By N Thomas
The earliest survey of the Manor of Silverdale that I have so far discovered was made in 1563. It is also the most detailed survey and of very great interest in what it tells us about Silverdale. The entire document, called ’A Summary of Silverdale Tenants in Queen Elizabeth dayes with the Rents, boons and hens paid1,’ is reprinted below with some very brief notes which I hope will help readers to better understand it.
The first point to note is that the Manor is called the ‘Moiety of the Manor of Silverdale’. At the end of the 12th century Henry de Redmayne gave half of his lands of Silverdale to Cartmel Priory. There are a few 15th and 16th century rentals showing that Cartmel did indeed hold and collect rents from Silverdale. At the dissolution of the monasteries, Cartmel’s lands in Silverdale passed into the hands of the Crown, and from the beginning of the 17th century they were turned over to various fee farmers, ie. men who bought the right to receive the income from the tenancies. The other half or moiety of de Redmayne’s Silverdale lands at some time became the Manor of Silverdale, held by a Lord of the Manor. It is the “Customary Tenants and Tenements” of this Manor that the document describes. It is obviously important to realize that it describes only half of Silverdale.
Because the survey tells us what each tenement consisted of, not only in acreage but in enclosed fields as well as ’pieces’ or strips in the ‘Common fields’, it gives us an idea of how much of Silverdale’s common arable acreage was enclosed by 1563. Some clumps of tenements, you will notice, consisted entirely of enclosed fields, with no Common field pieces.
And of course it give us a fine insight into the customs of the place, and its problems.
What it does not do is to tell us explicitly where these tenements were, but it tempts us with clues. Cove Hill is identified, as are three Waterslack holdings, and there are two ’Boodhams’ tenements which are probably today’s ‘Bottoms’ [though could Beetham be the derivation?].
The Tithe Map of 1846 and the Manor Court records together, however, add enough further information to enable us to see that the survey does have an order, and that it does in fact go around the Manor tenement by tenement clockwise starting at ’Boodhams’. Those two tenements were roughly where Bottoms is now and probably represent a division of what had once been a single large tenement. John Borrow’s tenement was definitely Bank Farm. A deed exists which shows that a John Burrow sold the tenement in 1597 to John Bisbrowne in whose family it remained for the next 300 (minus a few) years. Between Bottoms and Burrow’s come ‘Stamhawe’ and Crosers. Stamhawe must have been at the Green and probably encompassed about half of what was then the Green. It was very soon to be divided into four smaller holdings. Crosers was probably at Emesgate. After John Burrow’s, the next three holdings were at the Cove. They present a bit of a problem since only two Cove Customary Tenements are clearly identifiable in the later Court records. The next holding was William Browne’s at Oak House [now Oak Cottage] at Elmslack. The next six tenements were all located at Elmslack and eastward along the side of the hill between the Chapel and the ’Common Pasture’ (now Eaves Wood). Two of these survive as ‘housesteads’, Elmslack Cottage and Gillian House (with the datestone I.B. 1780), but the others were swallowed up in the next two centuries by the estate first called Hill House and later Woodlands. Townson, Browne and Kenny all held tenements at the Row, and the last three, we are told, were at Waterslack.
Several prominent Silverdale places are obviously omitted from the survey: Challan Hall, the dwellings at Red Bridge, Cray Green at the Green, and Bradshaw Gate. A tenement at the Cove, one at the Row, and another at Waterslack are less obvious omissions. The simplest answer is that these were part of Cartmel’s moiety of Silverdale, and without doubt most of them were just that, but there are a few complications to that theory which will have to await a fuller examination at another time. It is interesting to note, however, that the division of Silverdale which took place in the 12th century seems to have been not so much a ’partition’ as a selective allocation of holdings in certain of Silverdale’s settled places.
The Moiety of the Manner of Silverdale in Warton in the County of Lancaster: [Ed A= Acre and R=Root S=Shillings]
The view thereof taken the 10th day of August in the fifth yeare of the reigne of Quiene Elizabeth by Thomas Golding servant to Thomas Kitson Esqr by the Tenants of the said Thomas Kitson there.
Mabell Saul, widow of Thomas Saul
One Tenement 1A& 1R of arrable land lying in a Close called Boodhams Close One Close lying at the North end of the said Tenement=1A Close called Slackwood=2A 2A of arrable lying in 7 pieces in the Common feild
Rent 11s Boons & Hennes 2/1Robert Hawden
One Tenement called Boodhams, late Robert Hodghsons with one Orchard and Hemp garth together=lR 1 arrable Close lying at the South end of the house of ½ A Moiety of one Close called Boodhams Close=lA & 1R Close called the Lapott Close=½A 2½A lying in the Common feild in 7 pieces
Rent 10s Boons & Hennes 2/1Robert Taylor
One Tenement called Stamhawe, late Nicholas Turners with a yard and a Hemp garth adjoining=½ A One Close lying at the Northend of the same yard and Hempgarth=l ½ A One arrable Close lying at the North end of the same Tenement=lR 2 1/2A lying in 8 pieces in the Common feild
Rent 8s Boons & Hennes 2/1John Croser
One Tenement, late Nicholas Croser One arrable Close lying on the North West syde of said Tenement=2A 2A & 1½R lying in 4 pieces in the Commonfeild
Rent 7s Boons & Hennes 2/1John Borrow
One Tenement, sometyme John Borrow his fathers with two severall arrable closes adjoyning=3A 1A in the Common feild in 2 pieces
Rent 7s Boons & Hennes 2/1John Wilson alias Baccus
One Tenement sometyme Leonard Hawden with one Remp garth adjoyning 2 arrable closes together 2A a butt upon the Highway towards the North
Rent 3s Boons & Hennes 9½dRegnald Jackson
One Tenement sometyme Peter Jackson with 4 arrable Closes environing the said house=7A
Rent 6/8 Boons & Hennes 2/1Thomas Jackson
One Tenement called Cove Hill with one Hemp garth adjoyning to the North end of the same 3 arrable Closes on the West syde of the sayd Tenement=3A
Rent 3/4 Boons & Hennes 11dWilliam Browne
One Tenement sometyme William Brownes with one arrable Close lying at the West end=1½A ½A lying in the Common feild in 3 peices
Rent 3/8 Boons & Hennes 2/1Ellin Jackson, widow John Jackson the elder
One Tenement 2A arrable land thereunto belonging lying in 5 peices in the Common feilds
Rent 3/4 Boons & Hennes 11dMargaret Jackson, widow John Jackson the younger
One Tenement 2A arrable land thereunto belonging lying in 5 peices in the Common feilds
Rent 3/4 Boons & Hennes 12½dJohn Jackson
One Tenement late Humfrey Jackson with an arrable Close lying on the North part=lR 4A lying in 9 peeces in the Common feild
Rent 7s Boons & Hennes 2/1Thomas Johnson
One cottage with ½R arrable land lying at the north east end of the same 4A arrable land at the South west end of the same
Rent 2s Boones 8dJohn Birkett One Cottage with ½R of arrable land lying at the Northeast end of the same
Rent 2s Boones 4dJohn Birkett
One other Cottage with ½R of arrable land lying at the Northeast end
Rent 2s Boons 4dWilliam Towenson
One Tenement, late Robert Crosers, with one Orchard at the North end 2A arrable land lying in the Commonfeild
Rent 4s Boones & Hens 2/1Alice Browne, widow of Robert Browne
One Tenement with an orchard lying on the Northeast part of the said Tenement 2A lying in 2 peices in the Common feilds
Rent 4s Boones & Hens 2/1Ellen Kenny
One Tenement late William Kenney with 1½ R arrable land on the Northwest syde of same 4A arrable land lying in 10 peices in the Common feilds
Rent 8s Boones & Hens 2/1William Willson alias Bacchus
One Tenement in Waterslacke with one Hempland lying at the Southeast end of the same 1 arrable close lying at the Southeast end of the same Hempland=½ A
Rent 2sJohn Clarkeson
One Cottage in Waterslacke sometyme Regnald Jacksons and late Margaret Jacksons With one arrable Close therunto adjoyning the northwest syde of the said Tenement=lA
Rent 3sJohn Hawden
One Cottage in Waterslacke late Thomas Hawdens with one arrable Close lying on the Northwest syde of the same=1A One other peice of arrable land called an Incroachment=lR
Rent 3sThe moytie of the rent of aweswater mosse within Sylverdale which is a kinde of Marsh ground whereon the Tenants there usually dry their Turffe which is their Common and onely Fewell and lyeth within Sylverdale amounteth to
Rent 3s payed at Pentecost onely
The Summe total1 of the rentes in Sylverdale £6.18.0½
Moss Rent 11s 15½d
Tenements £6.06.7We the Tennants of Sylverdale confesse that every sevinth yeare they double the rent to the Lord which they call their Towne terme and they further confesse that the said seventh yeare wherein the same was due ended at Martinmas last 1562.
Item that the Henne Sylver and Worke Sylver due for boones as aforesayd is yearly paid at Martinmas and all the other rents are due at Pentecost and Martinmas by equall portions.
Item that Tennants aforesaid in Sylverdale have liberty of Common for there Stirkes and Sheepe upon a certaine waste ground lying within the Mannour of Sylverdale together with the Queens Tennants the which waste ground is a very barren ground and very full of stones and he that hath most Cattell therupon keepeth not above two stirkes and sixe ewes the which Ewes they mylke.
Item the said Tennants have further libertie of Common for their steers onely in a certain ground sometyme planted with trees called Sylverdale wood containing by estimation 20A which they reserve for the foode of their said steers in the tyne of their tillage onely, the moiety of the which wood was felled by Richard Washington a little before his sale thereof to Sir Thomas Kytson and the other moiety by the Queens Tennants and ever since the Spring therof hath been so eaten and kept down with their Cattell that the same is in effect destroyed and they say they have had their Common there tyme out of memory and that they [ ] not have kept their steer upon their other Common sufficiently to maintain their tillage.
A true copy taken out of an ancient Survey booke which survey was taken in the 5th years of Queene Elizabeth by Thomas Goldinge and the Tenants of Sylverdale.
Witnesses hereof
William Bradley
Peter Bowker
George Bennison Minister of Beethom neare Sylverdale
- Cumbria Record Office (Kendal) WD/D (AG) ↩︎
Published in Mourholme Magazines Issue 11 Spring 1985