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28. Craftsmen's Cottages.

The remaining cottages were all on the largest manor. The owners of the A manor had divided their Cropredy estate into three groups before 1570 thereby creating a widows entitlement to a third of the property and the sons two thirds. The farm sites remain on their third (Fig.1.3, p11) but the two mills and some of the cottages do not always stay in the same group.

There is little evidence, unless it comes from wills, or a deed of 1681, to show what land was attached to these cottages. The Enclosure Award cannot help because, except for Group three which were sold off in 1681, the rest were divorced from their land. The ancient rights of access to a cow common being replaced in 1775 by a piece of land called the Poors Ground (p225).

In Group One most of the cottages were near the church. To the south of the church, possibly on land once part of the Green, were: Palmers at [59] and Hyrens at [56], both on the west side of Hello. In the upper town all within yards of each other were the Watts [27] alongside Newstreet Lane and on an "island" between the top of Church Street and the High Street were three other cottages tenanted by Ladd [40], Bostock [41] and Sutton [42].

The Group Two cottages have already been described in Chapter 25. The timber cottages in Church Street were part of the A manor farm [50], but sold off in 1776. The upper mill which was once part of this group was sold off in 1681.

When extra small holdings were added, or recreated after 1570, there were at least twelve, if not more, stone cottages newly built or replacing an earlier dwelling on the A Manor. These form Group Three which included houses attached to the upper and lower Cropredy mills. As the mill expanded in the seventeenth century Shotswell's [1a] stone house was built near the lower mill and Palmer's House [1]. Several properties were added near the church, and if the map (Fig.27.6) is looked at it will be noticed that all the A manor cottages were within a short distance from the church on sites unsuitable for farms, with the exception of [60] below the church. Squeezed between Hello and Round Bottom were the collarmakers Pare and Carter [58 & 57] who had their business below the church. At the east end of the churchyard, but across Round Bottom and just above the river Cherwells high flood level were four sites on a triangle of land. Three went to the larger manor [52-54] and one to the College [55]. All had their close reaching to the river bank. The north one was very small but Bokingham's at the south end had the advantage of the wide base of the triangle. The first two cottages were built under one roof and later made into one good property with two hearths [52 & 53]. Evans [54] on the middle site did not last. To the north of the church at the top of Church Street was the small cottage belonging to Rawlins [45], and Fennys [43] across the street to the rear of the vicarage. On the edge of the A manor demesne close were four properties, three long house types [36, 38 & 39] dealt with in Chapter 26, and Breedon's [37]. All this group appear in the 1681 deed and afterwards in the tithe records. In 1775 their tithes were not redeemed for they had insufficient land to do so, and the vicar's tithe books continued to record them paying their dues.

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None of Group one have survived. All of Group two have remained, except the mill which moved into Group three. Group three had a better chance when the owners were occupiers, but even here owners could be bought out. The three [52-54] to the east of Round Bottom suffered from the arrival of the canal and Fenny's was merged into the vicarage's new vegetable garden in 1814. Palmers and Hyrens from Group one being alongside the new vicarage were also demolished about the same time. Suffolks [60] farm suffered the same fate and vanished under vicar Ballard's trees.

Eleven of the twelve late sixteenth century newcomers to Cropredy had a cow common and some ley land and a little arable as Huxeley, Tanner and Elderson did (ch. 26). All this was allocated before the 1589 Act requiring four acres to each new cottage. Few cottages in Cropredy could boast of four acres attached to their copyhold. Land must be found by the tenant. This was to cause great hardship when little or no land was available after the 1775 Enclosure Award.

A few artisans' cottages in Cropredy were bigger than Vaughan's of Church Lane [23]. He described himself as a yeoman and being farmers had to go with the farm properties. On the A manor if the cottage did not have any timber features, or was not a long-house-type they have had to be looked at cottage by cottage in one of the three groups mentioned above. A fourth Group was made up of the B. manor cottages which fell into a natural group of their own and have already been dealt with in Chapter 27.

Tenants in Group One.

Palmers of Hello [59].

1614: Thos pallmer ux ijd....1624: Thomas Palmer et uxor ijd

..........maryan pallmer..ijd...............Richard Palmer..............ijd

..........................................................Marrian Palmer.............ijd

The average in the household for the 8 listed years was 3.5.

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Thomas Palmer was one of the fortunate sons who was drawn by lot to attend the school. There were two sets of Palmers both of whom were millers and each had families in which the younger sons must go out and make some sort of a living other than milling. The Thomas Palmer who lived in Hello had not been apprenticed to a miller. He may have had a milk business and yet he was called a labourer, so he obviously worked for others as well. They lived below the churchyard. Between their house and the church was the homestall [60] which the Rose's had left to John Suffolk. Below Palmer's house was the smaller cottage and cowshed belonging first to the Hyrens and then the Woods. The three properties being built on the former Green. A curve in the western boundary of Suffolk's yard was for some reason also accessible to the Parsonage Close (1) as well as the smaller field next to Palmers (2). Could this represent a watering and did Palmer's or Suffolk's lease the second close (2)?

Three Properties in Hello.

To the east across Hello passage lived the Pares [58] and Carters [57], both collarmakers. Hello was never very wide and came off Round Bottom up to a church gate (G) and stile (S). The stile which was to the east of the gate was later replaced by a stone wall. The eastern side of Hello at the church end acquired a length of brick wall some time after 1800. Look for the initials I. B. for John Borton.

The Palmers [59] lived in a stone two and a half storey cottage with a barn attached. It lay tucked along the back of the narrow site with the well situated between [60] and Palmer's north wall, possibly serving the three properties. The cottage consisted of a hall where they ate and a kitchen which not only had the chimney and stairs, but was the hub of their business. Russells [13] and Lucas [2] also reversed the rooms in this way. Here they not only cooked and brewed, but used it as the milk house. The kitchen cannot have been large for one coffer, a bolting hutch, a "dough cimer," two old tubs and an "otemele" basket for bread making are stored in the chamber over the kitchen (p671). They had once all slept in the two upper chambers. A truckle bed being kept under the standing bed in the Hall Chamber. Thomas had added cocklofts for storage, or for the children's beds when Aunts had to come home to look after them. Over the stairs they found room for their precious malt mill. There were two inventories left for this site:

Thomas Palmer: October 1631 .................John Palmer: June 1634

Halle Hall

Citchin Kitchen

Chamber over Citchin............................... Chamber over kitchen

Chamber over the hall............................... Chamber over the hall

Over the stayres

Tooe cockloftes

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The family was quite large. Thomas and Ellen nee Mosely had three boys and two girls from 1594 up to her death in 1607. The first three children were spaced at over three year intervals giving them a good start. The fifth baby Ann came quicker giving the baby Francis only a year's nursing. Ann did not have even that for her mother Ellen died when she was eleven months old. Five children in thirteen years of marriage.

The aunts Marian and Catherine kept the house going for four more years. They had either been called back to help, or remained there working from home. They were still around in 1631 so they could have been taking it in turns to work away and then return to Cropredy. Their brother Thomas was to marry again in 1611 and Bridget Mole gave birth to three children. Six of Thomas's children survived to be mentioned in the wills. The household was not a nuclear one for they needed the care the aunts gave to the children and in return they kept their rights to live in the family home. The eldest son John had a life on the copyhold.

Very much part of this extended family were the three cows at one time increased to five. Did Palmer have other contacts with the "cotengers" by taking their milk into his milk house to make butter or cheese? In 1631 they had five cows and a calf, a mare and poultry. What other tasks besides collecting "cotengers" tithes were Thomas and John called upon to do? The women when not labouring did their spinning on both woollen and linen wheels, but whether just for themselves or for profit is not known. The home brewing, butter making and possible delivering of their milk and produce would also be their work. The Palmers had a mare, but no mention of a vehicle, though they could still hire themselves out with a horse for various tasks about the town from ploughing to delivering.

Pigs were looked after by the children. These would be partly raised on the whey from butter making. One batch of hogs seized the opportunity to escape up Hello to forage in the churchyard. This caused an outcry for apart from the fact that even if the vicarage horse was not grazing there, it could have been closed off for hay. The grave stones had not then begun to cover the grassed yard. Besides if the pigs had not been ringed they could have caused great distress to a family whose relation had been recently buried, so the church wardens had no alternative, but to present the Palmers and William Plant for a similar offence at the Church Court in 1621. Although they kept pigs the Palmers have no salting trough or bacon in the house, so these must be for sale. Like most households there were hens roaming around their own grass yard as well as the younger children. There appears to have been no chance of sending another scholar to Williamscote after attending a petty school, but the eldest John must have been taught to do the milk books for like his father he had desperate debts owing to him in his book.

In 1631 an epidemic swept through the towns of Cropredy and Bourton so that seventeen people died from May to August. It appears to have started in Cropredy at William Hill's in Church Lane [20]. The whitbaker and his wife were poor. First his wife died followed by the baker, indeed the week they died eight people were buried. Had the disease come to his cottage from William Brasse a wayfaring person from county "Durram" coming to beg a loaf? Brasse died just twenty days before Hill's wife. Also to die was Thomas Devotion the husbandman [3] and the woolwinder and dealer Christopher Cleredge with his wife from Bourton, both buried in one grave (p166). Had they met William Brasse on the road or caught it at the market? Sixteen days after the Cleredge's burial Robert Robins [26], yeoman, was seeing to the writing of his own will and his burial was soon followed by George Hopkins, another yeoman of Bourton, who lived next to Bourton's old chapel. Within a month Bridget Palmer [59] the milk producer's wife died, followed four weeks later by her husband Thomas and after twenty days his sister Catherine.

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This was bad enough, but then his thirtyfive year old son John, who ten months previously had at last married Alice, lost his young bride. Had Alice Palmer died in childbirth lowered by nursing the sick, or had the disease infected her too? They buried Alice six weeks after Aunt Catherine [59]. Others died including Charles Allen [44] who had witnessed Robins' will and then died without making one himself. Would no-one risk coming to write it down, or had he had an accident, nothing to do with the fever? We shall never unfortunately know, but there must always have been the fear of a spreading fever.

In the young widower John Palmer 's inventory he had a christening sheet not part of his father's estate. Had John's sisters and aunts thrilled at the prospect of John's Alice having a baby, made the sheet in preparation, only to lose Alice? He was left to bring up his two younger sisters obeying his father's last wish "I desire my sonne John to bee good unto them for their bringing up as god shall inable him." Sister Alice being only fourteen. His other sister Anne and remaining aunt Marian ran the house and helped with the cows. They were a fairly strict religious family judging by their opinion that goods were "lent them by god." This had been their neighbour William Rose's [60] opinion and many puritans like him. John was not to stay long in this world for in 1634 yet another wave of illness took many more townsmen. In July John had called in two neighbours, William Carter from across Hello and John Orton, a butcher now living at Pares old house [57 & 58]. Palmer left the house to the next brother, William, and the cows to the two women. Although Alice is now seventeen he asks William to take charge of the two youngest for "the better breeding and bringing up of these two lesser children." John was not a rich dresser he owned clothes worth £1. Between them his parents had apparel worth £1-10s-6d which was a modest, but decent amount.

Hyrens and Wood cottagers in Hello [56].

1614: Wyd Hyeren ijd....1614: William Woode et uxor ijd.

The average in the household in the 8 listed years was 1.37.

Below Palmers on the same small plot of land was a one cell cottage where the Hyrens and then the Woods lived [56]. We know very little about the Hyrens. No inventory was made and widow Hyrens fails to pay a cow tithe to the vicar in the only remaining folios from 1614 to 1617.

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Ursula Hyrens was left a widow in August 1597 after three poor harvests. William may have been out helping with the new harvest when he became ill and died. Their daughter Elizabeth was five and their son John only three months old. Widow Ursula manages to keep on the copyhold and must have found some day labouring to maintain them all (p81). When Elizabeth was old enough she would work as an unpaid maid with her food found until able to take on a yearly contract and live in. This would help her mother especially when she worked at the vicarage, close enough for her to visit (p 88). John too would go out to work, but he died when he was fifteen. Ursula would be in her late forties when she was buried in 1616.

William and Judith Wood who had worked for the Toms [15] could now move to Widow Hyren's [56] in Hello. The cottage had a hall chimney allowing them to burn coal and have a chamber over the hall. The chimney was their greatest asset after the cow. Their milch cow must have had some sort of shelter, most likely built of timber with a haulm roof standing in their tiny yard.

As a widow Judith Woods had asked Ambrose Holbech, Robert Robins and Henry Broughton to come and make an inventory on the 29th of September 1624. They began in the hall (p640) and then moved up the ladder or stairs to find "In the Chamber:"

"One bedsteed one truckle/ bedsteed wth all the beddinge/

thereupon and three other/ blanketts two Coverletts and/ two pillowes " £3.

"five chests six napkins 2/ pillowbeares one towell six paire/

of sheets and one tablecloath"/ £2

"one Cover two wheeles and/ all other implemts in the same/ Roome" 10s/

" butter and Cheese 6s -8d/." [Going outside they found:]

"heay and bords 10s/ wood in the streete 6s/

one Cowe £1 -10s/"

The whole coming to "£11 - 10s -4d."

William Wood was buried in August 1624 and someone added to the entry in the register "kiled by michance." He had left in front of his house in Hello "wood in the streete." Something which could bring a fine at the Manor Court. He had not finished moving it to make the winter wood pile when some kind of fatal accident occured. In the Hall the furniture came to £1, some of which would be in a small partitioned area serving as a buttery. His pewter and spoon came to 13s 4d and all the brass and earthen pots were valued at a £1. In the chamber above they had a bed and bedding well above average (p645). They stored their clothes and goods in five chests. The Woods used the hall like the majority in the town as the central room for all day time living, but unlike the larger cottages they had to make do with a very small space for all the household chores and storage. At night they closed the lids to cover the windowhole or glazed casements, and sat by the remains of the cooking fire. The wife had two spinning wheels and was able to earn a little. If the widow managed to keep her cow then her butter and cheese making would continue providing she still found enough hay. What else could the widow turn to? For eighteen years Goodwife Wood had to provide for herself by earning a wage and thereby becoming a servant and classed as a pauper up to her death.

Leaving Hello and moving now to the five cottages to the west of the church where the Watts [27], Ladds [40], Bostocks [41], Suttons [42] and Ffendies [43] lived. Before visiting the weaver Watts family the townswomen would go into the weavers shop to take the spun wool from their sheep. After a reasonable interval they would return for their blanket or cloth.

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Plan to show the sites of Five Cottages on the A manor.

On the 28th of March 1616 Widow Anes Watts [27] asked Edward Lumbert, Robert Robins and Robert Crowleye to come and take an inventory seven days after she had buried her husband William. Anes exhibited it at the church court on the 4th of April. The total came to £51 -11s -4d. The inventory mentions the weaver's shop which was below the shop chamber:

..."In the Chamber over the Shoppe a garter Loome iiijs/ [In the shop]

ffower woolinge loomes with all other things/

thereto belonging to the same..." £16.

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Watts weavers at the corner of Newstreet and Creampot Lanes [27].

1614: wam watts ux............ijd....1624: Thomas Watts et uxor ijd

..........wam shotteswell ux ijd

..........Tho watts.................ijd.

The average in the household for the 8 listed years was 4.62.

At the corner of Creampot and Newstreet Lane [now Newscut] lived the weaving family of Watts. Their close was long and narrow stretching back along side Newstreet Lane to Backside. Their south boundary next to the Lane had a stone wall by the house, yard and barn and then an Early hedge which contained some hazels.

Had the whole area of the Lane and Watts' close once been a farmstead? Now too narrow because of the Lane for a husbandman it was ideal for a farming artisan and was unusually large for a small-holding. They had five lands of arable and two leys of greensward as well as three and a half furze grounds in the Oxhay common, and pasture for one cow [1742:MS. Will Pec.56/1/31]. This all came to around five acres and was very necessary for their survival. It provided part of the barley and peas diet for the house, and peas haulm, straw and hay for the cow and calf, three sheep and a sow. As their barn appears to have faced southwards across their yard how did a borrowed cart get to it, unless they came in from Backside and down their orchard to the yard. Even then there was insufficient space to get into the barn and out the other side.

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Obviously some sensible arrangement would have been made. The narrowness of Newstreet Lane would not allow them to turn a cart in at a gate nearer the yard. The peas and hay could go into a rick near the barn for this had to double as a cowhouse. Out beyond the barn and small rickyard the small remaining piece of the close should grow some vegetables: onions, cabbages, leeks and a little fruit besides hazels, grown for spars as well as nuts. Very few mention a hen house as these reverted to the landlord as his standards. William must therefore have purchased the wood for this himself, or used left over pieces from the house partitions, though they have no hens at the time the inventory was taken. As expected they have a wool stuffed mattress not a feather one, for shredded warp ends were more readily available, though in fact all warp ends should be left on the length of woven material if the yarns had been provided by the customer.

The stone cottage stood right against the boundary facing east. It was three bays in length and two and a half storeys high. William having added the cockloft. Was the shop at the south end or in the north bay? It seems most likely judging by the remaining Cropredy buildings that if the entrance was on the front elevation and the chimney central that the shop would be at the nether end (the south bay) to the left of the entrance and the hall and downstairs chamber on the right in the two northern bays. They also had a buttery behind the chamber. There were windows facing Creampot, but also one in the weaving shop facing the yard and another facing the "street," which could refer to Newstreet by being on the south gable end.

William's inventory was made on the 28th day of March 1616:

Hall

Buttreye

Chamber

Over Chamber [2 beds]

Cockloft

Chamber over ye hall

Chamber over the shoppe

Barne

The appraisers put the hearth equipment as a separate item, but as the hall had a chamber over, the chimney had to be in the hall. In 1616 there were three upper chambers. The hall one being occupied by the eldest married daughter Annes, her husband William Shotswell and their daughter Joane, so that the furniture in there would not belong to the weaver, though he did own four of the boards. These could indicate a partial screen made near the stairs to give the young couple some privacy from Thomas aged twenty and eleven year old William. Over the boys' chamber was a cockloft for storage. In their room were two beds with furniture to the same and five coffers for the nine pairs of sheets, two tablecloths and a pair of "pillobeares". Had the second daughter Joyce gone out to service? There was a garter loom in the shop chamber, but all the weaving materials and equipment were put with the four "woolinge" looms in the shop below at a total value of £16. Two looms were positioned next to the street and two next to the yard. This information was revealed in a later will. How was the weaving shop lit? Usually weavers shops had high windows and they used an upper floor, but here they had the shop on the ground floor.

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The Watts had managed to acquire some belongings which were still rare in many husbandmen's households. They had a hall "skreen," cushions and a large collection of pewter which would be on display.These consisted of sixteen platters two salts and three brasen candlesticks worth 26s-8d. The Watts used their wooden dishes and spoons, like nearly everyone else below gentlemen status. There was a grate in the fireplace and a pair of andirons. March was too early to hire a cart to go and collect any more coal so they were relying on their oven furze and wood still out in the yard and worth a £1. William had not finished adding to the house partitions and cocklofts, though he could be intending to have furniture made for each child, for stored in the barn were timber and boards worth £3-10s.

The name of Watts first appeared in Cropredy in 1588 when William married Anes Lumberd. They had four girls and three boys, of which five survive, over a long well spaced out period of twentytwo years. The Watts in spite of the slump in the weaving trade do remain in the town for several generations, though never again so prosperous. Later sons may have sold the looms and leased them back as trade grew slack and money short. William had left large legacies for his wife and son to pay. When the eldest son Thomas wanted to marry Mr and Mrs Shotswell had to leave. The newly married son could then have the vacated hall chamber while the mother kept on the lower chamber. Widow Anes (or Ann) would keep on weaving for she had a share of a loom. Her wearing apparel was worth 30s and she obviously had the advantage of being able to spin, weave and tailor her own clothes. A piece of cloth worth 9s had been put by before she died. One unmarried daughter inherited her apparel. Although Ann was buried the day after her will was made it was not apparently proved for three years, or was this the copier's error? Ann was not old being only in her 50's and she still feels very responsible for all her children asking Edward Lumberd (perhaps a brother) and Robert Robins next door to act as overseers to make sure they get their legacies.

The importance of these family details is that they show how a weaver was able to keep on his daughter and her husband while training his eldest son to become a weaver and still being responsible for younger children. The young couple did not have to leave when the first child arrived, but only after the father died and the weaving son must set up a home. Mrs Anes Watts could of course have been ill and needing help? It also shows that young parents lived in various houses as lodgers well into marriage and the arrival of their family.

By the 1620's their son would be in the middle of a breakdown in the local wool market. The competition disrupting their whole lifestyle. After Enclosure the Watts may have purchased their house. This same stone house was passed to the Eagles by a Watts. It was then pulled down and a nineteenth century brick building put up in the former yard.

Ladd, Bostocke and Suttons [40-42].

The A Manor had several smallholdings in the upper end of the town four of which have since gone. Three were in Group one, but Ffendries (Fenny's)[43] a later arrival was in Group three. The smallest and perhaps the most difficult to place is Ladd's. By comparing all the Easter and tithe lists which the vicar makes he appears to take four of these properties always in the same position to each other, even when listed in the reverse order, so that they may have been in a square on the present Chapel Green. Starting usually at the top right hand corner directly opposite Tanner's [39] is the most likely place for Ladd's [40] cottage. In the top left hand corner to the west of Ladd's lived the Bostockes/Pratts [41]. Below them in the left hand bottom corner were the Suttons [42] (once known locally as Lambert's cottage) and to their east in the bottom right hand corner lived the Fenny's [43] (p481). Sutton's and Fenny's wells remained until recently, but what of the other two? Sutton's cottage was only pulled down for two new bungalows in the 1950's.

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Fenny's was demolished by the Revd Ballard in 1814 (p482). Those cottages rebuilt with hearths and upper hall chambers as early as this had stone walls. Each had a corner plot on the close. Suttons having the largest area containing some fruit trees and vegetables. By 1775 this was called a nursery garden. These ancient cottage sites were allowed a cow common by the landlord when the tenant took over the copyhold. Bostockes had leyland in Oxhay Honeypleck, and so did Suttons who also had half an acre of mead in Astmore, which meant he was leasing an extra parcel of land. Fenny had two arable lands in Arbwell [Harble] in the South Field next to Bostockes and three butts in the North Field in Ramsbalke furlong again by Bostockes. An acre in Yea [Ewe] furlong and in Oxhay two other leys and two half leys in the Hawtins and Honeypleck furlongs, as well as commonage for one cow (ch.14 for maps). They all kept a cow at some time according to the remains of the vicar's Cropredy tithe folios [c25/3]:

In 1614 James Ladd [40] paid a 2d tithe for one cow to the vicar, Christopher Pratt [41] 3d (Pratt had married widow Bostocke), John Truss [33] had Sutton's [42] horse common and Thomas Fenny [43] paid for one cow.

In 1615 widow Ladd paid 2d, Pratt paid 2.5d and Fenny had his own common as well as Coxes [49] and Breedons [37].

In 1616 James Ladd a 2d tithe, Pratt 2d, Jane Sutton a cow 2d and Fenny 5d for two cows.

In 1617 James Ladd again paid 2d, Pratt 3d and Jane 2d. Fenny's amount was not entered.

In these extracts the Suttons use their horse common either for a cow or a horse, but their half yardland parcel allowed them two extra cows, so Jane may have set it after the death of her father. Fenny's fluctuates from three down to none, did he work for the vicar,or just fail to pay?

The other tithe book [c25/6] from 1611 to 1619 gave a few details of poultry, conys [rabbits], apples, candles and drink: Pratt gave apples from his orchard in 1611 and a cock in 1612. Thomas Sutton a hen and a candle, Fenny a cock and on four years a "Pond of candle." James Bostocke sent a bottle of wine and two conys one year, and on another a bottle of sack and a cony. Some must breed rabbits for skin and food, but only three offer rabbits to the vicar and so far no warren reference has emerged. How many rabbit skins could the Bostockes use in their work? Did they make warm fur hats, gloves or moleskin articles? They also appear to have licenced premises. The four references to candles from Fenny have caused him to be thought of as the candlemaker, though with no other evidence and if Fenny was the candlemaker he did not appear to keep bees to obtain some wax for the candles. Sutton and Elderson also gave candles for the church.

Ladd, labourer [40].

1614: alyce ladd ijd....1624: James L[add et]uxor ijd

...............................................Joane La[dd]..............ijd.

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James Ladd [40] senior was still alive with his third wife in the above cow common tithe extract for 1614, but it is the widow who pays the following year. James aged twenty is able to marry for he now has his late father's copyhold. The following year his step-mother Alice also died leaving the young couple and his sister Joane to the whole of the cottage. His father could have worked at Kynd's [31] for he was asked to witness John Kynd's will in 1592. William Berry who also worked at Kynd's had his will witnessed by James Ladd. Berry left this James 3s-4d [38 Windlebank. PCC 1608] (p591).

James junior appears to be the only son in spite of his father's three marriages. He does not baptise any children yet he attends the church and pays his Easter dues, so had not felt too poor to ignore the church with all the penalties for doing so.

James Ladd's inventory taken in September 1630 mentions a Hall [fire] and a Chamber [1 bed]. The Suttons [42] and Ladds [40] are the only cottages to keep a fully furnished bed in the hall, for they had no downstairs chamber where the majority of parents still had their bedstead. Possibly too the standing bed was too big for the upper chamber in a one and a half storey cottage. There was no question of sleeping on just palliasses on the floor for the houses were properly, even if frugally, furnished. James Ladd's old bed lay upstairs with two coffers. Here was no hovel, but a reasonably equiped cottage with a little pewter to stave off starvation if necessary. When he died they had no cow. Where had this gone? Sold when ill to pay the landlord's rent, or his heriot?

His clothes were of the poorest sort being only worth 5s. Yet he and his new young wife had a hearth under a stone chimney and furzes so they had an oven too. She cooked with three kettles and a brass pot. They inherited or purchased twelve pieces of pewter worth 7s and these were their treasures. They also had the only mention of "Ticknall" ware valued at 5s. These were earthern ware goods coming probably fromTicknall in Derbyshire. Did he take these goods and sell them from house to house? If Ladd was a pedlar and these were part of his pedlars pack, was he working for Tanner the mercer, now too respectable to be travelling his goods about the countryside? Ladd was called a labourer so he must have being getting a wage from someone, but he had other skills for there were tools in his house, which included two hatchets, one axe, one bill and one stocking axe for a hedger and woodman.

If the Ladds did work for others, as well as their main employer, James may just have been helping out when Kynd was taken ill. Ladd's were not in the husbandmen's neighbourhood group, for they were their employers. One thing the lists cannot give is where the independent labourers found their day work and consequently we do not know how many were employed in Cropredy on a day to day basis. Did Edmond Tanner who lived opposite James Ladd, go down with the same contagious complaint as the young man? James was buried twenty days before the mercer. Edmund could have gone over to see the patient either as a neighbour or employer and caught the illness. Others do this. Wyatt [31] and Cattell [30] next door neighbours both dying within two months of each other. Truss [33] and Hall [34] in less than a fortnight the year before. Mrs Sutton died three weeks before her husband tailor Sutton [42] who was buried just six weeks before weaver Watts [27], across the High Street. There are several more cases of diseases apparently passing to next door neighbours, or suffering the same bad drains? Or just pure coincidence?

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Bostocke leather worker and ale house [41].

1614: christer pratt ux ijd....1624: James B[ostoc]ke et uxor ijd

..............................cow ijd ob

.........James bostocke.ijd

The average in the household for the 8 listed years was 3.75.

Anne Gullyver who became the wife of William Bostocke could have been related to the collarmakers of Bourton. They were married on the 9th of September 1587 in her parish church at Cropredy. Two of their children survive, but not their father who died in the terrible year of 1595. Had their half yardland crop of rye failed? Poor Anne was left literally holding the baby son, barely two months old. The infant did not reach his third birthday. Anne remained a widow for six years and must have been able to keep the business going for the copyhold remains theirs. When she accepts Christopher Pratt as her second husband her eldest was fourteen and surely apprenticed to their leather trade. Her daughter Anne was nine and no doubt beginning to earn her keep. Widow Anne was again married in Cropredy church. Although Christopher Pratt was paying the cow tithe for the current beast grazing their orchard would he have been entered onto the copyhold? Perhaps Pratt worked in the shop while Anne carried on seeing to the brewing and selling? In 1615 her son James married Joyce. He was entitled to do this as he was twentyeight and due to take over from his step-father.

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For over five years the parents stay on making it a three generation household. By 1624 they had gone. No wills or inventories have been found to explain were they went to.

James had received some education from about 1592 onwards. He was called upon to help make terriers which he duly witnessed. By 1653 aged only sixtythree his writing had become very shaky. His son John also went to school and he too left his signature on the B. manor terriers from 1653 onwards. John was farming the vicar's glebe so he knew his way around the parish. The glebe land produced their barley, maslin and peas. They still kept the essential family cow and pig. Would they have the grazing of the churchyard and the Parsonage Close with the stable and barns attached to the Glebe? Some of the arable land belonging to their cottage was in Arbwells [Harble] and they had one ley in Town Hill.

Only by going forward in time to John Bostocke's will of 1675 can we see the size of the cottage at that time. John left his two sons all "the goods that is in and belongeth to my shopp and all the leather that is forth and dressings." The rooms consisted of the Inward Low Room, the Outward Low Room, the Shop and Buttery. Upstairs were the Upper Room, the Middle Chamber and the Heithermost Chamber [MS. Will Pec. 3/3/28]. A three bay cottage which cannot be taken any further back in time because any earlier inventories that were made failed to survive. The landlord owned the house and out houses and if his tenants had not added any new standings, or mangers during their tenancy, there was no need to mention the farm hovels in their inventories. No other evidence has been found for these four properties giving details of their timber cowstalls and hay lofts, which they surely had to have.

John (1615-1675) of the third generation married while his parents were alive and his brother William was still only sixteen. John was by then twentyseven. His mother died first having been married for thirty years. His father James lived on in a chamber for another nine years during which he was able to observe his four grandchildren arriving and growing up. He died aged sixtynine. Did John's sister Isabell also have houseroom until she married at thirtyone? The Bostockes were still there right up to 1716. They owed the vicar a shilling every year for their cottage cow tithe and so were mentioned in all the tithe records that have survived [c25 &26].

Sutton, tailor of High Street [42].

1614: Tho sutton ux ....ijd....1624: William Langlie et uxor ijd

.........his daughter........ijd...............Anne Sutton..................ijd

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The average in the household for the 8 listed years was 3.87

To the south of the Bostockes lived the Suttons [42], until their cottage passed to the Langleys when William married Jane Sutton. This was the smaller of the two tailors' premises and one which suffered from a lack of a good strong stone barn. Thomas had no space in his one cell cottage to provide him with a separate tailor's shop. He must travel out to his customers, making up his home orders in the small windowed cottage after a day on the land, or waiting for a wet day, but by then surrounded by household chores. Thomas does not manage to acquire the finer clothes Matcham and the Watts did for his working apparel was more suitable out in the fields. Thomas Sutton had leased a half yardland parcel and needed his horse as part of a plough team and to deliver the finished articles he had produced, or lend himself out on contract work that required a horse, much as Palmers [59] would do.

Adaptability for himself and his wife were essential. A necessary part in the survival of the whole town, for at this time labour had to be brought in and housed with the husbandmen's family, while at the same time there was a lack of permanent leases and opportunities for the younger members of their family wishing to marry. Yet we repeatedly see single adults returning home and managing to find some work while living under their parents' roof. Separate accommodation was unheard of for bachelors unless they were left the lease like George Devotion [3]. All like Watts' [27] eldest daughter must start in chambers in a house, where someone else was master or mistress, either with their own family or like the Bayleys [19] looking after someone, until a vacant lease came along. To wait would put them beyond a reasonable age to get married (p108). Jane Sutton was able to marry William Langley and stay on due to the early death of her parents. The Langleys continued to lease land which meant they paid rates and could take turns being church wardens or sidesmen. They also had to pay the hearth tax in 1663, but if they had kept to the eighth part of a yardland allotted to the cottage they would have escaped payments on their hearth.

Their cottage was measured by R.B.Wood-Jones as it lay empty. He placed it with the labourers' landless cottages mostly built in the eighteenth century. We have been fortunate enough to find enough records to trace the building back beyond the hearth tax Langleys paid in 1663, to the tailor Thomas Sutton living there in Thomas Holloway's time [Wood-Jones Traditional Domestic Architecture of the Banbury Region. Drawing on Fig.52 p178].

Cottages in Cropredy seldom had fine ashlar details and this early frugal cottage was lived in from the late sixteenth century. The stones were laid in coursed rubble rows with no ashlar quoins or drip moulds. Wooden lintels being far commoner in Cropredy where all paid rents. Like the majority on the A Manor estate the chimney was built into a gable supporting the roof. This northern wall also had a round projecting oven on the north east corner where the thatch swept down covering it in a fine curling sweep. A number of inventories mention the furze needed to heat these ovens, though furze could be used on the open hearth as Normans did [48], or taken to the baker who would use it to bake their bread.

The original four windows on the east elevation were small and later on one was made for the buttery on the west wall. None were larger than two lights. The winder stairs had a small one light window left when the other windows were blocked in and newer larger windows made. This stair window like those of Rawlins [45] and the school masters at Williamscote have something in common: an attention to minor details rather than grand display, which was none the less important to the craftsmen who built them.

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The outside measurements of the cottage were 23' by 19,' a little smaller than Rawlins [45]. The stairs and chimney took up the whole of the gable wall, again like Rawlins. The hall and lobby entrance were lit by the east windows. The buttery was remembered locally as being a wooden partitioned area, but could have been a replacement of an earlier wattle and daub one and was certainly not there in Sutton's time. The only uncharacteristic feature are the transverse beams which unless this was pre 1570 makes it look as though a new higher floor was put in by Bortons when the cottage had the windows enlarged? Did he also add the gable window for the upper chamber at the south end and the west window facing the High Street for the stairs chamber? Originally Suttons faced east into the close with no west facing hall window. The entrance was on the south side. Was there a back farm entrance for the Church Lane farms passing south of Suttons as far as Fenny's plot? This would provide access into Suttons, but bring the mess up the High Street past Gybbs' front entrance. By the time Bortons replaced the east windows to face west in the nineteenth century the Hobb's Pool had been filled in to make a cottager's garden and they now looked across to Anker's walled garden [25].

Many craftsmen were bound to be connected to a particular farm when extra help was needed. This made all the difference in saving a crop. In return the farms would lend them a cart, a plough team or whatever they could. Lumberd took on Sutton's eldest son Richard before he went on to be a servant in another parish. If only the rest of the lists had been kept to show who helped on the farms. There were usually between twentytwo and twentyfour husbandmen and about thirtyfour cottagers to spread throughout the parish and even with their family helping it was hardly enough to go round.

Thomas Sutton arrived in June 1583 when he married Marie Beverley. They had three boys, Richard, Arthur and George but Arthur died aged two followed shortly after by his mother leaving a one year old George. Marie's life like that of many young wives was tragically short. Thomas remarried a year later, for with two sons to cope with he could not get around his "Ride" unless he employed a maid. Thomas's second wife, Mary Beale, gave birth to four girls (though no-one recorded the baptism of Marie) and another son all between 1592 and 1605 so that the family was spread out over twenty years. Mary's eldest girl Joane, or Jane, as she was later called, was entered upon the copyhold. Thomas Sutton in 1616 left "To all my children" naming Jane, Anne, Marie, Elizabeth and Thomas. He left out the eldest Richard who must have died away from home. To the remaining five he left bedding and linen equally and his daughter Anne "shall have a convenient Roome in my house at the charge of my executor, Jane. She the said Anne Sutton keeping herselfe sole and unmarried." What affliction did the poor girl have? Thomas was allowed to attend the grammar, perhaps because his father understood the value of an education which he had lacked, and was a pupil when his parents died. Elizabeth goes out to be a maid at Widow Coldwell's [50]. The staff in that household tended to stay on for more than the usual year. By 1627 Elizabeth was at blacksmith Denseys [13] because she was left "one plain band and an olde paire of bodyes" by Ellen Bicke (p707). Jane and Anne stayed in Cropredy, but we do not yet know where Elizabeth and Thomas went to live. Thomas senior caught whatever fever took the life of his wife Mary and within twentyfour days he too was buried.

It was the 29th of March 1616 when Jane called in Henry Broughton [9], Edward Lumberd [14], Edward Tanner [39] and Robert Robins [26], all educated men to make an inventory:

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"In the hall vij pr of/ sheets & vj napkins"---50s/

"the Cubbord & the Pewter"--------------------24s/

"one bed & furniture to/ the same "-----------26s 8d/

"the table & bench one/

forme and chayre & iij coffers"------------------7s/

"all his appell"--------------------------------------20s/

"all the brasse"------------------------------------- 8s/

"one whele & Cowpy Ware"--------------------8s/...The total came to £16 -17s.

This extract does not include the upper chamber.

A large standing double bed took up a fair portion of the one downstairs room which measured 16' by 15' 6" (and smaller when the buttery was eventually partitioned off). Mary had had a pothook, "cobberds," spit and fire shovel by the brass cooking pots. There was a "cubbord" (open like a dresser) to hold the pewter. They had all the essential furniture. If the tailor used the table where did Mary stand her wooden utensils for baking and cooking? The girls would be spinning in turn in one corner and against the rough stone walls were two "shippicks" and a rake worth 16d. Upstairs they stored the corn for flour and a little malt for brewing worth 30s. A heifer produced her calf after Thomas was buried which was worth £2. What kind of shed did they have? No mention of the hens which they had had in 1612. Had they been needed to make chicken broth for the sick parents? There was fortunately £5 left of the lease. The Suttons had been in Cropredy for thirtythree years so if the lease of a parcel of land was for twentyone years had Jane twelve left? The youngest was only ten and Jane had to cope for eighteen months with the whole responsibility.

Half a yardland's produce might be worth up to £3 and her father had half that in 1616, but by then his winter corn had been sown and the barley would be needed for seeding. Would Jane be able to do the work outside on the land as well as inside? Women were often out hoeing day after day, but someone would surely do her ploughing.

Having a copyhold cottage was her greatest asset and when she married William Langley it was understood that Anne was to remain with them. Could Anne help when the hay in the Astmead needed turning? Or could she be left? Hay in their Oxhay leys must also be cut, turned and carried for the cow or horse. Helping others to be helped in turn. For the first two years of the Langley's marriage William does not appear in the lists. Had he obligations to fulfill elsewhere?

The cottage faced east across the vegetable garden and fruit trees. The south boundary with Vaughan's [23] and Pratt's [24] had elm trees planted in the banks giving perhaps unwanted shade over her vegetables, though shelter from the south westerlies for her fruit trees. A great deal of garden work, but another source of income. Were her ricks near the trees and sheltered by the cottage, or convenient to the cowstall with a standing over it for hay? In which case they would have planted a hedge with elms in the Bostocke and Sutton boundary, and alongside the High Street (the ancestors of the elm sucklings still by the pavement today?). The well to water house and cow was right by the cottage. Across her plot Jane could look over to Fenny's [43] garden which was much smaller and oddly shaped.