishes; and they seem to have been of an Order very important in the social system of their period, composed of country squires whom Habington would have classed as of “the lesser kind,” and who supplemented ancestral rent-rolls by professional earnings as lawyers, estate agents and clergymen. Some of this class, like the Dowdeswells of Pull Court, near Tewkesbury, or the Bear crofts of Mere Hall, near Droitwich, built up large estates.
Among others whose names have come down to us were the Clents of Knightwick, the Burys of Bewdley, and cadet branches of the Lyttelton and Sandys families, settled at Worcester. With the last we met in our Ombersley “Stroll,” as descendants of “The Boy in Blue.”A Littleton Alliance.
These professional families not infrequently intermarried with those of the large landowners. We found such a connection, three centuries ago, between Dowdeswells and Winningtons; and somewhat earlier there was one between Clents and Littletons of Shelsley; whereupon the Clents entered their arms and pedigree at the Heralds’ Visitation of the County, and adopted Littleton as a Christian name, and “armiger” as a description. The parish register contains references to three “Litttleton” Clents, representing three successive generations.
Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 3 - Dorothy and Grace Lane--The Foleys--John Williams--F. W. G. Greswolde-Williams
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [2]The Clents were apparently hereditary lawyers, and much given to speculative investments. We have elsewhere found them buying, but not retaining properties. Thus they bought the advowson of Martley, but unlike the Vernon and Hastings families, soon resold. Knightwick alone was made an abiding possession, and that also ultimately went to the Foleys.
One of the Clents is mentioned in the County Sessions Roll of the time of James I, as Bailiff of the Hundred of Half-shire; a position equivalent to Deputy or Under Sheriff, with jurisdiction confined to a single Hundred.
The Clent estate, however, was sufficiently large to involve liability to a fine, for not accepting Knighthood at the coronation of Charles I; and it is interesting to note that in their time their properties retained names borne four or five centuries before. One which at the earlier date had given surname to the Pitt family, was still called “The Pitt House;” and another, which had then belonged to the mapnors, still bore their name.Littleton-Clent on Pitchcroft.
The first Littleton Clent was maternally a half-brother of John Washborne “the royalist,” of Wichenford Court; and like him and his other neighbours, Robert Blount, of Kenswick Manor, and John Romney, of Knightwick, became involved in the Cival war, and in resulting trouble with the Parliamentary Commissioners for compounding. As no charge was made against Clent until several months after the Battle of Worcester, we may assume that like the other three, he had ridden to the “Muster of Pitchcroft.” Indeed he was too young to have taken part earlier.
Hedging.
The Clents, however, had played for safety. Littleton’s father had throughout the war kept aloof; and while Littleton made no denial of “delinquency,” he was able to gave an answer, effective at least for the time being. He was a minor, and even if of age had nothing; for his father was still living. On this, the proceedings dropped, but were not forgotten.
Seven years later, in 1659, Littleton’s father having died, a pretext was found for their revival. He was “suspected,” like John Romney, of complicity in Sir George Booth’s rising; and on this ground, without any inquiry, but seemingly under the proceedings of 1652, his property was seized.
The sequestration cannot have lasted long “Restoration” was impending, and no great harm can have happened before the Commissioners found it necessary to withdraw. When Charles II returned a few months later they had gone; and Littleton Clent included in the new and very select list of Restoration Justices, took his seat on the Bench with Walshes, Salweys and Childs, as one of the magnates of the Teme Valley.The Passing of the Clents.
Shortly after the Foleys bought the Romney property, they also acquired the Clent estate.
The Clent name, however, continued to be recorded in the parish register until early years of the Eighteenth Century; when, at the old church of Knightwick, Colonel Edward Clent, son of Littleton, married Miss Fountaine; a union from which descend the present Fountaines of Narford Hall, Norfolk; whose pedigree is traced in detail in Burke’s Landed Gentry.The Lanes of Knightwick.
According to several authorities, the Lanes of Bentley in Staffordshire, who figure prominently in “The Boscobel pears,” as hosts and protectors of the fugitive King Charles, owned property at Knightwick. Two of them Dorothy and Grace, certainly made their home their, where they were intimate with the Clents; and their burials are recorded in the parish register. The name of Dorothy is on the parochial list of charitable benefactors.
This well attested local connection, explains a tradition, otherwise improbable, but long current, widely credited, and quoted by Mr. Noake, that King Charles, on his way from Boscobel and Bentley to Bristol, travelling as Jane Lane’s servant, passed through Knightwick; crossing the Teme by Knightsford Bridge en route for Ledbury; and that Jane and he putting up at the old “Talbot” Inn, near the bridge, Charles kept up his disguise by blacking boots for the visitors at the Inn.
The story does not fit in with orthodox versions of Charles’ route, but are any of them quite authentic? At all events it is as credible as Sir Walter Scot's; and the boot-blacking would have been quite in character with Charles’ adaptability.The “Pitmaston Duchess.”
The Foleys retained Knightwick for nearly two centuries, and on the break up of their estate, about a hundred years ago, sold this portion to John Williams, of Pitmaston, Worcester, High Sheriff of the County in 1823; a very eminent horticulturist, to whom man-kind is indebted for two fine pears, the Pitmaston Duchess and the Williams, which still enjoy world-wide popularity, and preserve his memory.
Pitmaston’s Garden Wall.
John Williams is still better remembered at Worcester for eccentricity. He was a full-crusted “Old Tory” of the days of George III, to whom the Reform Bill of 1832 meant the end of all things. Like the French emigré in Stanley Weyman’s “Chippinge” he foresaw “Days of Terror,” as in Paris in 1789; and dreamt of revolutionary Worcester mobs over-running Pitmaston. He could at least shut out the sight of a City, which had sent to Parliament two representatives to support the hateful Bill; and so soon as it became law, builders were set to work on a line of high walling, along the whole frontage of the Pitmaston property; which screened the house and grounds from observation, and from any view of the outside world; and the explanation of which furnished for many years a home upon which coachmen could enlarge to box-seat passengers travelling the Malvern Road. It was thus I first heard the story, in days before the coming of the railway, and when hundreds still living could remember the wall being built.
In Port Wine Days.
John Williams, like his contemporary, Colonel Newport, of Barbourne, Worcester (and of Hanley William, near Tenbury) was noted for his cellar of port wine. He lived to 1853, and in his later years as a recluse; and the wine that he had accumulated was after his death dispersed at an auction, long a subject of conversation in Worcester. The sale included a considerable quantity of the famous 1820 vintage, which Mr. Williams was known to have laid down when first bottled; and to which everyone professing to be a judge looked with expectancy; but alas! The “bin” had been neglected, many corks proved defective, much of the wine gone wrong and all “off-colour.” Still, here and there, a cork was sound, and the wine worthy of its reputation. Bold speculators took their chance, and secured lots at nominal prices, trusting to luck for occasional prizes. It was like a sweepstake on the Grand National. During the Sixties of last century, Williams’ “2” shared with “Newports ports” the honours of special banquets; the gamble adding to the interest; and failure of early attempts calling for perseverance in taste.
The Greswolde-Williams Family.
John Williams came of a Welsh family, who after a sojourn of two centuries in Herefordshire, migrated to Worcester in the reign of George II., and Williams married a sister of Edmund Meysey Wigley, of Shakenhurst, for many years M.P. for Worcester, of whom I wrote in my Bayton “Stroll,” and who (as related in the Witley “Stroll”) lost his seat in a freak contest, engineered by the future Viscount Dudley and Ward.
Through Williams’ wife’s family, their descendants became representatives of an old Warwickshire family, the Greswolde's, from whom they inherited “Malvern Hall,” Solihull; a view of which, by Constable, is in the National Gallery; and with it an important estate in proximity to Birmingham; and in recognition they have assumed the hyphenated style
“Greswolde-Williams.” Their late representative, Mr. Francis Wigley Greswolde Greswolde-Williams, High Sheriff 1906, was, seated at Bredenbury Court near Bromyard. His only son fell in the Great War.The Parish of Doddenham.
Doddenham, the more northerly of the twin parishes, lies immediately south of Martley, and is bounded east by Broadwas. To the west and south it is begirt by the River Teme, which at this point is forced into a great bend, by the obstruction of Ankerdine Hill, a cliff of about 570 feet. [I think he must have meant Osebury Rock]
The soil of Doddenham varies from alluvial loam of the river valley, to clay of the uplands; and the subsoil is marl. There is a considerable are of woodland; and much fruit is grown. The chief tillage crops are cereals and hops.
Fertility responds to geology – Habington, writing three centuries ago, referred to the village road as “a fowle and cumbersome stony way, separating land as bad as any, from pastures comparing with the best of the nation.”
In addition to the Worcester to Bromyard road, the parish is served by diverging ones, connecting with Martley, Wichenford and Kenswick.
The village of Doddenham, where formerly stood the o;d parish church of Saint Andrew, is about a mile east of Knightsford Bridge, and there is a hamlet on Ankerdine, chiefly a creation through centuries of squatters on the manorial waste.Ankerdine.
The outstanding feature of Doddenham is Ankerdine Hill.
Mr. Noake, who was a contemporary of Queen Adelaide, stated that it was a favourite resort of hers, when resident at Witley Court; but in his comparison of the view with that from Malvern he gave credit for extent, which would have been more exactly assigned to beauty.
A suggestion that the name commemorated the former retreat of an “anchorite,: has no historical or even legendary foundation; and its identity with that of sometime owners is inconclusive as to origin. Ankerdine may have given name to them.Ancient History of Doddenham.
Our earliest information as to Doddenham is that at the time of the Norman Conquest it was held by an English Franklin named Celmar; a free-man who could betake himself where he would, having no overlord save the King. As such, possibly as one who had fought at Hastings, and in any case of a class likely to be troublesome in insurrections, Celmar was dispossessed by the Conquerors, in favour of Gilbert Fitz-Turold; a Norman leader of importance, with whom we have previously met at Hadzor near Droitwich, Orelton, the Hanleys near Tenbury, Redmarly in Witley, at all of which he obtained grants direct from the Crown.
Fitz-Turold kept clear of the rebellion against William the Conqueror, which proved fatal to the Fitz-Osbernes of Hereford and their Teme Valley adherents. He was still in possession at the time of the Domesday Survey, but subsequently made an unlucky choice of sides, in the wars of Succession, and adherence to Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror’s eldest son, cost him his lands. The bulk of these, including Doddenham, became part of the great appanage of Henry Beauclerc’s natural son, the celebrated Earl Robert of Gloucester; who after his father’s death became Regent of England; and were inherited by his descendants, as part of their “Honour of Gloucester.”The Delamares.
Under the “Honour of Gloucester,” Doddenham was long held, as sub-servants, by the Delamare family, who gave their name to Tedstone Delamare on Sapey Brook, and with whom we met at the Hanleys. They include Peter Delamare, a notable statesman of the Thirteenth Century, and first recorded Speaker of the House of Commons.
Worcester Priory.
From the Delamares, Doddeham passed to the Mans family, and they from time to time made grants to the Prior and Monks of Worcester; which, with accretion from other quarters; were converted by the Priory into a distinct manor, and grew into the principal one in the parish.
The Staples and Washbournes.
Other portions of the Mans’ possessions passed before 1431 to the Staples of Martley, who at the same time were in possession of the Noak, the future home of the Martley Nashes; and still other part was granted to Malvern Priory.
A Marriage of Convenience.
It was about this time that the Washbournes of Wichenford Court lost their manor of Stanford-on-Teme which, under the marriage settlement of a daughter, their heiress-presumptive, had been carried to the Salweys, ancestors of the present Winningtons. Staples of Martley had an heiress-daughter, and it seems to have been planned between the two families that her inheritance should compensate the Washbournes for lost Stanford. Staples died before the contemplated marriage took place, leaving the daughter a minor; but with the concurrence of her guardian the union was carried out.
The Feudal Marriage Market.
The Sequel illustrates, as did an incident in the story of Kenswick, the feudal system of wardship, which prevailed until the Restoration. The Prior of Worcester, claiming over lordship of the Staples, brought an action against Washbourne for “carrying away” his ward, and for pecuniary injury by loss of the right to dispose of her in marriage. Washbourne disputed the overlordship, alleging that if any it was in the Priory of Malvern. In the event the Worcester Prior recovered damages, but the washbournes kept the lands.
Washbournes of Doddenham.
The lady survived her husband, and the contemplated addition to the Wichenford Estate was further postponed by a remarriage, which conferred a life interest in the Staples property on her second husband. Later it was altogether defeated, by a settlement on a younger son, as a provision for a cadet branch of the washbournes, established at Doddenham. This branch endured nearly as long as the senior branch at Wichenford Court; but like it decayed, when its possessions were dispersed by sales.
A Chapter Manor.
The property of Worcester Priory was on its dissolution, granted to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester; with whom it remained (save during the Commonwealth period) until in Victorian times transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissions.
The property of the Malvern Priory passed into lay hands, was acquired by the Clents, added to their Knightwick Manor, and following its fortunes into the ownershio of the Greswolde-Williams family.The Monks as Estate Managers.
Ankerdine, anciently Ancredham, was in Norman times a separate manor, and gave a family name to its owners; who, after holding for several generations, granted it to Worcester Priory; and records are preserved of a lease created by the Prior and monks in the second year of Richard II. (1377), of their two manors “in Doddenham” and “of Ankerdine,” of a kind similar to that which we found granted by the Bishop of the manor of Phepson, in Himbleton. The details throw interesting light on then prevailing conditions, and illustrate a practice now uncommon in England, but formerly frequent here, and still so on the Continent and in other countries overseas, under which the landlord of a farm lets it with live and dead stock, which the tenant undertakes to maintain.
The Priory lease was granted for eighteen years at a rent of £8 a year. The live stock included eight draught oxen (for Ploughing), and ten cows for dairying, but only one horse; four geese and a gander, and six hens and a cock; and the dead stock a “long wain ironed,” a cart, a plough and a harrow, while for winter consumption three “loads” of hay were left to the incoming tenant.
The single plough, as compared with eight found at Doddenham at Domesday, indicates that the Priory “manor” was at that time a comparatively small portion of the parish; and that a substantial part of the rent reserved, four fold the Domesday assessment of the entirety, was attributable to the farming stock, which the priory provided and valued at an aggregato value of about £13. The arrangement like the systematic purchase of the estates of prisoners for debt, indicates what smart men of business the monks were.Monastic Vineyard.
The field name “Vineyard,” still met with at Doddenham, indicates that there, as on several other of their manors, the monks of Worcester cultivated the vine.
The cost of oversea wine, and the difficulty of transport, particularly in time of war prompted utilisation of any sunny and sheltered spot, with soil of suitable character; and we may take it that such was found on the lower slope of Ankerdine, which in all three respects bears close resemblance to the monks’ “vineyard” at Pensax, and only differs from Continental ones in a lower temperature.
It is not likely that even in the hottest summers Doddenham yield wine of the best; but when a cargo from Bordeaux miscarried, it might prove a passable substitute.
Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 4 - The Talbot Inn--Sanatorium--Rosebury Rock--Bates Bush--Doddenham Church--Knightwick Chapel--Knightwick Church
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [3]A Chapter Tenant in the Civil Wars.
The Worcester Chapter records of their manor of Doddenham throw light on the measure meted to tenants, when Chapter estates were sequestrated by Parliament, at the close of the Great Civil War.
A sequestrated Chapter farm In Doddenham, having at the Restoration been recovered, a petition was presented to the Chapter by their former tenant, praying that his pre-war tenancy might be revived, and setting out that not only had the holding, long occupied by him and his family under the Chapter, and which was their livelihood, been ruthlessly treated by the Commonwealth officials, but that they had been personally maltreated, wounded, plundered, and turned out of doors.
We hear a great deal of the sufferings at that time of the sequestrated landowners, but those of disturbed tenants were probably not less, and the memory of them must have promoted the reaction against the Commonwealth, which restored the Monarchy.The Old “Talbot.”
The Talbot Inn, where King Charles is alleged to have blacked boots, which the “Merry Monarch,” if necessary, would have done with a smile, is one of the best known hostelries of the County. It is a favourite anglers’ house, for the Teme at Knightsford is reputed to abound in trout and grayling; and the position at the foot of Ankerdine, and close to the bridge-head, commands the traffic, whether on pleasure or business bent, between great parts of Worcestershire and Herefordshire. Few travellers, either way, dream of passing without propitiating the “Spirits of Flood and fell.” That at least, is my experience, extending over seventy years.
The situation, however, is not free from drawbacks; for Teme at this point, bursting through its gorge, is liable to sudden and raging floods, attaining a great height.
Calling on one occasion in Victorian days, I found the lower storey wrecked, and the ceiling lifted, by flood in which the bedsteads had been set afloat, and the innkeeper and his household placed in deadly peril.
The Talbot is of the Sixteenth Century, and doubtless named in honour of Lady De Lisle, a great Talbot heiress of that date, with large possessions in Worcestershire. It is half timbered, and though re-fronted some two hundred years ago, still retains original chimneystack.Fox’s Book of Martyrs.
Mr. Noake, in recounting experiences at Knightsford Bridge, describes an afternoon at the Talbot. He had intended ascending Ankerdine, for religious revivalists were holding a great “camp meeting” on the summit, and the prospect of an emotional service in so glorious a setting appealed to him; but throughout the afternoon rain fell pitilessly. The Talbot proved not unequal to the occasion, and provided a substitute for the service in “Fox’s Book of Martyrs.”
The County Tuberculosis Sanatorium.
Finely situated on the slope of Ankerdine, and looking down on the lovely gorge of the Teme, stands the County Tuberculosis Sanatorium, originally promoted by a gentleman then having business relations with Worcester, in graceful recognition of benefits received from residence on Ankerdine.
The Sanatorium commenced on a small scale, now according to the Post Office Directory, has accommodation for eighty-six patients.The Gorge of the Teme.
Sir Roderick Murchison, when investigating the Silurian system, took much interest in the geology of Knightwick and Doddenham, his remarks on which are illustrated by maps. These, he points out show that the Teme beneath Ankerdine escapes through a great fissure, “and at a point of extraordinary convulsion;” in proof of which he mentions that “on the left bank the Caradoc sandstone of Ankerdine is lifted up into a lofty hill, throwing off the Old Red Sandstone to the west; whilst on the right bank the rocks of the Silurian system being denuded and invisible for a short distance, are covered by a thick mass of conglomerate, of the New Red Stone of “Rosebury Rock.”
Murchinson on Rosebury Rock.
Of this rock, interesting to the botanists and geologists, as to lovers of natural beauty, Murchinson wrote:-
“Constituting the southern side of the gorge at Knightsford Bridge is a remarkable cliff called Rosebury Rock, the summit of which is about three hundred and fifty feet above the sea. At this spot the Old and New Red Sandstones are conterminous, being separated by only an alluvial meadow. The Northern face of Rosebury Rock is the finest vertical section of the coarse conglomerate near the base of the New Red, with which I am acquainted. The fragments vary from a large size to that of almonds, and are both rounded and angular; the greater number and largest consisting of a purple coloured concretionary trap, which also occurs in the hills of Martley, Berrow, Woodbury and Abberley, the northern prolongation of the Malvern ridge. The other fragments are chiefly referable to the Silurian system, and among them are quartz rock, indurated schist, and other altered rocks. The cement is partly calcareous, with a few veins of white calcareous spar. On a hasty inspection this rock might be mistaken for the trap rocks from which it has partly been derived, but the admixture of fragments of stratified rocks of the Silurian and Old Red systems distinctly proves its regenerated character.”The Outlet of Prehistoric Lake.
The gorge at Knightsford Bridge, Murchison points out is the only traverse fissure in the range of Silurian hills, extending from Malvern to Abberley, through which the waters of the north-west part of Worcestershire and of the north-east of Herefordshire, can find their way into the valley of the Severn; so that by shutting up this gorge, the whole of the Teme Valley between Tenbury and the Abberley Hills, might even now be suddenly converted into a lake; as deposits overlaying that area manifest that it was long past ages.
The Geology of Ankerdine.
Murchison also gives illustrations of Ankerdine Hill, and describes in detail its formation, Wenlock Limestone, traceable from south of Eastnor Park, and by way of Mathon and Cowleigh Park, extends for about fourteen miles, to within some half-mile south of the Teme gorge’ where the Carodoc Sandstone begins and overlays it and continues northward towards Martley; the central mass being Ankerdine, “whose highly-inclined strata dip to west and east; and whose north-west face constitutes the only division between the Old Red of Herefordshire and the New Red of Worcestershire.”
Ankerdine formations are charged with numerous fossils, many of which are classified by Murchinson; and he mentions that a thickly bedded grit on the eastern slopes is an intimate admixture of fine grains of white quartz and pink felspar; and that rents, faces and cavities in the rocks, are slightly coated by a film of hydrate of iron; the colour being a dingy purple; a formation which re-appears at Old Storridge.Folk Lore of Knightwick.
In Mid-Victorian times Worcester people became very familiar with “Bates’ Bush,” a landmark on the route to Bromyard; where the railway established one of its numerous termini, while held up for lack both of funds and of any contractor so confiding as to undertake completion and trust to luck for payment.
While the permanent way decayed, and Sheriff’s officers carried away anything detached, archaeologists had time to study local folk-lore, in the pages of Jabez Allies.
“Bates’ Bush” derived name from a suicide who, in accordance with ancient usage and with a popular ditty, was “Bur-i-ed at four cross-roads, with a stake in his side.”
The crossroads were near to Rosebury Rock; and the stake was a branch from a maple; which took root, and in Allies’ day, now nearly a century ago, had grown into an old tree, begirt by others of spontaneous growth, which the antiquary trusted to carry on the tradition.
Allies did not, however, rely exclusively on the saplings. He enriched the legend of Bates with many supplementary ones, vouching some by additions of names and dates.The Headless Man of Bates Bush.
One related that William Yapp, somewhere about the year 1800, returning at night from his father’s house at Alfrick Chapel, and on his way to Doddenham Hall, was passing Bates’ Bush, when his dog, a little in advance, came back out of Sandy Lane, howling mysteriously. Yapp, passing on, was scared by the appearance of a headless man, leaning with his back against the steep bank on Rosebury side of the lane; and himself ran for all he was worth.
This story, Allies notes, was related to him by Yapp’s sister. A place called “The Devil’s Pig Trough” was of ill repute as with such a name it deserved; and a man returning from near there was waylaid by a mysterious black dog, which worried him by sudden rushes and dodges all the way home.“A Mysterious Horror.”
Much about the same date as Yapp’s adventure, a Lulsley man named Ball visited a friend in Knightwick, and a son who went at night to fetch him home, was set on near Bates’ Bush by some “mysterious horror.” This Allies had from the son.
A man named Parry related that he had been frightened by a ghostly black pig, supposed to come from “The Devil’s Trough” and to be an associate of the Black Dog.Fairy Legends.
More romantic legends were of fairies frequenting Rosebury Rock; of a whir horse occasionally seen at night, passing swiftly as wind beside Teme at foot of the Rock; and of a beautiful girl in white, standing by roadside, at whom horses shied and bolted home.
Others told how Grimm, the gnome, in the character of a dog, wandered by moonlight around these romantic scenes; his customary rambles including Rosebury, Pig’s Trough, Grimsend, Bates’ Bush and Black’s Well.“Black Jack,” the Outlaw.
A more matter of fact story, but not less romantic, is of a fugitive, known as “Black Jack,” who, having escaped from a convict settlement, as French prisoners still sometimes do from Devil’s Isle, established and long maintained himself as an outlaw, in a cave high up the face of the Red Cliff. Of his agility and feats many anecdotes were long preserved; and he is said to have survived until about 1770. Presumably “Black’s Well” derived its name from him.
The Worcestershire Naturalists.
Knightsford Bridge has been a favourite excursion of the Worcestershire Naturalists Club, providing interest to members of varied tastes. Ankerdine and Rosebury Rock always furnish”finds” but the explorers have approached by various routes, always making their way to what Mr. Noake styled “The good old Talbot.”
In 1871 they came by way of Broadwas and Doddenham; and attractions included “Doddenham Dingle” [where they sampled a medicinal spring called “Nipple Well” and “Devil’s Leap,” which their editor regarded as deserving its name. In another dingle, travertine was discovered; and near to Knightwick church a :Mistletoe Oak,” a great “ find.”
In 1888 the route was on the other side of Teme, by way of Lulsley, with visits to Red Cliffe, but no mention of “Black Jack” (a grave oversight), and to Bates’ Bush and Rosebury Rock, which proved a botanists’ “Paradise.”
The Club’s “Transactions” afford much useful guidance to the other visitors; who, however, must not expect to find the mistletoe.Doddenham Old Church.
Everyone, nowadays, sees with regret the demolition of an old building; but even Mr. Noake shed no tears over the ancient churches of Knightwick and Doddenham. It is mainly to his visit, of about eighty years ago, that we owe our knowledge of them; and he had little to say in their favour.
Doddenham church, dedicated to Saint Andrew, and which stood adjacent to the village, in an abandoned graveyard, he compared to a small barn, “a mere shell open to the tiles,” and although dating from Norman times displaying little evidence of antiquity, except general decay and an original massive round font. All inscriptions had been smothered with lime-wash, and even an old “table of benefactions” was gone, although a tradition of it lingered among the poor.Knightwick Old Church.
While Doddenham church was hidden among trees, and with difficulty discovered, Knightwick old church was half smothered among nettles and unkept graves; and Mr. Noake learnt that the neglected burial ground had even remained unconsecrated for many centuries. Since the closing of Doddenham grave-yard, it had served for both parishes, and an eccentric old grave-digger, who controlled it, sorted out the dead, planting Doddenham bodies apart, and non-parishoners by themselves in an odd corner. Samaritans were not to rest in contact with Jews. “All,” however, “were fish that came to his net,” and as a man of business, with livelihood to earn, he was always kindly in enquiries after invalids and as to where they wished to be buried.
The congregation, whom Mr. Noake found awaiting in the porch the arrival of the rector, retailed in his hearing all current family and paroenial gossip; and when service began, the clerk led off the singing with preliminary solos. For the christenings he gave out a special local hymn, in praise of large families, said to be not always approved by fathers with wages of seven shillings a week.The Mortuary Chapel.
The old church of Knightwick, which was dedicated to Saint Mary the Virgin, was a black and white half-timbered building, with porch of some merit; and stood South of Teme, about a mile east of Knightsford Bridge. Ordinary services there were discontinued in 1856, when a new church was built to serve both Knightwick and Doddenham, but being more convenient to the churchyard the old one continued in use for funerals until 1879, when it was pulled down and replaced by a mortuary chapel on the same site.
Lost into the floor of this chapel is portion of the Twelfth Century font of the old church; and affixed to its wall an old memorial of two of the Lanes of Knightwick, Grace and Dorothy, nieces of the celebrated Jane, of the “Boscobel Papers,” who both died in 1721.The New Church at Knightsford Bridge.
The new church of the united parishes stands on the Doddenham side of the river, near to Knightsford Bridge, and is dedicated to St. Mary and St. Andrew, the patrons of the two old churches. The situation is convenient to both parishes, being centrally situate and within a few yards of the parish boundaries; and the stone used in the erection was local, part from Ankerdine Hill and part from Bringsty Common, on the way to Bromyard.
The twelfth Century font was brought from Doddenham old church; which was demolished.
The architect was Mr. Perkins, of Worcester, surveyor to the Dean and Chapter, the style “Early Decorated,” and the result pronounced by Mr. Noake “a pleasing example of a country church.”
There are two bells; and the church plate includes cup and paten of 1676 brought from Knightwick old church. An old parish chest has also been preserved.
A brass tablet records the names of parishoners of the two parishes who fell in the Great War.
Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 5 - James Stillingfleet--Richard Kilvert--J. B. Wilson, registers of Knightwick & Doddenham--Bishop Giffard
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [4]Church Lights.
On the suppression, under Henry VIII., of Chantries, a small quantity of land was found to have been given for “lights” in Knightwick Church, and for “obits,” and, being confiscated as for superstitious uses, was included in the grant by Queen Elizabeth to the Grammar School of Martley, doubtless in lieu of some old endowment of the school which had been otherwise disposed of.
Old-Time Burials.
In remote times, Doddenham buried its dead at Martley; and a small annuity, which at a later date was paid from Doddenham church to Martley was probably compensation for loss of burial fees, on the discontinuance of this practice. In Commonwealth times this annuity was found to be received by a layman, but how acquired by him was not explained.
The Advowsons.
Both Advowsons, Knightwick and Doddenham, originally belonged to the manors, and as such became vested in Simon de Mans, as underlord. He, about 1177, gave both to the Priory of Worcester, and the grant was confirmed by his grandson in 1231.
They were enjoyed by the Priory for three and a half centuries, and on its dissolution were, in 1542, granted to the Dean and Chapter of Worcester, as the then newly constituted Cathedral authority.Commonwealth Inquisition.
An Inquisition in Commonwealth days reported that the cure of Knightwick had always been supplied by the Minister of Doddenham, and that the two churches were ‘neere about equal bigness and fit to be united together.”
For the next two centuries they were held together, without being united; but in 1856 were formally merged in a single rectory, officially entitled “Knightwick and Doddenham.” This style reversed the order of precedence designated by the Commonwealth Commissioners, and the choice seems to have been a matter of mere taste and fancy; but it is unavoidable in such a case that one of two names should come first, and in other respects perfect equality between the two parishes was preserved. Both old churches were abandoned; and while the new church was built in Doddenham, the rector was located in Knightwick; and both very near to where the parishes meet. Nothing could have been fairer.
In 1928 a further reorganisation was arranged, under which “Knightwick with Doddenham,” while retaining parochial status, is served by the rector of the adjacent parish of Broadwas.Claim to Kenswick.
I observe in the Victoria History, a statement that Kenswick was formerly a chapelry of Knightwick, but trace no authority. The foundation may be that at some unnamed date, the rector for the time being of Knightwick undertook to serve the Chapel of Kenswick.
An Ejected Rector.
Thomas Taylor, presented to the Rectory by the Dean and Chapter in 1644, a time when Worcestershire was in Royalist hands, was deprived when Roundheads obtained Ascendancy; possibly because at the date of his appointment, Parliament had already decreed the abolition of Cathedral Chapters, and Taylor’s nomination was therefore regarded as irregular. Matthew Boulton, who was appointed to act as “Minister” in place of Taylor, on the contrary remained at the Restoration undisturbed, and recognised as Rector.
He was described as an honest man, an able scholar, and a sound divine; and complying with the Act of Uniformity, retained the preferment until 1674.
“An Earthly Eden.”Mr. Noake, writhing some four score years ago, made special mention of Samuel Pritchett, a former under-master of the Worcester King’s School, and who as such prepared many celebrated men for the Universities. In 1734, he was pensioned with the Rectory of Knightwick and Doddenham, and the comparative ease tending to longevity, held it for thirty-seven years.
He occupied his leisure in rebuilding the parsonage, and laying out the grounds; and being a man of taste, as well as learning, so utilised the advantages of site, that he was said to have made “An Earthly Eden;” which he had the rare reward of enjoying in maturity.Twice Rector.
James Stillingfleet, who followed Pritchett in the rectory, was great-grandson of the celebrated Seventeenth Century Bishop Stillingfleet, and descendant of a line of cathedral dignitaries. From them he inherited by custom a prebendal stall, the tenure of which for forty-five years in due course entitled him to a grave in the cathedral. He is described by Burton as eminent for scholarship, which we will hope strengthened claims of birth.
Stillingfleet figures curiously in the Diocesan Register, as twice Rector of Knightwick. In 1780 he resigned in favour of Richard Kilvert, a youthful cousin of Bishop Hurd, who had been brought into the diocese as his kinsman’s private chaplain, and for whom no suitable parochial preferment was at the moment available; but for whom, as supplementary to one (if obtainable) the Bishop had secured a Prebendal Stall in the Cathedral.
Seven years later (in 1793) on the much more lucrative Rectory of Alvechurch falling vacant, Kilvert moved there and Stillingfleet resumed Knightwick.Richard Kilvert.
Of Richard Kilvert we have a brief account in the Bishop’s biography, published in 1860. He was a son of a “reputable” Shropshire yeoman, and educated at Shrewsbury and Cambridge, where at the age of twenty-three he became a Fellow of his College; and his Worcester “Prebend,” in his thirteenth year, without previous parochial experience, was obtained from the King direct, by personal solicitation of the Bishop, who left on record the gratification afforded him by the royal favour.
When in 1891 Hartlebury fell vacant, it was added; and the chaplain, now adequately provide for and seated at the park gates of the Castle, remained the life-long right-hand of the Bishop and comfort of his age.
His biographer makes for him no claim to genius; but indicates qualities ideal for his life’s work tastes, similar to the Bishop’s manners unobtrusive and refined, a vein of “coy humour,” and love of literature.
He is notable in the Worcester Diocese as the founder of a local clerical family, rivalling in continuance the Stillingfleets; and whose representatives might be found in the Worcester College Green in the memory of many still living.Another Link with the “King’s School.”
Mr. Noake mentions another Rector of Knightwick, who like Pritchett earned the preferment by service at the Worcester King’s School. The Rev. O. Fox, who held the rectory in Mid-Victorian times, had been headmaster of the school ; and at Knightwick supplemented Pritchett’s work by promoting the creation of a new church worthy of his predecessor’s parsonage.
As a side-line he also organised a “Dame School,” for children to small to walk to more populous centres. It is curious that the parish should have owed so much to Worcester Schoolmasters.A Victorian “Man’s Parson.”
Joseph Bowstead Wilson, rector from 1881 to 1909, was a North-countryman, of a family notable as agriculturists; and of a breeding which made him at home among a rural population, and as President of a Farmer’s Club. He was in many ways an ideal country parson.
In youth an athlete, he represented Cambridge in the University Boat race of 1863; as a master of Bromsgrove School, he kept in sympathy with youth and sport; he was for many years a mainstay of County Archery; and, as a member of the County Council, an earnest promoter of Agricultural Education.
He was one of the promoters of the Worcestershire Historical Society, and its Secretary until his death; and his services were recognised by election as F.S.A.
At Knightwick he edited a publication of the registers of Knightwick and Doddenham.
His zeal for archaeology manifested itself in one of the best private collections of local books in the County.
As a parish priest he was zealous, capable and tactful; and was withal a man of business and affairs and of infinite charm.The Making of England.
The introduction of Mr. Wilson’s publication of the parish registers of Knightwick and Doddenham gives calculations indicating how much rural parishes contributed to the growth of the English race.
During rather less than three centuries, ending 1812, the baptisms registered numbered 1558, but the burials only 299. A surplus of 1259, or more than four-fifths, migrated, to help in building up industrial and colonial Britain.
The birthrate per family throughout the same period averaged nearly five and a half.The Unconsecrated Churchyard.
Mr. Noake’s mention of the long unconsecrated churchyard, is confirmed by the parish register; which under date 1691 contains an entry by the then rector, “the churchyard not consecrated.” This may, however, refer to a comparatively new churchyard, provide when the parish ceased to bury at Martley; and pending consecration parishioners seem to have carried their dead to neighbouring parishes, where they had family connections.
An Old Church Inventory.
Mr. J. B. Wilson included in his print of the parish registers an inventory, which in 1932 attained its bicentenary, describing in detail the “church goods” of Knightwick. A memory of the Clents is preserved by mention of ”One large knife with an agate handle, given by Mr. Clent,” probably the cautious parent of the royalist Littleton Clent, “to cut the bread for the Sacrament.”
The inventory went into very minute particulars, including “a bottle screw.” Its accuracy is attested by the churchwardens of 1732, one of whom, being unable to write, affixed his mark.Burial “In Woollen.”
Under date 22 March, 1689, the parish register records a burial “in woollen” in accordance with the Act passed by Parliament to revive the woollen industry. The dead was a daughter of the rector, which explains the precise compliance with a law not genre rally obeyed; and care was taken to perpetuate in the Register the testimony of the Churchwardens, and to ensure that they could both write their names.
A Tithe Dispute and Happy Ending.
A dispute between the rector and a parishoner, was in Tudor times referred to two neighbours; the parson of Cotheridge and a Pychard (presumably of the “Sapey Pychard” stock) as representing both clerical and lay interests in a moot point.
The arbitrators awarded to the parson in settlement “twenty load of dried wood,” evidently tithe on a fall of coppicing, the growth of a series of years; and this was to be from”as near as possible to his house;” so he had to fetch it.
The disputants were also to forgive one another “all manner of quarrels and debates from the beginning of the world;” and thenceforth be “lovers and friends.”
Tithe collection in kind was a complicated business, and occupied large part of the time and attention of a parish priest; but Knightwick people at least managed better than Oddingley folk; and one will trust that the yule logs prompted love and friendship.“Cummin.”
Cummin a crop of which punctilious Phariers made a point of paying tithes, notwithstanding or perhaps because of its negligible worth, figures as an object of nominal value in the story of Knightwick and Doddenham.
When Bishop Giffard,of Worcester, treated with the Prior and Monks of Great Malvern; and obtained their manor in Knightwick, there was apparently some measurable inequality in the exchange, and the wily Bishop covered this up, by throwing in a pound of cummin to balance; so that when in after years the Priory complained of unfair treatment, the Bishop could remark, “You forget the cummin.” The bargain seems to have held good.
Similarly, when the Priory of Worcester, obtained from William Mans a grant of part of his manor, the Monks undertook to pay an annual pond of cummin. This would enable them, should the bargain be challenged by his heirs as inequitable, to suggest a purchase for value; for no one could say what cummin might now cost, as if any one wanted to buy, there could be no market quotation. I have never found “cummin” mentioned in a dealing between two laymen. It was an ecclesiastical monopoly.Parochial Charities.
The principal parochial charities are gifts of the Greswolde-Williams family, which have been large and include six almshouses in Doddenham built and endowed in 1890, by Mr. John F. Greswolde-Williams, as old-age provision for poor inhabitants of Doddenham, Knightwick, and Lulsley, two to be appropriated to each of the three parishes. In Mr. John F. Greswolde-Williams’ memory, and in fulfilment of his intentions, his cousins, Captain Suckling and Miss Baynton, in 1892, built and endowed a home for a parish nurse, to serve the same three parishes. Mr. Williams also founded with £1,000 a clothing club for Doddenham and Knightwick; and bequeathed a similar sum to the Church of England School in Doddenham.
Some minor charities of small aggregate amount, which are distributed in doles, include a gift of Dorothy Lane, the niece of the famous Jane.
Mr. Edward Henry Hill, son of a former M.P. for Worcester, bequeathed £3,000 in aid of the Knightwick Sanatorium.The Domesday Survey.
The Domesday Survey found Knightwick and Doddenham with an aggregate of twenty two tenants, large and small, a miller, four “cottagers” (presumably landless labourers) and two “herdsmen,” who were probably serfs; making altogether twenty nine families; and when Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, nearly five hundred years later, there were but twenty eight. Throughout those long centuries, population had remained stationary.
Of course the “Black Death: had intervened, and there had been intermittent minor “Plagues,” after which numbers must have shown actual and sometimes substantial declines; but the permanent atrophy was attributable to lack of development. The two parishes stagnated.
Subsequent to the Tudor period, the population of Knightwick took a spurt; as that of some other Teme Valley districts, where we have found explanation attributed to introduction of hop-culture; and like cause may have had little effect. But when Bishop North, in Dr. Nash’s day, counted heads, he found ‘what had been gained on the swings had been lost on the roundabouts;” and owing to a falling off in Doddenham, the total of the two parishes was still much the same.
In later times there have been fluctuations, due to changing and sometimes temporary circumstances; or perhaps time of year at which census taken; and at Doddenham numbers have been much swollen by inmates and staff at the Sanatorium. Allowing for these, normal population seems to have doubled since Dr. Nash’s time, and at that level to be very steady.Developments at Domesday.
Eleven ploughs regularly employed at domesday, must have tilled more than the present area of arable; the chief change being in Doddenham, where the inferior land noted by Habington, had been allowed to go down.
Knightwick with Doddenham Vol 6 - Water Mill--Ann Bibbs-- William Mucklowe--Admiral R. S. D. Cuming
KNIGHTWICK WITH DODDENHAM [5]A water mill found at Domesday, and which was a valuable one, was in the thirteenth Century acquired by the Worcester Monks, who, like most monastic bodies, had a craving for mills, then one of the soundest of investments, the trade being based on manorial monopoly, and revenue collected “at the source.” This mill may have been the same, or on the same site, as that mentioned in the current Post Office Directory.
The Domesday valuation of the two manors was sixty-two shillings a year, of which a sixth was attributed to the mill; and this in present currency would be about equal to £750, or approximately ten shillings and acre. The Land Tax assessment indicates, that in Queen Anne’s time the value, in currency of that day, had more than doubled, which as well as obvious further growth, may, like the increased population of Knightwick, have been due to hop cultivation.Knightwick and Doddenham in early Stuart Times.
The Worcestershire Quarter Sessions Roll of Three Hundred Years ago, contains many references to Doddenham and Knightwick, and particularly to the former, which was much the more populous.
House Shortage.
A curious case in 1619, arising out of house shortage, illustrates the elasticity of law and practice in that period. We have previously met with applications to Justices to order a parish to provide necessary housing; but Ann Bibbs of Knightwick, went a step further. Her Landlord, William Mucklowe, probably of the Worcester family then interested in Martley, “threatened to turn her out of house,” and Ann asked the Justices “for an order restraining him.”
Unemployment.
Another case arose out of unemployment. In 1639, the parish officers, having on hand an unemployed boy, called upon a yeoman farmer to provide him work and maintenance as an apprentice; thereby killing two birds with one stone, relieving the parish from expense and ensuring to the boy training in a useful occupation. The yeoman objecting, was hauled before the Justices, and doubtless taught his duty to the community.
“Licensed Bakers.”
In 1635 and 1637 we get indications of the control exercised over cooks, bakers and lodgers. The constable certified in 1635 that one baker was licensed to sell bread “according to the Statute,” and two years later that there were neither cook nor baker carrying on in business in the parish of Doddenham; but that “Mary Chissall lodges and harbours a suspected person, who is a drunkard and common swearer, and doth not come to the church.” Evidently a suitable man to be deported.
The same certificate evidences the powers exercised by constables on their own authority. Cornelius Joiner, “ a vagabond,” had been “punished and handed on from constable to constable, until he got to where he was born,” in a remote part of Herefordshire. “Hiking” was not encouraged in the “good old times.”A Village Nuisance.
In 1619 the shadow of “the plague” was over the land, and we learn the terror that it inspired; as well as the lawless arrogance which authority was apt in remote districts to develop in local officials.
William Mucklowe, evidently the same who threatened to turn Ann Bibb “out of house,” was suspected of himself harbouring “one sick of the plague;” when his neighbours entreated him to keep at home, and promised to supply him with necessaries; but Mucklowe wilfully and violently “pressed into all companies and in the Church thrust himself into other men’s seats,” at the risk of spreading infection. His conduct in church brought ecclesiastical censure, but “he obstinately and wilfully stood excommunicated,” snapping his fingers.
Appeal voiced by one of the Clents of Knightwick, was made to the Archdeacon Swaddon, in his dual capacity of church dignitary and County Justice; and the Archdeacon, as Justice, issued a warrant for Mucklowe’s arrest, but the constable, a veritable incorrigible, on being shown the warrant, denied Swaddon’s signature, declaring that it was "only a forgery by the curate.”
Thereupon the Archdeacon reported all the facts to Quarter Sessions; and we may take it that law and order were vindicated.A Village Minstrel.
There were occasional, though infrequent breaches of the licensing laws. In 1606 three generations
before the date assigned by Scott to his “Last Minstrel,” Francis Downe of Doddenham, kept one , “ a lewd and bad person,” as I daresay the parish constable would have described Scott’s “harper.” At Downe’s house which was unlicensed, this “bard” played on holy days, which now-a-days one style “Bank Holidays,” and even “on Sabbaths during prayer time,” and the attraction of the music, it was complained, drew “men’s sons and servants,” not from public worship, but “from their business,” and it was suggested might be responsible for the loss of “two very good surplices,” missing from the church.Trade Regulations.
In 1634 a case was reported of breach of the laws regulating employment in crafts. Samuel Sinton, of Doddenham, was found “exercising the craft or mystery of weaving, without having been apprenticed for seven years;” and was dealt with by the Justices as offender against public law.
Highway Reforms.
In the same year there was a wholesale aggregation of offences against the laws; the various cases explaining the standards of compulsory labour on parish roads. The liability of farmers was regulated by the extent of their, “plough land,” at the rate of one carriage and horse for each plough; while day labourers gave their own services, with pick and shovel. Each might be called on for six days work, without payment.
We learnt from Habington, that at that time the village road was “a fowle and cumbersome stony way;” and the repairs seem to have been so heart-breaking, that the villagers “struck.” When summoned by the highway surveyors to do statutory repairs, some “came not at all,” others for four days instead of six, or with one carriage instead of two.
As a result the parish was “presented” for bad roads, to the highway surveyors being fined by Quarter Sessions, in self-defence had to “present” no less than fourteen parishoners, who must have been almost all the adult male population.The “Pass” to Herefordshire.
The public importance of the “pass” at Knightsford Bridge, seems to have been much stressed by the County authority. Repeated prosecutions dealt with defective state of this route, lack of repair to roads or encroachments on them.
No Recusancy.
Recusancy was unknown. On this point the constable reported, “For recusants, Jesuits, Seminaries or any such like in our liberty, I know not of any.” The parishoners might be “royalist” but they were not Romanists.
Wars in the Soudan and China.Admiral Robert Stevenson Dalton Cuming, whose address “Turnpike House,” perpetuates memory of the old toll bar, saw active service 48 years ago, as a lieutenant on the famous “Falcon,” in operations in the Red Sea connected with the war in Sudan. Sixteen years later he was called to serve in the China War in command of the “Hermione;” and was named in despatches; and in 1915 promoted Admiral. As an officer of the Naval Reserve, he again served throughout the European War and was awarded the D.S.O and C.B.E.
A Stray Meadow.
Observers are often puzzled by the many outlying fragments of Worcestershire, or of Worcestershire parishes; and history mentions on the authority of a Barneby of Brockhampton, a detached portion of Knightwick, a meadow of some half-dozen acres, lying quite apart. Although in Worcestershire and in Knightwick Parish, it is surrounded on every side by the Herefordshire Parish of Whitbourne. It has “gone a stray.’
Irregularities of this kind are results of ancient ownerships. When, in early times, manors were in course of foundation, fields were grouped according to ownership, without much regard to contiguity; and these patch-work manors became parishes.
Scattered manors were similarly grouped by a common owner in a feudal barony, without regard to County boundaries.
Thus we find the descendants of Urso d’ Abitot attaching to his barony of Elmley Castle, in Worcestershire, manors geographically situate in Gloucestershire, Warwickshire or Herefordshire; and the Bishops of Worcester incorporating similar ones in their “Hundred of Oswaldslowe” which was their episcopal barony.
Automatically, as parts of a Worcestershire barony or a Worcestershire “hundred,” these outlying manors became part of Worcestershire; and smaller outlying units were recognised as portion of the parish to which owners attached them; and thus our County boundary became fringed, as a garment with tattered bordure, and Knightwick was left with an outlying meadow geographically in Herefordshire.
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