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Ashton in the medieval and early-modern era

In 1069 Brand, Abbot of the monastery at Medehamstead, a man much loved by his monks, died and, in his place, William I, ruthless in his determination to Impose his own followers in positions of authority, appointed Thorald, a Norman monk, as abbot. "He being a stranger" Simon Gunton wrote "neither loved his monastery, nor his convent him". After a long and turbulent tenure, it is claimed that on his death in 1098, Thorald left the monastery considerably impoverished. Writing less than a century later Hugh Candidus expressed the view that the value of the Abbey had declined from £1050 to £500. Bridges in his History of Northamptonshire gives Thorald a slightly better press, crediting him with improving and cultivating the Soke and granting out the estate of the church feods to several knights "who in waste places which Abbot Adulphus had cleared from wood built towns and villages".

It must be said that Thorald did not have an easy life — attacked by the Saxons in the Fens and the Danes in the Isle of Ely, his monastery sacked, himself driven out from time to time and the town burnt, he must have lived in constant fear. The 
King for his part was in the early 1070s still unsure of his position in the country and, towards the end of the decade, charged his Barons (including his ecclesiastical Barons) with the duly of providing knights to defend the kingdom. Peterborough Abbey was assessed for 60 knights. As the king had put trusted Normans in positions of authority, so Thorald chose carefully who was to receive land in return for providing knights' service. One of the beneficiaries was his kinsman Roger, who received 12 hides to be held of 6 Knights' Fees. He received land elsewhere, but his principal Manor covered today's Civil Parishes of Ufford, Bainton and Ashton.

When the Manor of Torpel came into being is not known but Stenton was of the opinion that by the time of the Domesday Survey the creation of many of these tenancies had taken place. In Domesday, however, there is no mention of Ufford, Bainton and Ashton, nor neighbouring Helpston, where Roger was also to receive land, although all today's other surrounding villages are recorded. It may be that it was only in the late 1080s that Roger received his Knights' Fees.

This would appear to be where the history of Ashton starts. Roger does not appear to have borne any other name, but came to known by the territorial designation "de Torpel". The origin of these remains obscure, although Ray Smith suggests that it was a diminution of the Scandinavian "Thorpe", a little farmstead. Ufford and Bainton are said to have taken their names from Uffa and Bada, Anglo-Saxon settlers and may already have existed as small settlements, despite their exclusion in Domesday, whereas the derivation of Ashton is "a farmstead where the ash trees grow". It seems possible therefore that Ashton may have been the Thorpe from which Roger took his name. 6)

Where the de Torpels lived can also only be a matter of conjecture, but again there appear to be links with Ashton. There is a field lying alongside the Roman King Street, on the eastern boundary of present day Ashton, which is a curious mixture of mounds and hollows. It has never been excavated, but is marked on modern

maps as the site of a "ring and bailey". Frances Crowther suggests that it may be a (i) manor house with adjoining enclosures. As the danger came from the east, this was possibly their first dwelling. In the early 19th century this area was known as Baron Parks and in folk memory had become an area of superstitious dread which villagers avoided after dark.

The two other components of a Manor are also linked with Ashton, the manor farm and the mill. Across two fields from the Baron Parks site, still linked today by a footpath, lies Ashton Manor Farm. In the Victoria County History is is suggested that this may be on the site of the original main farm of the Manor. It is not certain where the first hamlet of Ashton stood. It might have grown up round the castle, or it may have been a small settlement growing up near the farm to accommodate the official and workers of the Manor.

The mill was equally important. As well as having his own corn ground, a feudal lord could exact mill soke by insisting that all his tenants should grind their corn at his mill. If the mill was a watermill, there was the additional value of a fishery. In the weir or mill race wicker gurgites trapped fish and eel, a valuable part of the diet as well as a very commercial commodity. A modern anomaly leaves little doubt that the de Torpel mill was at Lolham, roughly two miles north-east of Ashton, near to King Street and on the south bank of the River Welland. Logically it should be part of Maxey Parish, but today it is still a detached portion of Bainton & Ashton Civil Parish and in the 18th and 19th centuries its inhabitants are listed under Ashton.

The first mention of the mill and fishery was in 1243, when Asceline de Torpel, the'CD last Torpel heiress, granted the mill to Simon de St Lis, reserving the right of free grinding for the household of Torpel. It may be that from this time the mill was

leased separately, but it continued to be recorded as part of the Manor of Torpel. There was confusingly also a Manor of Lolham, part of the Knight's Fee of Geoffrey de la Mare's Manor of Maxey. This was land to the east of King Street, which remains in Maxey Parish today, and not the de Torpel's mill on the west side. There was to be a mill at Lolham until the late 19th century, but, until the Ricketts became the tenants in the late 18th century, there are only brief glimpses of the millers. In 1584 the mill was held by John Weldon, who was fined for exacting excessive dues. Thomas Rippon possibly succeeded him and in 1599 brought a suit against Adam Claypole for obstructing paths to the mill, by which he was deprived of many customers.

By the end of the 11th century the parochial system was probably established. W. E. e Tate gives the definition of a Parish as "the circuit or ground committed to one person or vicar" and suggests that the boundaries may originally have been determined by those of a Manor whose tenants were obliged by their Lord of pay tithes to maintain

the minister. By this definition the whole of Torpel Manor was one Parish, with the mother church on the high ground at Ufford. In the late 11 th or early 12th century, however, the de Torpel lord of his day was almost certainly responsible for the building of a chapel-at-ease to this mother church. This was built at Bainton and does not directly form part of Ashton's history. In early times the inhabitants of Ashton may have worshipped, been baptised or married at either church, but, with the introduction of Registers in the 16th century, the position became more rigid. Until 1713 only Ufford had a Register and any ceremonies at I3ainton were recorded there. Ashton, however, was to remain ecclesiastically part of Ufford until modern times and their names are recorded in Ufford Register.

The Manor remained in the hands of the de Torpels, who confusingly were called Roger in most generations, until about 1 240 when the male line ended. In 1 1 98 the Roger de Torpel of his day paid one hundred shillings to King Richard I to be allowed to enclose his wood of Torpel, Le Hage, Ravensland and Cnihtcroft to form a deer park. Its limits would seem to have been virtually the same as the Manor Farm demesne land on the 1796 Enclosure map. On the Enclosure map four woods are marked; today three are still there. La Hage is almost certainly today's Hilly Wood; Ravensland is today called Rough Ravens; Torpel and Cnihtscroft may either of them been a wood on the site of the original Torpel dwelling (which is no longer there) or Lawn Wood near to Ashton village. G3

It appears to have been a typical medieval deer park, either fenced or surrounded by a bank, with enclosed woods and open spaces where deer were raised and culled. Since the right to keep deer could only be granted by the King, it was a valuable addition to the Manor, economically and socially. There was venison for the pot and timber and coppice for the estate from the woods. Whether the inhabitants of Ashton looked with favour on this new development is doubtful. They lost their common grazing rights in a considerable area and also the right to take wood for repairs to houses and fences. They also risked severe punishment in the Manor Court if they were found guilty of poaching deer or causing damage. The land was to remain a deer park for several centuries, but, sometime between 1527 and 1554, when the Manor was leased to Sir Robert Wingfield, it was finally disparked and became demesne land, the only enclosed land in the village.

Within the deer park, in a corner of today's Lawn Wood, there is the fragment of a massive structure and water that may have been a moat. In the Victoria County History it is described as being 40 foot square inside, with 9 feet thick walls and possibly a vaulted basement. It is described on some maps as "Torpel's Castle" but whether it was a hunting lodge, or the more "modern" house of the de Torpels, is a matter of conjecture. Whether Lawn Wood is Torpel or Cnihtcroft it would seem to imply a close link between the wood and the de Torpels. The structure today is very overgrown but in the mid-20th century there was open ground there and the children of Bainton School used to be invited by the Lady of the Manor to go there in the Spring to pick primroses.

Like many feudal lords the de Torpels seem to have had their share of truculence. in the early 12th century, when the Abbot of Peterborough was absent from his Abbey, Roger de Torpel was one of the ringleaders of the Knights of Peterborough who refused to perform military service for King John on the grounds that they owed their Knight Service only to the Abbot, perhaps unaware that it was the sovereign who had originally ordered the Abbot to provide the knights for the king's service. Later, when Henry III was on the throne, the Roger of the day refused to go abroad on the

King's service unless the Abbot paid their expenses, but this time he was forced to go to Henry, nevertheless, confirmed the de Torpel Fee as part of the Abbey lands.

The last male in the de Torpel line had married an heiress, Asceline de Waterville, who brought the Manor of Upton for her dower and for a number of years the two Manors were held in tandem. Their only son died leaving as heiress their daughter Asceline and, as such, a very desirable prize. On the death of her father in about 1242 she, in the words of Ed4W"King "naturally found a husband within the year". Ralph de Camoys, who gained her hand, appears to have been regarded with favour by King Henry III who granted him 9 does and 5 bucks from his royal forest of Clyve (Kings Cliffe) to stock his deer park. Ralph de Camoys died in 1276 and at this time Ashton was described as a hamlet of 10 virgates (about 300 acres) of which half was held by villains.

The new Lord of the Manor was Ralph and Asceline's son, John, whose brief tenure was to end four years later when he sold the Manor to Queen Eleanor, wife of Edward.I. It was in fact an illegal act After the Norman Conquest all the land in England was deemed to belong to the King although he was to grant vast tracts of it to tenants in chief, including the Abbopt of Peterborough. As we have seen, the de Camoys held their lands from the Abbot by virtue of their Knight's Fee and could legally only give it back to the Abbey and not sell it. The King apparently turned a blind eye to this sale to his wife, but the Abbot needless to say was not happy to see his revenues given away. For the next 10 years the Abbey fought for the return of its lands. In 1290 they appeared to be victorious, when the King granted the custody of the Manors or Torpel and Upton to the Abbey for a rent of f100 a year. But the victory was short-lived and by 1308 the two Manors were back in the hands of the Crown, when Edward II gave them to his favourite Piers Gavaston.

For the next hundred years the Manors passed in and out from Crown to the favourites of the day, but in 1408 the two Manors were separated and Margaret Countess of Somerset was rewarded with Torpel. It was to pass down in her family and by the late 15th century was in the possession of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, mother of King Henry VII. The Monks of Peterborough do not appear ever to have given up the struggle to recover their Manor and gained a partial victory when Margaret accepted that she held the Manor off the Abbey. When she died in 1509 she left Torpel to St John's College, Cambridge, acknowledging again the position of the Abbey. Under Margaret's grandson Henry VIII, however, the Trustees of St John's were harassed to the extent that they finally relinquished the Manor to the King.

At the Reformation it appears to have remained with the Crown, rather than the revenues being granted to the new Bishopric of Peterborough and became once again a commercial commodity which enabled the Crown to reward friends and relatives at no cost to itself! Probably the most illustrious Lady of the Manor was the future Queen Elizabeth I. Under her father's Will she was to receive an income of £3000 ra p.a. and Torpel was one of several Manors round Stamford which were to provide some of this income. In 1625 it passed to the City of London, as security for a loan to Charles I and they 5 years later sold it to the Tighe family. In 1687, however, it was to find stability when the Tighes sold it to Sir Thomas Trollope of Casewick Hall and 407 years of confusion finally ended.

Whilst the Manor was passing back and forth like a shuttlecock it is doubtful whether the changes in the Lordship impinged a great deal on the consciousness of the inhabitants. The reeve would collect their rents and order their lives no matter who was Lord. In 1276, when Ralph de Camoys died, Ashton was a hamlet of roughly 300 acres, or which half was held by villains (unfree men). A villain held land of his Lord, usually between 5 and 15 acres in area, which provided subsistence for himself

and his family and, if his Lord was agreeable, he might pass it on to his heirs. He paid a cash rent, and might also be expected to give his Lord a chicken at Christmas or an egg at Easter. He had also to render labour services and was expected to work on the demesne land possibly on several days of the week, with more onerous service to be provided at ploughing time or harvest. It is not possible to arrive at any actual figure for the number of villains but, depending on whether the 80 acres of deer park is, or is not, included in the 300 acres, there were possibly 110-150 acres held by villains. Taking a median figure of 10 acres per holding, this might give a total of 10 to 15 villeins. They farmed on the strip system with each tenant holding strips in good and bad arable land, scattered about the Parish, and with rights of grazing on the pastures and meadows.

The feudal way of life may have appeared immutable, but by the end of the 14th century it was crumbling. The cataclysm was the Black Death, at its height between 1349 and 1350, but returning from time to time. No death records exist, which makes

it impossible to discover its effect on any one village. The swampy fenlands seem to g have suffered less than more populous parts of the country. It has been suggested that they were a habitat of little appeal to the black rats which carried the disease. Remoteness from the sea and from well-travelled routes may also have helped..What statistics that exist are mainly based on deaths of incumbents or of monks.

Peterborough is said to have lost half of its monks; Stamford lost 6 incumbents in 4 months. But a monastery had many visitors and Stamford was on an important trade route, both more open to infection. A more reliable indicator of the position in the country districts is that in the Archdeaconry of Northampton, the Peterborough area had a much lower percentage of deaths of incumbents than other parts of the Archdeaconry (27% compared with 3 7%) If the Board of Incumbents in Ufford church is accurate, Hugo de Gersyndon appears easily to have outlived the plague, remaining as incumbent from 1332 to 1263, the only indication that the Manor might have escaped lightly.

In the aftermath of the Black Death life on the Manor would have changed, imperceptibly probably at first, since the Monks of Peterborough fought a rear-guard action against the abolition of serfdom. But the shortage of manpower resulting from the plague had a profound effect. The peasantry discovered that they had a bargaining power with the manorial lords and in the next century and a half serfdom effectively ceased. Where there had been freemen and villains, now there were farmers, yeomen and husbandmen, holding larger acreages of land and no longer bound by boon services. The division between the free and unfree disappeared. New classes of men, agricultural labourers and craftsmen developed, landless and selling their services for wages. Agricultural practices remained medieval. The open fields were still farmed in strips, with common pasturage, but the inhabitants were becoming early modern men and women.

Until the middle of the 16th century, when the Parish Register was started, nothing is known of the ordinary people of Ashton, apart from the names of a few millers at Lolham. It is not known whether the de Camoys family actually lived in Ashton, as they also held the Manor of Upton. After their departure, it is certainly not known who inhabited the capital messuage, although it seems to have survived. In 1544 a lodge and park of Torpel was leased to Sir Robert Wingfield, a lease that was to be renewed nearly 20 years later by Queen Elizabeth. In 1587 a Robert Wingfield of Torpel was one of the "watchers" on the tower of Ufford church keeping eyes open for the Armada beacon, so it is possible that the family still lived in Ashton. It would seem that with time the Wingfields aspired to a grandeur they did not really possess and acting as though they were the Lords of the Manor of Torpel. Queen Elizabeth, who was the Lady of the Manor, was not amused. In 1591 an enquiry was held with regard to the pretensions to the Lordship of Torpel by Robert Wingfield, Sir Robert's son, and, as a result Sir Robert was required to make compensatio9n for his intrusion into the Manor of Torpel. The deer park, which was still in existence in 1527 had been disparked by 1554 and had probably by this time become the demesne land ??? the Manor.

The Styles family of Bainton also appear to have had a connection with Ashton. In 1482 Richard Styles of Bainton held land of the Manor of Torpel in Bainton, Ufford and Ashton and in 1580. when John Styles, who held a capital messuage (probably Bainton House) and land in Bainton of the Manor of Torpel, he was described as for a time the lessee of Torpel Park.

In the early 17th century the Quarles family of Ufford also had some interest in Is,`) Ashton. In a list of property on a marriage in 1627 "a messuage in Ashton, then late in the possession of Charles Quarles, all the arable land to the same containing 80 acres". A "messuage" rather than a "capital messuage" would appear to indicate a house, rather than a manor house, and as the 80 acres ios almost certainly the former deer park land, he would appear to be holding the manor farm and its demesne land.

When the building in Pawn Wood started to fall into decay does not seem to be known. It may have been lived in in the late 16th century by the Wingfields, although they also held land at Helpston of Earl Fitzwilliam. When Sir Thomas Trollop purchased the Manor in 1687 he was already seated at Casewick and would have had no need of a possibly decaying and inconvenient medieval house. In the Victoria County History it is suggested that some of the stone may have been used in the Manor Farm building at Ashton and also in some houses in West Street, Helpston and also that a medieval arch adjoining Spring Farm in Helpston may have been part of it. In the 20th century some more of the stones are said to have been used on the Trollop-Bellew farm in Barholm and to repair roads.

With the passing of the Manor into the hands of the Trollope family in 1667 the modern history of Ashton can be said to have begun.

Pamela Broster, Ashton.

This is the full article from which the summary of Ashton's history was created
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