The Husbandsmen's Farms & their Cottages

There are so many different ways to look at the types of houses that the husbandmen built. Everyone will be aware of the regional differences in building materials and design whenever they leave the motorways and travel through small towns and villages. Along the Cotswold belt the buildings change from the expensive wool merchants' ashlar stone dwellings with stone slate roofs, up through the smaller grey lime stones to the larger goldern marlstones around Banbury. These marlstones were quarried and taken to Cropredy and neighbouring parishes and have given the region a distinct beauty all of its own. Further north along the limestone belt the texture changes, but fine buildings built for most of the parishioners can be found in township after township, though many have been swamped by the universal modern bricks and concrete tiles.

In Cropredy the new stone properties were being built for husbandmen, craftsmen and labourers at a time when yeomen in other parishes might be the only ones starting to rebuild. Husbandmen may build a smaller place, but still required enough farm buildings and yards as any yeoman. The basic plans were very adaptable and many would take the best from the former timber buildings. What kind of structural groups could they be divided up into?

Site	Ashlar/	No.of	Aspect	Barn	Barn	Passage	Gable	Layout
	Rubble	Stories		Attached	Detached	Entry	Entry	unsure
[3]	Rubble	1.5	W	*		?*
[4]	?	?1.5	S	?*		*		*
[6]	Rubble	2.5	E		*	*
[8]	Rubble	2.5	E		*
[9]	Rubble	1.5	E	*
[12]	?	1.5	?E					*
[14]	Ashlar	2.5	E		*	*
[15]	Rubble 17c	1.5	E	*			*
[16]	Rubble	1.5	W	*		*
[21]	?	?	S		*			*
[23]	Rubble 17c	1.5	S	*
[24]	?	?	?S		*			*
[25]	Rubble	2.5	E	*		*
[26]	Rubble	2.5	E		*	*
[28]	Ashlar	3.5	N		*
[29]	Rubble	1.5	S	*				*
[30]	Rubble	1.5	E	*		*
[31]	Ashlar	2.5	S		*			*
[32]	Rubble	1.5	S		*
[33]	Rubble	1.5	S	*		*
[34]	Ashlar	2.5	?		*	?*		*
[35]	Rubble	2.5	E	*		?*		*
[44]	Rubble 17c	1.5	W	*			*
[50]	Rubble	2.5	S	*		?*		*
[60]	Rubble	1.5	S	*		?*		*
.4	Ashlar	13=1.5	10=E.3=W	12	9	8	2	10
17	Rubble	.9=2.5	10=S.1=N	+?1	+?1	+?5

Vaughans [23], yeomen, leased two cottages, but also some land which brought the number of farms up from twentyfour to twentyfive. It has already been mentioned at the start of this section that masons, if remaining in one area, built using regional materials with as much as possible coming from the parish. Inevitably houses and cottages followed the local masons' style with the tenants' needs dictating the differences in individual properties. Some required two and a half storeys while others remained content to use the roof space for the only upper floor.

The need to face all houses towards the road was ignored by French [4], Howse [28], Lyllee [29], Hanwell [34] and Hentlow [35] when they rebuilt in stone. Narrow sites like [34 & 35] had little alternative, but the other three did not have this excuse. The site itself sometimes influenced the direction the house faced. On the main farms ten faced east, one north, ten south and three definately faced west ([8]'s door to the west, windows to the east).

Ten of the twentyfour husbandmen built a separate barn from the house. Cattell's had a building attached, but not in the manner of a long house type. Thirteen saved a gable wall and built the barn attached to their new house.

We have already seen that some artisans had a long house (ch. 26), but it was more unusual for husbandmen to continue to build in this way. When it came to the main entrance door opening into an entry passage at least nine definitely did this and possibly three more on the twentyfive farms. Hampshire may have abandoned cross passages by the 1550's with the building of hall chimneys, but just over a third of the Cropredy farmhouses favoured the entry passage and rear exit as a way of reaching the back yard. Hall [6], Lumberd [14], Robins [26] and Cattell [30] had a fireplace backing onto the passage with the chimney jointed into the front wall. This meant the entrance to that room had to be beyond the chimney.

Two of the three farming tenants in timber buildings who delayed stoning their walls were [15] and [44] and both were entered via the south gable next to the late chimney.

Was this a township where the landlord was about to improve his estate by a massive building operation leading to increased entry fines? The house would never be freehold, only copyhold for three lives, so that here there were no incentives for tenants to indulge in exterior embellishments.

It was important to find out which manor the site belonged to. The College (B manor), or the Lee's larger Clattercote estate (A manor) which had been divided into three groups. The College ones were all known and could be found first. Having located one of the remaining tenants in the vicar's Easter Oblation lists, it was then necessary to discover into which of the three A manor groups that property belonged. One list for 1659 has been saved which gives all the farms [Boothby's letter book: Add. MS. 71960 p129]. The B Manor estate has been added to the tabulated 1659 rental so that the whole town is represented. To bring it back into Holloway's time the tenants are given for 1614 by using his Easter list for that year:

Site	No. of Messuages	Yardlands in1659	Tenant in1659	Tenant in 1614
	1st Part of the A.Manor :			Cottagers in []
[4]	1	2.5	Thos.Wright	French
[28]	1	2	Rich.Howes	Howes
[16]	1	2.5	Thos.Hunt	Hunt
[14]	1	3	N.Haslewood	Lumberd
[60]+[53]	2	1	Wm Wyatt	Suffolk
			& Wm Read	[Palmer]
[30]	1	0.5	Wd Wyatt	Cattell
[52]&[53]	1	0.5	Rob.Wyatt	[2 cotts]
[1]	1	0.5	[Mrs Palmer]	[Palmers]
	2 Water mills & a fulling mill
	2nd Part of the A.Manor:
[31]	1	2	Jn.Wyatt	Kynd
[50]	1 & Berry Close	3	Mr Cartwright	Coldwell
[25]	1	2	N.Tompkins	Gybbs
[24]	1	2	Ed.Pratt	Pratt
[9]	1	2	Thos. Howes	Howes
[15]	1	2	Wd Toms	Toms
[51]	Mill & Holme by Towne			[Cross]
	3rd Part of the A Manor:
[26]	1	3	Mr Blagrave	Robins
[12]	1	1.5	T.Gorstelow	late Handleys
[29]	1	1	Sam Lorden	Lyllee
[34]	1	2.5	R.Watts	Watts/Hall
[57[&[58]	2 cotts	0.5	[Orton/	[Hill/Carter]
			..Langley]
[23]	2 cotts	0.5	T. Vaughan	Vaughan
	The Brasenose Manor:			1614
[3]	1	1		Devotion
[6]	1	2.5		Wm Hall
[8]	1	4		Woodrose
[32]	1	1		Rede
[35]	1	2		(sublet?)

The above list can be compared with the two meadow lists for 1578 and 1588 which reveal how much land the tenants had leased (pages 209 & 211).

Four husbandmen who had ashlar walls on at least the front elevation were Lumberd [14], Howse [28], Kynd/Wyatt [31] and Watts [34]. If Richard Howse [28] was one of the earliest to rebuild in stone, he chose to face the north elevation of his three and a half storey house in ashlar stone with two four light stone mullion windows on either side of the front entrance. On the south rear elevation he had at least two small windows one of which was a two light splay mullion window for a chamber. The south and gable walls were in coursed rubble rows of Horton stone.

Of the incomers who may have begun to rebuild in ashlar stone the earliest to arrive was Kynd [31]. Their house in the inventories was not large and it may have remained modest until Thomas Wyatt became the tenant in the 1620's and made several additions.

At the bottom of Creampot Lane the Watts had taken over the Hanwell's farm [34]. Hanwells had suffered through various epidemics and it is possible that Richard Watts took on the farm with the understanding Richard Hanwell remained the chief tenant. Richard Watts and Ann were married in about 1587/8 and if any rebuilding was done on this narrow site it would surely have been done before their marriage. The building faced east/west and the type of stone used was mentioned over three hundred years later when the College, which by then owned the property, recycled the "ashlar stone" for two tied cottages built between the barn next to the road and the old house which had long fallen into disrepair.

The last site was Edward Lumberd's [14]. His widowed mother had remarried a Thomas Whytinge who would have no interest in rebuilding as the house could not go to his only daughter Em. Edward was to care for the old lady, once again widowed, until she was around eighty. Thomas Whytinge died in 1584 and Edward did not marry for eight years. Was it during this period that he was able to rebuild on the Green, but facing towards the Cherwell bridge?

The B manor farm [8], Springfield's [6] east wall and the Brasenose Inn [13] have some later walls in ashlar. Extensions or additional buildings often used a larger ashlar stone.

The Brasenose College may have kept a tighter control over rebuilding for their funds were there to educate scholars, not to encourage superior construction of walls. This may account for the College tenants not using ashlar until a hundred years later in renovations. The two estates may have used different plans and had separate masons, but their cottage design may have preceded the A. Manor? Or could it be argued that the Brasenose College charged higher rents and their tenants could afford less? This is rather contradicted by the fact that Hentlowe's [35] and the B. Manor farm [8] had leased more land than any other husbandman during the height of the building period. Cottagers could surely not find the money for the entire building, but if the landlords purchased the stone they would have to raise the entry fine. Owners had lost out during the more profitable years with tenants on fixed rents so that the only way to raise their income from such Copyholds was to improve the buildings and then charge higher entry fees. The problem must have been talked about for a College Act was passed which allowed part of the rent to be in kind. This favoured the Brasenose College as landlords who may not have been able to provide enough materials to gain such an increase in rental and still finance the College. There is an opinion that landlords rebuilt the cottages [M.W.Barley 1500-1750], but what about the larger college farmhouses? The tenants may have contributed the largest portion of the cost and entered upon a nintynine year lease?

There would be insufficient stonemasons available for everyone to begin building in the 1570's. Perhaps it could be worked out where the stone masons were working over the town? The smallholders we followed into long house types and craftsmen with new surnames can be plotted onto a chart, but it was more difficult with Cropredians already tilling the land. The marriage dates of husbandmen might be one indication. Knowing that each household was at a different stage in the family cycle, did the son on taking up the lease begin by altering the house before he married? Or did he first have to pay off many legacies to his siblings? Were either of the parents still alive and on a third of the farm land? In which case he had to house them in return for taking over their lease. It would seem many had improved the family property between two inventories, though the parents' inventory may not show the whole house, and obviously the alterations had been done before the head of the household lay dying of old age. On the other hand when a man's unmarried heir or successor was nearing thirty the parents might agree to allow rebuilding before he found a wife. This is what may have happened at Rede's and Hanwell/Watts. There were seldom more than two or three married yearly in the town, but even just two or three a year would stretch over a twenty to thirty year period. On some years the masons may have put up at least three new dwellings replacing former timber ones, although apart from the timber row a few buildings must have been in such good order it would have been folly to dismantle them [15, 23 & 44]. The majority had new stone houses before the middle of the 1590's, though additions and alterations went on throughout the following years.

Two of the most difficult to date on the A manor are Coldwell's [50], the A manor farm in Church Street and Howse's [28] on the west side of Creampot Lane. They could be the oldest. Springfield [6] on the Long Causeway may also have been rebuilt before 1570. The B manor farm [8] had some early stone walls, but a complete rebuild at any one time was apparently not made. Each had evidence of an earlier building practice than the rest. Could they have been inspired by the rebuilding of others in the neighbourhood and led the way, before the 1570's? Howse had kept transverse beams, but had built a grand three and a half storey house further back on the site leaving perhaps some of the older buildings nearer the road to form two sides of his yard?

Apart from looking at the buildings themselves [which still need a great deal of investigation] it is possible to go back to the beginning of our period and note the appearance of a family in Cropredy, or the registration of a marriage, or baptism, to indicate a building might have been completed to a habitable stage to house the new family.

In 1574 both the Huxeleys and Breedons arrived [36 and 37] to be followed by Kynds at [31].

William Howse next door [9] took over in 1577 when his mother died, though he was not to marry until he was forty. Was he too busy rebuilding?

A cottage on the verge next to Pages [11] was needed for the Adkins [10], when William married Elizabeth in 1578.

In 1576 Robert Robins [26] had lost his third wife and was about to enter into another marriage in the following January. Could that have been the time to rebuild?

The two mill houses may have taken up the stone masons next for Smythe married Ursula in 1578 [51] and "Palmers" house [1] may have been built over the next few years?

In 1582 John Truss [33] married. Suttons [42] came in 1583, while in 1584 Elderson and Tanner arrive [38 & 39].

Down on the Green Justinian Hunt [16] may have been waiting to get married, though his father was still alive. They were sharing the work on the land and Justinian must have wanted to get the stone walls completed on the house. Justinian was at least thirtysix when his own eldest son was born. Had the delay been to help pay off the cost of rebuilding? On the 1774 map his long house and barn were as near to the edge of the Green as they could go. Numerous outbuildings were made around a court yard and cowpen, yet in spite of the expense they still died with plenty of possessions, for Hunts liked to set the fashion in indoor goods.

Two College copyhold cottages may have been started in 1586, Bagleys [19] and Bokingham's [55] and on the following year Bostockes [41] on the A manor.

A College farm down Creampot in 1588 [35] and weaver Watts on the A manor [27] could also have been building.

Several have been left out of this conjecture, but the vicar [21] must be included. Thomas Holloway had to run a farm and was the first vicar of Cropredy to have been allowed to marry. That was in 1571 while still studying for his M.A. Thomas may have been the curate when his eldest son George was baptised at Cropredy. They would have found the bachelor accommodation totally unsuitable. When did the Holloways begin to rebuild? Was it when he became the vicar in 1573? With the large Ecclesiastical parish of Cropredy to run as well as the need to cater for a growing family with a reasonable staff, they required a new stone and thatched vicarage, but who would pay for it?

The lists of 1613 to 1624 made it possible to use most of the wills and inventories. They helped when each individual farm site was looked at. Husbandmen required their houses to be sufficiently large enough to cater not only for the immediate family of husband, wife and increasing number of carefully spaced children, but also the grandparents who usually passed on two thirds of the land to the next generation. Redes departed from this custom due to a marriage agreement and left half to the wife, even though the children were old enough to have had their legacies. On the B manor usually the lease was kept for the widow and other children until the youngest was eighteen. The local custom appears to make sure the family are not turned out by an elder brother inheriting before their needs were catered for. Siblings must have houseroom in one of the chambers. It has already been mentioned that if a widower died then it was the son who took over the care and education of the younger children [16]. Most households must have aimed to get the youngest away before the eldest married, but this was not always achieved. Space must be made to provide for them wherever possible.

The main farms in Cropredy, apart from the two manor farms were situated on the west side on older closes. Later farms were built on the north side of Creampot Lane and Church Lane. Altogether they fluctuated between twentytwo and twentyfive families. The A manor having all the farms down the west side except for Springfield [6] and all three in Church Lane. Creampot was divided evenly between the two manor estates. An extra College farm [3] was built above the edge of the meadows to the south of their manor farm [8].

The two manor farms had the best sites. The A. Manor [50] had a large close behind and several meadows while the B.Manor [8] had a moated site amidst their meadows. This was anciently part of the older A manor.

Along the west side of the town were the most important farms each with a good yard: Howse [28], Lyllee [29] and Cattell [30] appear to have the best sites at the north end while Robins [26] and Gybbs [25] had the central position with Backside keeping the stock to the rear of the dwelling. Below the Green the farms lacked a good rear entrance, making do with access on fallow years only? Of these Springfield [6] was important enough to survive. The three next to the Green may not have appreciated the position, but none the less Lumberd [14] and Hunt [16] appear to have had good farm dwellings and both were important farms while the Toms family only left the Green to move up to Cropredy Hill farm in 1789.

Courtyards or paved areas were in front at Nuberry's [8] and Howse [28] and behind at Halls [6] and Hunts [16]. Devotion [3] and Huxeleys [36] each had a grass yard. Most had a backside or yard by the dairy or kitchen and except for hens they kept the stock out. Cattle yards were very necessary and might have open hovels, wooden buildings, or new stone cowsheds, stables, barns and walls positioned to shelter the yard. Two yards were ideal leaving a cattle yard surrounded by a wall and a stable yard for exercising the animals [30]. Manure heaps at that time were left exposed to the elements often in the centre of a yard. Those who had a sloping yard would get rid of the excess water.

Nine of the farms have gone, or been rebuilt. Eight of the nine had left inventories [4,9,12,16,24,29,34,60].

Why did some farms survive and others not? Was it the size of the close? Newer ones were definitely more cramped. The aggravation caused by a cowsey approach may have been one cause of the loss of farms in Church Lane. After the Enclosure of the Open Common Fields the College preferred to keep their farms in the township and had managed to get a great deal of their land attached to their farmsteads. On the A manor many farms were joined together. At the top of Creampot Howse's old farm had extended as far as Cattell's [28-30]. This meant [30] became cottages. Other farmhouses were turned into cottages when the house was rebuilt amongst the new parcels of land. Though why in the process the old French, Gorstelow and Howse [4, 12 and 24] farms vanish is not easy to find out. Howse and Redes [9 and 32] as well as Vaughans in Church Lane [23] remain as cottages. Had it become too impossible for small farms to compete, that the merging continued? The old homestead being redeveloped as a business site, or becoming just plain domestic? Again it is necessary to turn to the families occupying the sites.

It is usual to begin any survey with the manor farms, but these were not owner occupied any more than the rest of the farms and all the following properties will be looked at in the same order as Holloway used, except for Devotions [3] which fitted better in the chapter about Long house types (p. 415). First the cottages attached to farms often allocated to the shepherd.

During the period 1570 to 1600 good shepherds were hard to find and it became necessary to give them a cottage to enable them to marry and settle down.

There were six or seven cottagers without the permanent right of a common. Their employer might have taken over the right leaving them to find one for themselves. Labourers worked long hours and their wives would be expected to work as well. The advantage of being married was they did not have to live under the master's roof, having already passed through that stage (p.64). The cottage enabled them to start a family. Due to their lack of arable strips to grow corn would their employer pay them partly in kind? Their children had no rights to the cottage. Their parents could stay only so long as they worked for the farmer.

The employees dwelling in Springfield's one bay cottage had less room than most for it also housed the kiln. No permanent names are associated with this building and it may only have housed the man who worked the kiln, for Halls include all their servants together, as though they slept in the servants' chambers. In the terrier of 1669 this cottage did have the right to a common [BNC:552].

The B manor farm [8] opposite Springfield had a permanent cottage listed separately from the farm buildings (Fig.20.4 p303). It was sited to the north of Springfield [6] across the Long Causeway from [8].

There were four families mentioned over the list years and these overlap, which meant the two bay cottage housed both families:

Woodrose's [8] farm cottage was across the Long Causeway. It had two bays and was stone walled and thatched. In 1604 Christopher Spencer owed the weaver R.Terry [13] 4s. It was just an isolated bill. Credit must have been extended to many farm workers when wages were paid quarterly.

The Spencers lived here for at least ten years leaving in 1614. The Clyftons then returned to Cropredy to take their place.

John Clyfton is thought to have been a shepherd and his wife Abishag Mrs Dyonice's maid. Abishag Ryuxe/Rylye could have come with the Woodroses and after marrying John in October 1608 they leave, but return to the half vacant cottage. At least one son and two daughters of theirs survive. As Dyonice Woodrose grew old Abishag and Marian Palmer [59] appear to be her closest maids. They were left 20s and 10s in her will (p88).

Farm labourers' families could not live in their employer's house and it was rare in the Cropredy records for their children to take on a copyhold life in one of these cottages. This meant none had three generations under one roof. That did not mean they had the luxury of two bays to themselves. Spencers or Clyftons have to manage alongside another family or couple. How did a small 24' by 16' ground floor, divided into two rooms with a loft over, accommodate four adults and five plus children in 1614? Compared with the rest of Cropredy's stone dwellings this was very crowded. Only Norman's [48] in Church Street lived with an average of 4.12 under their roof.

The cottage should have its own cottage common according to a terrier of 1670, and the vicar usually writes John Clyfton's name on the cottage commons lists from 1614 to 1619, but no money was paid by John. Did the Woodroses pay the tithe, or did they merge all the commons for their own use? Clyfton did find another one and leased it for his cow (p.229).

Thomas French's widow Mary in 1632 [4] employed a William Clyfton to help work her land. The rest of this couple's family vanish, even though they worked for the farm for a long period.

The present surgery was built on Clyfton's Close (still called that on a 1780 estate map), and the Belser track goes westwards inside the northern boundary. They had a vegetable garden around the back and side of the cottage which was right on the verge, presumably facing east. Later on part of the verge was taken into the close which means the cottage was further westwards than the present boundary, and in line with Springfield farmhouse [6].

* Still written in the Easter list of 1615 as Christy Adkins three months after her marriage. Were they living there, or was the payment in lieu of the months up to her marriage? From this may we conclude that the mention of a person paying did not necessarily mean they were in residence at the time, but had been home for the majority of the twelve months? Or had he written down the wrong daughter?

William's wife Elizabeth died and a daughter took over until the eldest son married. Alyce had gone by the following Easter. A brother returned for three years making five adults in the cottage in 1615 and baby Henry was born in 1617. Grandpa William Atkins (spelt like that by the vicar, but also spelt as Adkins after the Revd Holloway's time), was the father of nine children. When the vicar wrote his last Easter lists William and Thomas two of the sons had both married. They baptised their children in Cropredy church and it looked as though they both shared the cottage. However apart from one year the vicar's lists also show that the Thomas Atkins who was married to Clement Fox in 1614 was living at widow Fox's in Great Bourton from 1615 to 1624 and may eventually have become the tenant as widow Fox had no sons? There was still apparently room for Manasses Plivie and his wife who came to lodge with Atkins in 1624 having left their place at Hentlowes [35] down Creampot Lane after the death of John Hentlowe and a change in tenant.

The two cottages [10 & 11] built in front of Handley/Gorstelow's [12] could have been built on the verge for married farmworkers. As the tenants had no commons of their own it seems unlikely they were built for two craftsmen. Yet the family must have managed to enter lives on the copyhold to have remained for so long, so what occupation did they have?

Adkins and Page lived in their cottages for over a hundred years and therefore differed from the others in this group. Unfortunately none of them left a will. Their possessions must have been insufficient to require one, or none had managed to put any money away. These two families without land have left little apart from register entries behind and yet William Adkins headed the only cottage family to continue right down into the twentieth century.

The verges have been whittled away over the centuries. As the Green passed eastwards across the end of the Long Causeway it would be to the advantage of those moving stock through the parish to have a gate across the Long Causeway. When the two cottages had been built they took up a large part of the gap. The animal pound was either opposite Adkins' cottage or by Devotions [3]. If it was by Adkins it would reduce the gap to the width of about two gates. A new piece from the verge was encroached before 1774 for a third cottage put up on the south side of Adkins' garden. After 1775 more verge was added to the east of Howse's [9] old farm. This would further block the entrance to the old farmstead and close behind. Copes of Hanwell added to the last cottage and filled in the space between them and Adkins. These three were faced in brick using monk's bond. The rest of the row of five came from Adkin's old cottage and a new cottage added at the north end. Both these were faced in brick using a flemish bond. The north gable end of the row was built in stone and part of the stone western walls remained. The whole row was thatched (Fig.3i7).

Adkin's stone cottage was about thirty feet by fifteen feet nine inches. The east and west stone walls were eleven feet nine inches high and the gable was about twenty feet up to the ridge when the whole was thatched. The present lower windows to Adkin's cottage have three lights and the two upper windows are two light casements. All the lintels to this cottage and the newer northern one were made of wood, but the southern three cottages were given rounded brick lintels. This suggests the alterations occurred in two phases. The Adkin's hall would have been to the right of the central door and the chamber to the left. The chimney being built in the hall.

Richard's (1567-1640) two sons William and Thomas were the last two boys from the Page family to be born in Cropredy. Thomas was thirtyfour when his father died. None of his ancestors had married young enough, or lived long enough to be grandparents. So they were able to be a nuclear family.

Richard Page's forebears had been farming probably in Handleys farm [12]. Certainly they were in the town in 1552 when a William Page was leasing land. His father Hew Page who died in 1547 had three cows and the landlord took the fourth, so he had farmed a yardland. He left his "hole teame the carte and the carte geres and the plough geres and all other belonging to them," to his son William. Jone was to have £2. The other three children a cow each and Alice the youngest also had a "fether bed" [Wills Oxon 179. 266]. Their farm building has fallen down and gone. The farm land and close had by 1775 been transferred to the farm built by the Robins [26] family. The Pages had moved into the stone cottage in front. Page's cottage became a garden and now has a new house built on it, next to the Brasenose Inn [13].

Toms' [15] farm cottage was built in the farm yard. In the Easter lists first Woods then Shotswells lived here. It must have been part of the range of building stretching behind the barn along the north side of their farmyard. The cottage when stoned may have measured 15' by 19' inside the 22" walls. This would give a two bay cottage which faced south onto the yard. In the Toms' inventories no mention was made of the cottage for of course they let it unfurnished. Without the vicar's lists this cottage would not have been discovered (Fig.32.2).

Haddock's [17] could have been a farm cottage for Hunt's farm [16] as the cottage was on their close (Fig.32.2). On the vicar's lists the Haddocks came between Hunts [16] and Matchams [18]. Hunts had a large farm and would require a resident shepherd. The cottage was built in stone to the north of the farmhouse and certainly had no cottage commons. It appears to compliment the gable wing at the south end of the Hunt's long house. It could have been a two bay cottage with an upper chamber. This had a newel stairs, but of what period is not known. None of the family were buried at Cropredy and the widow has to move away. Edward's last Cropredy record was for Easter 1617. After the early demise or disappearance of her husband, widow Elizabeth takes in Mary Robins for 1618 and 19 and in 1624 Henry Smith is living in the cottage though who employs him if not Hunts? No doubt the children were backhouse servants on the farm for the few years they lived on in Cropredy.

This family had a place of their own. Another rare nuclear family because Dorothy's people lived next door and Wells was a newcomer to the town.

Ralph Wells' [22] cottage shared the same roof as Vaughans farm. If it was the married quarters it had been given over to his son-in-law. Was Ralph an independent, though poor man, or working for Vaughan's because his father-in-law has the common which may anciently have been available for the tenant. Dorothy was pregnant at twentyfour and married Ralph Wells. The churchwardens did not present them for the early arrival of baby Anne. If their nuptials had been celebrated then their betrothal ceremony would be seen as a legal pledge for marriage (p.122). They were together for six years over which time three children were born. Then the family lost their mother and were brought up by the father (p124).The daughter Anne Wells is the only one receiving communion before she was eighteen. Her responsibilities of helping with the two younger children and her father may have made her older than her years. Would she be able to gain work next door at the vicarage, or on her grandparents place? How well did the Vaughans know their neighbours, the Holloways? They had left the church during the sermon and had refused to present those who worked on saints' days (p.31).

What happens to the three children? Their grandfather a yeoman, with only a little land in Cropredy, had not mentioned his grand daughter Anne. The other two arrived later. William Vaughan owes Ralph Wells £4 and he leaves him goods in his will.

The end cottage measured about 15 feet deep by 22 feet long inside and was divided into an open hall without a chimney, a parlour with buttery behind and an upper chamber above reached by a ladder. The entrance door came into the hall and a rear exit slightly to the west of centre gave them access to a narrow garden at the rear. If the walls had already been stoned they still had not put in a chimney for the stone under the plaster behind the later newel stairs showed traces of soot from an open hearth. The chimney was not built with the original walls either. Once that improvement was made then the tie beam and roof truss was replaced with an A frame and a spine beam which supported the two upper chambers giving a floor all on one level. The cottage was narrower than many being externally only nineteen feet across the gable end by twentyfour along the front. The internal party wall with Vaughans had a stud partition under and above an early tie beam.