Lyneham Estate Value

In 1334 Lyneham paid the second highest contribution in Kingsbridge hundred indicating there was some prosperity in the community. The parish had 227 poll-tax payers, the highest amount in the hundred. Five parishioners were selected to pay additional taxes for the Royal Benevolence, owing to their affluence.

The Lyneham estate paid geld* for 16 hides (a hide was around 120 acres) and 1 virgate and was worth £6. The size of the estate suggests that it included the later manor of Lyneham. At the time of the Domesday Survey the estate contained enough land for 10 ploughs, and 7½ hides were held in demesne. There were 4 ploughs and 2 serfs on the demesne hides. Elsewhere on the estate there were 16 bordars, 16 cottars, and 8 villeins with 6 ploughs.

(*Geld: A tax paid to the crown by English landholders under Anglo-Saxon and Norman kings. [Middle English geld and Medieval Latin geldum, both from Old English geld, gield, payment.]) Full Glossary of Terms: click here

At this date there were 4 acres of meadow and 12 acres of pasture, while the woodland was estimated to be ½ a league long and 3 furlongs broad. The value of the estate had risen to £10 in 1086. There was an additional half-hide holding in 'Stoche' in 1086 which contained land for half a plough and was worth 10 shillings.

During the Middle Ages the manor of Lyneham comprised the property of Bradenstoke Priory in Lyneham, Clack, Littlecott (in Hilmarton), and Preston, and was worth £18 6s. in 1,291. In 1535 the manor of Lyneham, which still included Littlecott and Preston, but which by this date excluded Bradenstoke, was valued at £40 I7s., of which £27 represented the rents of an unspecified number of customary tenants and £6 the farm of the rectory of Lyneham.

There were 211 acres of arable land and 78 acres of pasture and meadow in demesne at this date. During the years 1538-40 the manor was valued at £14 0s 1d., an estimate which probably did not include the farm of the rectory lands. At this date the rents of customary tenants in Lyneham were reckoned at £18 19s 10d., while those of customary tenants in Preston were reckoned at £8 3s. In 1545-6 the overall value of the estate was £46 4s 3d and in 1546-7 £48 17s 8d while the rents of customary tenants were reckoned at £27 2s 9d There were apparently no freeholders on the manor at this date. The total rents paid by tenants there in 1563 amounted to £2 13s 1d

In 1793 the manor of Lyneham included 9 farms, namely:

All these farms consisted of practically equal amounts of arable, pastures and meadow. In 1896 all these farms remained with the Walter-Heneage estate at Lyneham.

Farming
For more information on the farming of Lyneham click here.

The Manor Land
Manors each consisted of up to three classes of land:

1. Demesne, the part controlled immediately by the lord and exploited directly for the benefit of his household and dependents;

2. Dependent (serf or villein) holdings carrying the obligation that the peasant household supply the lord with specified labour services or a part of its output (or cash in lieu thereof), subject to the custom attached to the holding; and

3. Free peasant land, without such obligation but otherwise subject to manorial jurisdiction and custom, and owing money rent fixed at the time of the lease.

Additional sources of income from the lord included charges for use of his mill, bakery or wine-press, or for the right to hunt or to let pigs feed in his woodland, as well as court revenues and single payments on each change of tenant. On the other side of the account, manorial administration involved significant expenses, perhaps a reason why smaller manors tended to rely less on villein tenure.

Villein holdings were held nominally by arrangement of lord and tenant, but tenure became in practice almost universally hereditary, with a payment being made to the lord on the succession of another member of the family. Villein land could not be abandoned, at least until demographic and economic circumstances made flight a viable proposition; nor could they be passed to a third party without the lord's permission, and the customary payment.

Though not free, villeins were by no means in the same position as slaves: they enjoyed legal rights, subject to local custom, and had recourse to the law, subject to court charges which were an additional source of manorial income. Sub-letting of villein holdings was not uncommon, and labour on the demesne might be commuted into an additional money payment, as happened increasingly from the 13th century.

Lyneham's Common Land
Common Land is mostly privately owned land, that has rights of common over it, and as such, current laws apply to common land in the same way as to any private land. more..