Page 572

Reconstruction of Three Farms in Creampot Lane [28-30].

Page 573

35. The First Three Farms in Creampot [28-30].

The three farms of Howse, Lyllee and Cattell [28-30] may have been laid out in even sized closes running east to west each with a back entrance onto Backside at Kyte's corner. Over the years these three homestalls have undergone alterations that have muddled the sequence of events. The vicar's lists caused some confusion when they appear to conflict with the land records. Howse's [28] site was certainly next to Watts the weaver [27] and yet in the vicar's lists the properties were in the following order: Watts, Lyllee, Howse and then Cattell. One solution fits both records. The entrance to the late Alese Howse's [28] farm in 1613 was up the present passage from the east gate in Creampot Lane passing in front of the south facing Lyllee [29] house which was on the right. By coming to Lyllee's front door first and then proceeding on up to Howse's entrance on the left, it would be reasonable for any scribe to write them in that order. Between Watts' house [27] and the Creampot approach to the Lyllee and Howse properties they had passed the eastern boundary of the Howse close and farmyard.

Lyllee [29] may have deliberately rebuilt in stone by the passage and near the well. Their farm buildings were further west and it would appear his barn was attached to his dwelling, while his cattle yard was behind the house to the north.

Cattell [30] rebuilt facing east with a barn or stable at the north end. There were buildings on three sides of the farmyard giving two sheltered cattle and stable yards. The barn, gateway and cowhouse made up the western range. The house was on the eastern side and another building took up over half the north side beyond the house well.

Part of the verge belonging to Backside was taken into the three closes at the west end and then nearly a hundred years ago a row of trees were planted along the ridge of this ancient town boundary.

Howses of Creampot Lane [28].

The timber farm houses may have had an entry passage dividing the hall from the two service rooms. The head of the household would have required a lodging chamber. This was usually added beyond the hall away from the service area. If the site had been unsuitable then a chamber was made in the nether bay below the hall, which could include a kitchen or dairy. Chambers on the first floor would have been reached by a ladder or early stairs. There would be chambers over the lodging chamber and service rooms, but none over the open hall. Some like Whyte [46] would have a cockloft for storage.

The majority of new stone houses would need to recycle the best timbers from their previous dwelling. This was made easier for Howse by moving their home further up the close away from the farmyard. The names of their former rooms would tend to follow them when the beams and joists were reused. What happened when they needed to enlarge the ground plan? The two stone gables provided additional wall supports, but did they still follow the former spacing of bays dictated by the previous roof timbers and transverse beams? Howse did not move the transverse beam into a spine position with the joists reaching out to the stone walls and so limiting the depth of the building. Instead they appear to have repeated their former position.

Page 574

The whole of their new stone elevation on the north side would be carefully planned to give a balance between the windows and front entrance. At Howses [28] the front door was moved away from the hall and a through passage ignored.

There were apparently two stone mullion casement windows each with four lights, on either side of the front entrance. All three having label moulds with dropped and returned ends. The window to the right lighting the hall and the left one for their lodging chamber. The two upper chambers both had three light casement windows. The thatch would come well down towards the chamber windows. The cockloft was lit by a one light window on each gable.

When the house was built the front door opened into the small entrance lobby. The lovely old door was reused when the porch was built, though an even later addition of a northern kitchen wing meant the doors hinges must be changed to allow access to the new kitchen. They secured the original entrance door with a wooden drawbar, which was housed in square sockets on either side of the doorway. Once the porch had been built they moved the old door into the new position. A wainscot hides the socket holes [Curtesy of Tapley's photographs].

Now that the entrance went into part of the house formerly reserved for the old buttery it was curtailed in depth by the existence of the former low chamber renamed the "chamber beneth the entrye," which had a south facing two light stone mullion window.

Entry to the hall on the right from the entrance lobby was through a doorway with Tudor stops on the chamfered upper part of the jam, facing the lobby. The door was in a partition wall between the "chamber beneth the entrye" and the hall. A second door at the far end of the partition may have opened into that chamber. It was wondered if these two doors had been moved at all to fit in with the new plan? There was no need to restore a screen passage as access to the farm yard was not through the house and the buttery had been moved to the eastern bay, next to the lodging chamber.

The door on the left of the entry led into the lodging chamber . They left the lobby up two steps to a raised floor over the new cellar. The buttery also had to take up part of this bay. The stairs to reach the upper floor may have been between the lobby and the "chamber beneth the entrye," but making use of the step and platform into the eastern bay, before turning in the space opposite the front door. Upstairs there were three chambers and two cocklofts.

The south elevation was not for public display, for it overlooked the close. Only two of the original windows remain. A two light stone flat splay mullion window for the chamber and another for the cellar. The last has a label mould with dropped and returned ends, though one end has been hidden by a later wall. The hall had a small window facing south lost when the south extension was made. There is evidence of an external shutter and an inner opening casement, or another shutter for the south chamber's two light window. The chamber and cellar windows were not replaced with oak mullions when those on the north elevation were put in. Splay mullions had to be cut at the quarry and these were favoured in Bourton, but at a later date. Wood-Jones uses the 1574 datestone belonging to the Williamscote school for the first appearance of flat splay mullions, but attributing the date to the building of Calcott's Williamscote house which was in fact built in 1559. This was still later than when the first Rychard and Ayllys Howse were tenants, so had they begun to build before Calcott? [Wood-Jones R.B. Traditional Domestic Architecture of the Banbury Region p257].

Page 575

Dating this house is difficult. The town used transverse beams rather than spine beams in the late seventeenth century alterations. The spine beams came in around the 1570s. Before that they used transverse beams. The second era of using transverse beams is too late for this house which has records long before that. All the joists had full joints which takes them back to the earlier period [Details of building kindly given by J.Tapley. Errors belong to me] .

The house had no spine beams which could have been used to replace the missing hall transverse beam from the open hall of the timber house. Instead they were still able to procure enough beams and joists for the new hall bay and cellar timbers.

At the time of rebuilding in stone this house was exceptional in having three storeys in the east bay, because of the cellar, and two and a half storeys for the rest. This was rare for Cropredy and found only at Coldwell's [50] and Prescote manor. All three also had stone stairs down to their cellars.

For this fine building Howse had only one chimney on the western gable. Was this another indication of an early property? It was not a manor farm like Coldwell's who being a gentleman needed several hearths.

The addition of the porch had to be to a building already established. It was a tall porch reaching up to the roof. No other Cropredy building possessed such an addition. Those in the area which had date stones were built during the uneasy years of the interregnum. Was this for added protection? Why had a husbandman's dwelling acquired such an expensive addition? Although it faced the front courtyard it was not on general view to the road except across the close to the west. When adding the porch they may have taken the opportunity to reduce the four light mullions downstairs to three to balance the elevation. By having a drip mould on the porch and keeping the stone mullions this was done prior to the late seventeenth century work on windows about the town when many of the older mullion windows had to be replaced. Some of the local stone weathers badly and it could be because Howse was one of the first to rebuild that the next family of tenants, starting on the front of the house, had to replace the stone mullions with oak when other towns were just putting stone mullions in. The north elevation stone windows were replaced with oak splay mullions and oak lintels.The drip moulds were lost except for those over the porch door, cellar and the "chamber beneth the entrye." The two lesser windows being on the unimportant south elevation.

These features must surely put the house into the early transverse beam era before 1570. It also had a plinth on the east wall, but understandable given the weight of that wall. There was yet one other feature which might set back the date. The house having been taken away from the farmyard up the passage to be near the stone lined well was deliberately facing north onto a courtyard and not south as French [4] and Coldwell's [50] were (Few had courtyards for really these were used for holding a manorial court which on this A manor would be held at [50]). Here was a property with several important features which had a wide close to position the new building in, so why face it north and make the house colder than it needed to be? In the 1540's and 1550's there were still many who believed that fevers came from the south and by having few south windows unnecessary sickness could be avoided. Why did the bailiff at the manor farm ignore this? It could only be the position of his house facing onto Church Street which meant he had to face south. At [28] was it something to do with the Howse family suffering from epidemics?There were many who lost their lives in the 1550's including Rychard Howse who died in 1550. Another reason for facing north was it reduced the heat in the hall in summer when cooking was now being done indoors.

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The ground floors were either of beaten clay or stone, except over the cellar. The cellar was given a stone floor with a drainage gulley at some period. The first floor and cocklofts all had early oak floors, either taken from the timber house, or purchased when the house was built. Due to the shortage of mature timber in the parish most of the new stone houses had to have elm floors if they could not rescue some oak planks from an earlier building, so that having oak even in the cockloft speaks of an early stone building, or a previously large timber house of some importance to supply enough for a storage area, or a wealthy tenant.

Which member of the Howse family who lived on this site could have been responsible?

Howse [28]

1614: Thos howse uxor ....ijd...... 1624: Alice Howse.............. ijd

..........wam howse.............. ijd ...............Edward Townsende ..ijd

.........? the mayde.............. ijd................ Susan wearinge......... ijd

The average in this household for the 8 listed years was 6.5.

Page 577

Could the house have been one of the first stone properties to be built in the town (ch.13 p185)? In 1547 Bishop Holbech had to release to the Crown his estate in Cropredy in exchange for certain grants [Lincoln Chapter Acts 1547-59 (l.R.S.xv),1-2]. This ended a period of uncertainty when no building would have been under taken by the bishop for King Henry VIIIth and his son Edward VIth had been seizing church estates. Protector Somerset who took over the manor until his fall may have started to improve his estate but then in 1550 it was passed to the Duke of Northumberland [Salop R.O. 322, Book of Courts for Banbury, Cropredy and Wardington]. It could be that the new owners had allowed John Butler of Aston-le-Walls who leased the Cropredy A. manor to act as overseer to the estate [Royce, Cropredy p8]. Once the estate was in private ownership then documents had to be made to divide it into three so that the owners widow would have her customary third. However the following year it was given back to the Crown, though Butler may have continued as the tenant. In a survey made in 1552 it failed to mention widow Ayllys Howse, naming John Howse instead. John Howse had half a yardland and 2 acres of meadow with one messuage, two other yardlands and two tofts. These he had apparently leased since the 19th year of King Henry VIII [Henry was King from 1509 to 1547].

In April 1550 Rychard Howys made a will as he lay "syke in bodie". Four days later his young wife Ayllys was attending his funeral. Howse had leased land from the A manor estate and his widow Ayllys was intitled to her husbands lease to rear the children. Rychard had made no mention of a "John Howse" in his will, but whoever John was they granted him the administration of Rychard's estate, which came to £37-17s-7d. Was this Rychard's father who was sharing the farm and had been farming since 1528? When Rychard married Ayllys deeds would have been made between their parents in case Ayllys was left a widow. There was no need for Rychard to refer to these in his will. Young Rechard was only six months old and there was also a young daughter Margaret to provide for over the next sixteen or more years? John as the tenant would be obliged to take over the finishing of the rebuilding, if it had been started before 1550 in Rychard's time. If young Rechard had begun to rebuild he could not have started before 1578 which brings us into the spine beam era.

There is something fascinating about the three women in this household who so successfully took over the running of the farm. In each of the three generations a widow called Ayllys, Alese and Alyce were left to bring up their families. The very first widow, Grandma Ayllys was possibly the youngest of all to farm from 1550 to about 1580, though her son Rechard had two thirds of the two yardlands by 1578.

Alese/Alyce nee Densey (1563-1609) was the second widow, who at eighteen had married a Rechard fourteen years older than her. He died when she was only twentynine. Alese never remarried according to her late husband's wishes. He may have been jealous of her, or more likely wanted to make sure a son inherited the lease. Thomas their eldest son had been fortunate and attended the Williamscote school, but it is not certain if she managed to get the others past a petty school education. Alese died in 1609 still young at fortysix when their four sons were aged twentyseven, twentyfive, twentythree and twenty.

Thomas was able, the year after Alese died, to marry twentyfour year old Alyce Hitchman from Bourton. By 1613 they already had two of their six children and as Thomas farmed all the land he would have begun to pay off the £10 legacies due to each of his brothers. William the second brother stayed at home until he married widow Pratt [24] in 1616. He was then thirtytwo (p556).

Page 578

Another brother Rychard went away, but in 1617 came home to help when his eldest brother Thomas died. The last brother John returned to Cropredy in 1615 when he was twentyseven. Thomas could have been ill and needing help for that year he made his will. There was obviously some panic, but he recovered for a while and soon his wife was expecting their last child. Alyce Hitchman (1585-1650) came from the reasonably wealthy Hitchman family of Bourton and they must have known each other since childhood. They had been married for only nine years when Thomas died. Alyce was the oldest of the three widows at thirtytwo. In her husband's will, which for some reason she proved in London, Thomas had left his five children £10 each following his mother's example. Alyce was instructed to provide "meate, drinke and apparell" as well as "Scolinge untill such tyme as they shall be able to get their livings or be put to apprentice." She sent Richard and his brothers to school as their father wished. This third Alyce had a long way to go as Richard the eldest of her five children was only seven when she was left a widow. Like his uncles before him, Richard was thirtysix before he married. He took care of his mother for her last four years.

Had Thomas built the porch to impress the Hitchmen's of Bourton and was it the Hitchman land between Cropredy lower mill and Slat mill which had taken Alyce to London to prove his will? If Thomas did not build the porch could Richard, their thirtyfive year old son, have done so just before his marriage in 1646 having first entered onto the lease? This was at a time when others in the district were building a porch.

During all the years the household was in control of a woman their livelihood did not suffer. After farming for over thirty years it was unfortunate that Richard in the fourth generation was in his seventies when rents became hard to raise. The 1680's were difficult years for stock farming, and so it was that they were refused the entry onto another lease and lost the house when it was a master Howse in control, not a widow. The absent landlord is quite determined to take the opportunity to rid his estate of several tenants:

"Hows must if necesity be disposed/ to a better tennant able to manage/ there land and pay there rents..." [1684 Add. MS. 71960 p224]. "I will not permitt anymore/ of the Howes to be Received into that farm/ but if these be able then there is no want of Tenants, and if beggers there are too many all/ ready" [1685 Add. MS. 71961 p240 ].

Howse's old timber house if it faced Creampot Lane would have been in line with Watts' cottage to the south. In the lawn (over the farmyard area) has appeared a large patch 27' 9" from north to south and coming west from the Lane wall in an oblong parallel to the north boundary and about the width (22') of a range of buildings away from the same north wall. Was this part of the old house foundation or a section of the barn and buildings with a cobbled yard? In 1775 an L-shaped range of buildings existed in the north east corner, backing onto the passage which led up from Creampot between the Howse and Lyllee properties.

The rear entrance into the close and orchard was at the west end coming off Backside. The later drive skirting round the paddock to come to the northern courtyard and entrance into the house. Those on foot leaving or returning by the passage into Creampot Lane. The farmyard remained next to Creampot Laneat the eastern end of the close where Howse needed a barn of at least five bays, a cowshed to house six to eight beasts and a stable for four. In May 1609 Alese had peas and hay still left in her ricks. Also in the yard was a woodpile and other odd wood. Apart from her plough and three harrows there was an iron bound cart as well as a "dunkart." Both the carts needed a north facing shelter shed to be out of the sun. The corn that was out in the field was worth £20, the product of three yardlands.

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Howse built using ashlar cut stone on the front elevation and coursed rubble rows on the other three, all under a thatch roof. They had decided to have only two stone gables to support the roof, leaving out a central one. Apparently there was no desire to attach a barn to the house especially when they had one down in the farmyard. Others were rising in status with a completely separate building away from the yard. They could ignore a plan making a cross passage separating a barn from the house with an inner stone gable which would conveniently take a chimney. Instead they built a chimney with oven on the western gable thereby eventually making that the hall.

The new stone house would require extra and larger casements each with a seat. Shutters were very necessary until glazing was complete and then they were kept for warmth as curtains had not yet come into fashion, or if around elsewhere they were late to arrive in Cropredy. Curtains were mainly hung from the bed tester to shield the occupants from draughts and others in the room.

All the oak transverse beams, joists and floor boards from the timber house must be reused. The old beams could be taken down and reassembled because of their full dovetailed joints, providing the beams were spaced as before. They saved the massive oak transverse beams, but now required four for each floor and one for the cellar. Some of the old oak floor boards were an inch thick and up to twelve inches wide. These would be particularly valuable as replacements could not be found in that width in Cropredy and to buy in would be costly in transport, even if they could be procured. The landlord who provided timber for buildings would stipulate reuse wherever possible.Two inventories mention the rooms in their house:

Alese Howse in May 1609.................................Richard Howse in 1685

Lodging Chamber [1bed] ...................................Lodgin room

Dea house And Butterie ....................................Buttery & Spence

Hall [chimney] .....................................................Hall house

Chamber beneth the Entrye [bed] ....................Buttery chamber

The kitchen ..........................................................Hall chamber

................................................................................Nether chamber

The first front door opened to the left across the two steps up to the lodging chamber door. To reach the first floor the stairs must be able to turn upon a central newel post and rise in a space of around three feet by six. The staircase could be facing the door and lit by a north window over the door on the first floor. Was this the way Howse had constructed their first stairs? They appear to have rejected the practice of having the stairs by the inglenook which the B manor farm did [8], while Gybbs [25] and Robins [26] took advantage of the six feet to one side of the chimney breast for a stairs up to their cocklofts. Howse had other uses for the rest of the space on the gable end. In 1592 Rechard left four hogs and five stores all of which would need preserving by smoke. This would take up valuable space in the chimney hood, but they must also allow space for the brewing furnace. Alese definitely had the hair cloth and malt sieves indicating she was brewing, leaving "eleaven sackes two winno sheetes a hayre cloth xxs/ one strike ffoure maultsives a pecke and a hayre sive iiijs" in the house. No other fireplace was mentioned or taxed while a Howse lived on this site. An oven took up the northwestern corner of the inglenook so the furnace had to be to the left of the chimney. It could not be behind as the Robins had done in their kitchen chimney, for this was an outside wall.

Page 580

Without a cross passage there was still room in the middle bay behind the stairs to have a chamber "beneth" the entrance, that is lower in importance to the entry and hall using the old timber house's "low chamber" partition walls. The chamber would be about 10 feet by 12 feet. Although it had a bed, this was a useful place to store items being next to the hall:

"Ite. foure Kivers two ffatts ffoure Loomes/ three payles and two Meeles" were worth £2 as well as the two spinning wheels and "ffower payre of cards."

Tiny chambers squeezed in to take the bedstead out of the hall, may only have enough room for one double bed. Removing beds from the hall made the preparation of food, eating and keeping company easier without having to take into account an elderly or sick relative in the four poster near the fire.

The lodging chamber and the "Dea house And Butterie" still had to be fitted in. The eastern end of the house which took up two narrow bays measured about sixteen square feet sharing the inner partition wall with the chamber "beneth" the entry. With the cellar below this end, the floor was higher than the western bay. Alese's lodging chamber had a four light stone mullion casement window on the north wall (which was reduced to three when the porch was added). The window was later lost altogether to accommodate an early eighteenth century kitchen wing. When the Eagles were in the process of modernising the house they changed the east elevation so that the room now faced the old farmyard. Two sash windows were made, but at different times, as well as a fireplace. Over the "beneth" the entry chamber was the buttery chamber which must place the buttery next to the lodging chamber?

In 1592 a "binch in the chimney" is mentioned which would not fit into any other part of the one chimney stack except in the hall. Rechard Howse died that year and they may have been sleeping in the western bay for three beds appear to have been in the same chamber as the chimney. From this can we deduce that for the time being they were all sleeping downstairs using the future hall as a chamber while the second stairs were put in, or upper floors were being improved? Meanwhile the east end must serve as a fireless "hall" for their tables and forms were found in there. In this inventory no fire equipment is given in the hall.

Another explanation could be that the lists for both rooms end with a bench and the "binch in the chimney" had been added to the wrong room for in the inventory the list of goods in the hall ends with "the binche," while the chamber had "the cheyre the stooles and the binch in the chimney" in the final copy of the inventory. Six men were in attendance to produce an inventory and a lot of chatter and ale would have flowed during the making. The finished inventory does not help as it is now in a very damaged state, and not all can be read.

By 1609 Alese had the ground floor sorted out and the "hall" is in the intended western bay with the chimney. The hall being the place for cooking and preparation Alese had seven bacons hanging in there, presumably in the inglenook, being smoked for sale or eventual consumption. Or else hung from a ceiling hooks awaiting the knife. Uncle Fremund Densy may have sat on the bench having been set to watch the bacon joint in the pot hanging over the fire and to prevent it from boiling over.

The position of the kitchen is uncertain. If the outside building was used it did not have a chimney in 1663. In Thomas's time no-one used the small building to house staff for none were given in the lists. Another position for the kitchen could have been on the south side, later taken down when one was built to the north.

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The stairs took them up to the three chambers, but the way up to the cockloft was by a ladder next to the chimney breast in the hall chamber. As the chimney stack narrowed it allowed a tiny western window, whose deep sill would provide the climber a place for their candle holder while opening the two foot square trap door, which allowed access to two storage cocklofts. Each loft was lit by a one light gable window. Apples would certainly be stored in the cockloft, but there was no way wool could be hoisted through either the window or ladder hole. They may have kept it on the wooden floor of the lodging chamber as Truss did [33]. The hall and nether chambers had casement windows of three lights which faced north. The nether bay lost the north window once the a kitchen wing was added. The buttery chamber in the middle bay would need a south facing window.

The next tenants were the Eagles and they made extensive alterations during the next hundred years. At the west entrance to the courtyard the Howse had a small building. The south east corner was rounded to protect the carts coming into the courtyard. This was repeated when the later north kitchen wing was made. Imported pine was used for the wing's spine beam. When the Eagles took over Lyllee's [29] land and farm buildings new stables were made out of Lyllee's barn with some ashlar walls and stone lintels similar to Gybb's old farm [25] and Springfield's [6] dairy block. On the 1775 map the Eagles had not yet turned the farmyard end of their own close entirely into a garden. That must have come later. In the first half of the nineteenth century (possibly between 1823 and 1832) the boundary walls alonside Creampot Lane were built in stone and lined with brick. At about this time a south wing was built blocking off the one light window in the original hall.

Reconstruction of Howse's [28] new Stone House.

Page 580

Lyllees, Halls and Lordens of Creampot Lane [29].

1614: wam lylee ux......... ijd......... 1624: John Hall et uxor...... ijd

.........Jhon hall ux............ijd

The average in the household for the 8 listed years was 4.

Lyllee, Lillie or Lilly are various spellings of Wylliam Lyllee's surname.

The Lyllee's passed the lease down to a son-in-law John Hall who again passed it onto his son-in-law Samuel Lorden. The family lost the tenancy and the land was then divided up. The house did not survive long after the farms were merged. Lyllee's had built a stone house with only one chimney which faced south onto the passage shared with the Howse family.

Page 583

Relationships between the two households must have been kept up for Wylliam was asked by old Fremund Denzie, who lived with Alese Howse's family, to act as overseer for Alese's four boys.

Wylliam's parents died leaving him able to marry at twentythree so he could not have rebuilt until later on. Wylliam and Anne were to create a record with their long marriage of fiftysix years. Their sons leave to set up elsewhere, but two daughters marry and stay in Cropredy. Joane married John Lucas [2] and lived down the Long Causeway. Elizabeth married John Hall who took up some of Lyllee's land and for sixteen years they would be given an upper chamber at Lyllee's house and share their hearth.

From the 1623 inventory it is possible to prove Wylliam and Anne Lyllee had retained half the land as well as the hearth with their cooking pots still in use, long after the three grand daughters had arrived. Widow Anne was not on the 1624 list, neither does her name appear in the burial register so which of her daughters, Anne Corbet or Katherine Pherie, had taken her in?

Before John Hall himself gives up his land the eldest of their three girls, Joyce, had married Samuel Lorden who took on the lease of the other yardland. Joyce died before her father John Hall and Samuel brings his second wife Sarah to the house. Five of the eight Lorden children survive. Samuel in his will proved in London left land in trust for the three eldest girls by his first wife and money to the others. He signed with a mark, but he could have rushed a last minute will through on his deathbed. As a widow Sarah was helped with the farm by Henry Jeffery and the children are left in his care when she too died eighteen months after her husband in August 1659 [PCC 298 & 179]. After this the B manor terriers, which give the names of the husbandmen who farmed their neighbouring strips, show that Lyllee's land had been divided between the Reverend Bathurst, Richard Howse [28] and Christopher Bowman.

The lease fell out before Howse's. Was this due to the loss of so many lives on the lease? Wylliam Lyllee built either a decade after the Rychard Howse who died in 1550, or before the second Rechard. The stone building might have reached right to the eastern end of the passage for on the 1775 map there is a building all along Lyllee's side. By then the farm had ceased to have a separate tenant having long been merged with [28]. The place was remodelled into a coal house, wash-house and stables.

An indication of the importance of walking to a neighbour's was shown by the use of passages, which wasted no space, gave some privacy, but could still be reached by a horse if necessary. It also meant in this case that the constant twice daily passage of cows was kept from the immediate frontage. Once again the house was pressed against the boundary as land was so valuable.

Lyllee had built his sixteenth century one and a half storey house and barn in stone with the usual thatch roof. The front elevation faced south onto the seven foot wide passage, which sloped down towards Creampot Lane. The living end was therefore lower than the barn, because of the habit of having the hall to the right of the entry. The whole site has more unsolved questions than hard evidence.

This house was always shared by three generations and the deceased had lived in only part of the house. With a house constantly divided between the generations no inventory would reveal every room, and where they could have been stated none were given in 1623 in Wylliam's half of the house. These rooms have had to be given in brackets:

Page 584

[In the hall]

"fower pewter platters three/ sawcers one salt and two brase/ Candlesticks 6s/

two potts two kettles one pan/ one Iron grate one paire of/ Cobbirons and one spitt £1-7s/

two hatchetts one bill two Iron/ wedges one brandiron one paire of/ tonges one paire of

bellowes one/ Iron barr, [etc] 7s"

[In their chamber]

"one Joyned bedsted one/ other old bedsteed one presse/ and fower coffers £1-3s-4d/

one matterris three old/ Coverletts three old blanketts/ two boulsters one pillowe fower/

paire of sheets one tablecloath/ one table napkin [etc] £1-10s."

[In the unnamed buttery] "two payles and one barrell 2s."

Here was an old couple apparently hanging on to land and hearth, letting only half the farm to John and Elizabeth who lived in this same house with their children (p106).

The main stock yard was immediately to the north, but they could have used a winter cowpen with a hovel between the north yard and the western close and orchard which bordered on Backside. A rickyard was usually protected by elms and a bank especially on the north and western side. The barn on this farm protected the south side. The rickyard had to be near, for the threshing, but also adjacent to the 60 foot wide cowpen. The eastern part of the rickyard was to eventually become a stable range measuring about 40 feet in width. The close was 120 feet wide from the Passage to the north boundary with Cattell [30]. The divisions into yards meant each wall, hedge or bank was used by two of the yards.

Lyllee's inventory taken on the 30th of August 1623, the day after he was buried, reveals the following stock and corn in his yards and sown in the Open Common Field:

............................................................. £... s...d

"...two beasts .....................................4 ...4... 0

nynteen sheepe .................................3.. 16...0

Eleven sheets of woole ....................0.. 16.. 0

the Corne and heay in/ the barne... 3.. 13.. 4

the Corne and pease in the/feild .....3... 0... 0"

The crop was the product of a yardland, yet he only had two cows. Several years before he had taken on an extra common from the vicar to add to his own. The appraisers were giving a general value to his produce of £6-13s-4d a yardland (p341). John Hall had the rest of the land and stock, but how had they partitioned off the buildings to store corn and hay?

The Lyllees and the Halls needed room to thresh their barley and wheat in the barn and to build ricks of peas and hay. The eight cows allowed on two yardlands needed a two bay cowshed and their four horses to plough the land required a stable. As early as 1588 the land had had to be split up and half was let to Rose a grazier who lived in Hello [60]. Had the Lyllees not been able to farm the whole amount and when had they been able to take it back?

Lyllees were husbandmen, but the son-in-law Hall considered himself, like others in the 1630's, to be a yeoman and this was not corrected. What had given him this status? The farm passed down through the women, perhaps by some family understanding, but it was never let as a separate unit again for three lives, after Lyllee's family die out.

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Cattells of Creampot Lane [30].

1614: wam Cattell ux..... ijd....... 1624: William Cattell et uxor....... ijd

..........his mother ...........ijd ..................Anne Cattell .......................ijd

................................................................George Osborne et uxor... ijd

................................................................Richard Gibbes.................. ijd

The average in the household on the 7 years given was 3.3.

Who farmed this land in 1552? All that can be discovered is that Cattell/Cathell may have followed Christopher Butler onto the land. William Cattell was married, but his wife's name escapes the records. They shelter his mother (also without a name) and three sisters Gillian, Anne and Mary. The Cattell's did not baptise any children at the church arriving with a complete family or having no children at all. The house had two hearths which enabled them to make it into two dwellings. We do not know where they lived before Cropredy, or if George Osborne who lived with them in 1624 had married one of the sisters.

At one time William had served as all husbandmen must do as church warden, but for some reason he was excommunicated. He was fond of listening to sermons, but being still not allowed to receive communion, or even attend the service he was presented at the church court for "frequenting of sermons being an excommunicane person" in March 1620 [Oxon Archd. papers, Oxon b.52: 178 item 4]. Cattell's family suffered because of this. He could not make a will so that his sister Gillian must take out letters of administration to settle his affairs (p187). William was buried on the 20th of February 1634/5 and the family soon depart.

Reconstruction of Cattell's House [30].

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After Cattells there is a gap before Thomas Wyatt, son of Thomas [31] next door, took over the lease. Thomas Wyatt did not stay long for he was waiting for the Brasenose manor farm [8] to become vacant, which it did when widow Mary Wilmer left. The Cattell's old farm then required a new tenant.

Plan of Cattell's House [30].

This one and a half storey farmhouse was on a prime site. An early stone building with a thatched roof. The house faced east onto Creampot Lane and the rear western wall formed the eastern boundary for the yard. This slightly thicker west wall was built in small stones. The south gable wall was replaced in the 1920's. All the windows, except the hall chamber, had three light wooden casements with splay mullions and three by four leaded panes to each light while one of the central lights opened with a metal side hung window. Some still had an ancient upright handle and window catches outside to hold the opening casement. All had wooden lintels. The hall and lower chamber had window seats and shutters [Very recently the hand made blacksmith windows on the eastern elevation needed renewing].

Fortunately a plan of the house and drawings were made prior to the modern renovations. This was one of the first houses surely to have a spine beam. It was chamfered and had stops at the hearth end and by the original passage partition. Even the entry passage had two stops in the same spine beam. The hall fireplace like Truss's [33] and Nuberry's [8] was centrally placed in the inner stone wall. This one had an oven built in on the right hand side. There was room for a copper or brewing furnace to the left, but a way was made to the barn, when this was turned into a nether chamber and a two bay stable. Once the whole property was turned into farm cottages this space beside the chimney became a cupboard. The second inglenook backing onto the passage was in the south bay, making it a Below the Entry Chamber. The eastern front door gave access to a four foot wide entry passage. Although there was an alcove in the rear wall there was no external evidence of a blocked doorway in the 1970's, and it was used for either the original newel stairs or a second stairs when the house was made into cottages.

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If this was the main stairs it made more sense than one in the south bay which took up space in the buttery area. Two doors led off the entry. The first into a hall on the right and the second to the left between the inglenook and the present newel stairs in the south bay. The buttery walls have been renewed and the stairs led up to the two upper chambers (later divided into four). The thatched roof came down lower at the back without any upper windows larger than a one light for the stairs off the entry passage. The present stairs had a light below upper floor level possibly for the old buttery. A door at the bottom shuts off the stairs and at the top and the bottom are two extra steps (to reduce the height of those treads to the newel post?).

The Below the Entry Chamber had an inglenook fireplace whose rear stone wall helped to support the roof. Four such walls in the length of the house and barn was unusual and perhaps a hint of being one of the first to be built. It also had the barn above the hall and not beneath the entrance. Cattell's [30] and Rede's [32] may be the only two like this in Cropredy. The hall end above the passage was also not divided into two bays. This was only a one and a half storey building and yet there were those extra stops giving a finer finish to the beam which would have to be paid for by the tenant. By 1663 Thomas Wyatt had put in another fireplace, either for brewing or as an upper chamber hearth. A buttery was badly needed and not mentioned in 1634 so it may have arrived later. The hall has a blocked doorway to the yard where they had a well. This would have been very useful when all the cooking, and dairy work went on in the hall.

Cattell's hall was simply furnished with his chair and a form. There was also the window seat for others to sit at the table. This had a frame (not a trestle) which was likely to be permanently under the window. There were two shelves for the four pewter plates and wooden ware, but the cupboard in front of the oven could hold many unmentioned wooden articles, unless it was used for smoking bacon? A small salt cupboard was built into the inglenook. They had a pot hanger for their one cooking pot and three kettles. A frying pan completed the hearth equipment for there was no mention of spits or andirons. As the room must double up as their preparation room Cattell's had two churns, a pail for water and two barrels in the hall. There was also a boulting "tube" for the flour. All this came to 32s-8d.

If William Cattell was ill he would have the downstairs chamber. This had a bed, two "quosers" [cushions] and the household linen consisting of five pairs of sheets, six napkins and three tablecloths valued at 30s. For special occasions a cloth would be left on the table. No mention was made of the chamber over, but his mother as a widow had the right to her own bed and bedding and this had nothing to do with her son's inventory.

His three sisters may have also gained two bedsteads or a shared double when their father died, but again not mentioned in the list. However William had in the hall chamber a flock and a wool bed (mattress) which the girls could use. They had two of everything including blankets, coverlets, pillows and bolsters and possibly sheets from downstairs. The sisters minded the garner, now empty of malt and had an extra table, the cheese rack and another "quoser." Somewhere in the house on a dry floor was the sheep wool in sacks worth a £1.

At the north end of the property was a three bay barn or stable which needed, if a barn, a cart door onto the yard. The north bay had vents and a hayloft door high up in the north gable. The only way to get the cart up to this loft was to pull up on their neighbours land to the north [31]. This end of the property became the stable and then cottages. The stone house had been built right on the edge of Creampot Lane with the farmyard behind. Once again a property had taken up the whole of the front end of the close, leaving just room for a wide entrance at the south end. Later on a stone wash house with a slate roof was built on the verge narrowing the entrance.

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Cattell did have stables in which he kept a mare and two geldings (one of whom was blind), with a little colt. The horses and their gears were worth £8-6s-8d. Richard Cartwright from the A manor farm [50] wrote three "lethel" cows and a heifer £6-6s-8d. Why were they small? Their twentythree sheep were out in the Open Common Field with the town flock as it was February and were valued at around 5s-6d each. These were not sheep in their prime (p261).

The larger four bay barn (Fig 21.5 p325) on the western range had in it 5 quarters of unthreshed barley and 5 quarters already winnowed which should provide 80 bushels. They still had to sow around 12 acres of barley using a quarter for every two acres. This left four quarters for the household bread, but as William had only planted two wheat lands he had left about two acres which could be planted with barley instead, though this reduced the corn left for the household's consumption by another quarter. 2 quarters of peas threshed and unthreshed were worth £2. These were waiting to be planted in four acres of the fallow field (ch.20). They had £2 worth of hay left in a loft or rick. The rickyard was behind the western range, but there were eventually enough buildings to keep the corn inside. The six hens and a cock would still take the grain, unless they could be kept out of the barns.

William possessed a long two wheel cart, a plough and other tools such as three forks, a spade a "spoulett"[?] and a "luther" [leather?]. The smaller tools came to 3s-4d. In the yard was the essential wood pile and coals.

After Enclosure Cattell's [30] farm was merged with Howse's old farm [28] and so these three important farm sites became one. Howse's superior building became the main farm house, Lyllee's was turned into out buildings and Cattell's into cottages.

Creampot Lane Farms.