Barley

The oldest road in England

Icknield Way is about 4000 years old - it is known as the oldest road in England. It was already ancient when Julius Caesar came, saw and conquered Britain in 55 BC. It begins at Stonehenge in Wiltshire and continues for about 200 miles northeast to Norfolk.

About three-quarters of the way along the route, between Royston, Hertfordshire, and Elmdon, Essex, is the village of Barley, in the northeastern corner of Hertfordshire. Although Barley is in barley-growing country, it was not named after the grain. Called Berlai in Domesday Book, it was originally Beora's Lea, a forest clearing belonging to a Saxon named Beora, a name meaning bear. In the Middle Ages, Barley consisted of several manors, two of which belonged to monasteries. Mincinbury belonged to the Convent of Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, while Abbotsbury belonged to the Abbey of Colchester in Essex.

Thomas Mede was sworn into the tithing of the lord king in the Mincinbury manor court in 1507. In 1508 he did the same in the Abbotsbury manor court. He was born in about 1485. In 1524, Thomas Mede was on a committee to collect "Palfreymoney", a customary payment from the copyhold tenants to buy a palfrey - a small saddle horse - for the new Abbot of Colchester. In the tax rolls of 1525, there were two Meades in Barley, Thomas and his son William. Thomas Meade had goods worth £10 5s, the seventh highest assessment out of about 65 people named. William, who must have been around 20, had goods worth £2 1s.

In his will, dated 1530 and proved in 1531, Thomas Meade bequeathed "to the gild of Saint Katherine iiii bushels of malt and my great brass pan." He gave 40 shillings to his son Richard, who must have been born in around 1515 or 1520, 6s. 8d. to his son William, and 3s. 4d. to his daughter Sybil. The rest of his estate - which must have been worth 8 or 10 pounds - went to his wife Margaret. In his will, Thomas says he had surrendered his house and land in Barley a year earlier, and that Richard had to surrender his right in the property to Thomas Miller in order to receive his legacy, so his family must have left soon afterwards. In 1539 Sybilla Meyde married Richard Hunt in Stevenage, about ten miles to the west. She must have been born in 1515-20, making her about the same age as Richard. Also in Stevenage, William Meade was buried in January 1546/7.

My interest in this family is due to a coincidence of names and dates. The earliest known ancestor of the Meads of Fairfield County was Richard Mead, who was born in about 1515-20 and got married in Watford, Herts, in 1545. In 1544, Margaret Meade, widow, rented two houses in Watford, cosigned by Thomas Heydon, who was a witness to Richard Mead's will in 1559. She was probably Richard's mother.

I have found no record of anyone named Mead in Watford for 40 years before 1544, including in the lay subsidy rolls of 1544, which are quite comprehensive. Possibly Richard was exempt due to poverty, but this seems unlikely, since he made cash bequests of over eight pounds in his will. Together with his household goods, his estate must have been worth 10 or 12 pounds. In the lay subsidy of 1524-25, Meads were taxed on property worth as little as two pounds.

There were no Meads taxed in Barley the 1540s, so they must have moved away - or died. Sybill and William are accounted for above. I don't know about Richard. Possibly he was the Richard Mead of Thorley, just south of Stortford, who was in the muster rolls in about 1540. There is no record of Richard Mead in Thorley after 1540, and the parish records there are very good starting in 1539.

Stane Street, the old Roman road, went from Stortford to St. Albans. From there it was just a few miles down Watling Street to Watford. So it's possible that Richard Mead was born in Barley in about 1515, left in the 1530s, lived in Thorley for a few years, and moved to Watford with his mother in 1544. Of course, Richard and Margaret were common names, so this could be just a coincidence. It may be impossible to prove - and simple to disprove just by finding Richard Mead in Barley after 1545.