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Well, I think it's . . . is it two years since the book was published?
Um . . . yes July, wasn't it 2009
Anyway, it's rather nice to be meeting up again so we can talk about it
Indeed . . . yes I'm beginning to get a bit fusty about one or two things
I'm sure you remember more than I do.
No, but something you were very much concerned with was folk-singing
and Chapter 16, which is the pastimes for the men.
Yes, yes, indeed. Yes I've always been involved with . . . well, if not sport it's folk-music.
and of course, as you know, I ran the sessions at The Oyster [pub] for twenty years – over twenty years, actually
That was in that inner room, wasn't it, that was only open on Sunday evenings.
Yes, in fact, when I first went to The Oyster, it was open before I actually moved to Butley.
It was open this particular time for a party for an American who was going back to the States, I think it was,
and the people in the old boys in the village said “Well, we 'ent bin in 'ere for years” they said. So . . .
That was Vera, the old landlady who was very set in her ways, wasn't she. Vic: That's right. Yes, yes
But she did allow us to go in there when the numbers attending the 'sing arounds' reached more than forty
because you could hardly squeeze those into the so-called Men's Kitchen, which was a small bar
And, of course, in the corner was the piano which you weren't allowed to play
Well, I was allowed to sit on it. I could rest one buttock on it.
Oh, closed I hope !
So, yes . . . that was where the person who chaired the 'sing arounds' could make his authority felt.
How many local people were really the singers.
It depends how you define 'local' really, but within ten miles around, I mean, I suppose, not all at the same time.
But there must have been at least twenty performers, I should think.
and usually, there was a good dozen each time. It was difficult to get everyone in for two songs.
What I especially appreciated – because I was digging on Burrow Hill and I used to bring students in,
who loved to see what was happening.
What I most enjoyed was really the way you conducted proceedings.
I think you were called “The Chairman”, that was the traditional name.
and you used to invite people to sing, and then suggest who would follow and you would keep a sort of balance
Well, that was the aim and the idea of being a Chairman was derived from Wickets Richardson at Blaxhall Ship
who used to use a cribbage board to *** on the table to get good order but
they were so well behaved at Butley I didn't have to do that.
But even so, tempers can get a bit frayed, can't they?
I've heard an old tape of people at The Ship, and they're quite grumpy, the really old ones
and they seem to be fussy about which song . . . who's singing which song.
That was certainly an issue in the old days, shall we say
But we were . . . we modern people didn't, er . . . didn't insist on, you know
But people didn't sing someone else's song, did they? They tended not to. No No.
Or certainly if they were there
No . . . that would be even more . . . Yes.
Because I've got a friend who's called Steven and you know him. But he's known to everybody as Tom because of his song.
He used to sing Tom Bowling was the song he sang as . . . yes, his piece
Yes and I expect there are other examples of that
Well, I can't just off the top of my head, think of any
But I'm sure there are. I was known as Waley Fish because I used to sing a song about the Waley Fish
Well, there you go! But never to my face I only discovered it after years. Anyway, there we go
And I recall that you organised a gathering of people coming from a great distance
in Blaxhall Village Hall, when The Ship was no longer used for singing.
Well, that all originated back in 1974. There was a record made by Topic, I think it was
in Blaxhall Ship, called "The Larks they Sang Melodious", and I had one song on that
And someone, a friend of mine, got in touch with me in 2004 and said "What about a reunion!"
But, of course, many of the people had moved away or died and all the older singers had gone
But we did try to use all the songs that had been sung on that original recording
on this reunion . . . and, of course, you actually recorded some of that
Well, that was a coincidence, really, because fortunately I asked everybody, through you, if they minded if I recorded it
and I had the smallest little recorder and then we . . . well, thanks to my friend Chris Farmer
who edited it, we made a CD to raise money for the Village Hall, which was really . . .
So that still exists as a record of the singing Yes, indeed. Yes
Now we first met, of course, again, I mentioned 1974 It must have been about that time, I should think
When I lived in Butley and you came to Burrow Hill
That was '78 when I came to Burrow Hill to dig. Vic: Oh!
I must have got the date wrong then So you'll have to look at your diary, I expect
and, well, you'd better say a bit about how you came to be doing that
Yes. It seems a long time ago But I came to Burrow Hill because I was working in the British Museum on research on the Sutton Hoo Ship Burial
for the three great volumes that we've now got to be the definitive publication of every object
Has that been superseded at all, yet?
It never will be superseded as the definitive record and it was a lifetime's work for my boss, Rupert Bruce-Mitford
and he delegated to me, sort of, objects which weren't particularly exciting in his eyes
and one of them was the cauldron chain, which was a mass of totally corroded ironwork and there was no free metal left
and I had two years hard labour, really, working out how it was built
and, using radiographs, which come full-size, and so everything was drawn up full-size
And the day came when I could draw out all the components and I got a very large sheet of tracing paper
and then it went on and on and on, and it transpired it's the longest cauldron chain known
What sort of length would it be?
Yes, I can't remember that. I'd have to supply that bit of information It just will not stick
But what I do remember is the length of the little chain that was found on Burrow Hill
And the reason I visited Burrow Hill, was because I was looking for other chains in the area
and I was writing up the Chainwork Chapter, and nobody knew anything about the Burrow Hill chamber
which had been found by a ploughman in the '60s and it was in bits in Ipswich Museum
By that time I'd studied enough cauldron chains to know how it should fit together
and then found an old drawing which was actually in the British Museum and had been posted by the curator of the British Museum
so it was among the correspondence, showing how it was when it was found. So that confirmed the order
And there's a drawing of that in the sort of little article I did on the site. So you can see
that shows you the fragments as they were in the museum
and this is how it's been put together Yeah Wonderful
and that's about six feet long
And there is, in fact, a replica, isn't there, in the Ipswich Museum, now Yes
And what people do not, I think, on the whole, appreciate, is what adjustable implements they were
Because you can see, we've got hooks. We've got a big ring at the top with a swivel
so that the cauldron hanging on the bottom of the pot could rotate. It's a sort of catch
and then you've got hooks on which things could be lifted up
So you could lift up the hooks, out of the way, it you weren't cooking
or you could shorten the chain, below the hooks. You could hang pokers or ladles on the hooks
and of course, in those days you didn't have a roaring log fire. You cooked with little bundles of faggots
So you had a very adjustable amount of heat
and the cauldrons have got quite thin skins
cauldrons are very thin (the walls of cauldrons) and, of course, they would burn out in no time at all
if you did cook with them over a log fire. So what one finds with Anglo-Saxon cooking is
it's all very slow cooking, rather like Irish peasant cooking
Right So, slow food didn't start recently, did it !
No . . . and, of course, it depends on the fuel that you have
and peat, of course, which is used in Ireland very extensively, was also available in Butley
if you think about all the low ground. We have medieval records of people digging peat. Yes
So one can think that that would be used as well as faggots to cook
So there was evidence on the top of Burrow Hill for an Anglo-Saxon hoard. Yes indeed
The question was: where was it? And I started digging to try to find it
And, of course, much of the . . . much of the hill had been dug away for gravel digging, hadn't it. Valerie: That was the sad thing
Vic: But I can actually tell you a little story about that because
one of the men who had an allotment next to me when I lived in Butley, was telling me how
when he came home from the First World War for leave
the old 'roadman' who used to maintain the roads before tarmac and so on
he used to get gravel from Burrow Hill. He said "Them buggers up at Burrow Hill sent me down some more skulls, they say"
Really Yes
And because there were burials that were found up there, weren't there?
Well four of them ended up in the bank by the old bullock yard at Oyster Hill
And if you think about it, there would be human bone under most of the roads on the estate
because they went up there for loads of gravel
Yes. But, of course, by the time I came to dig there nearly all the top of the hill had been dug away
So we were only digging around the very rim of what had been a very important Anglo-Saxon site
Yes. Well it was a settlement site and a cemetery
and, I think one can say, the church as well, was there
If for no other reason than because we've got that tiny piece of red glass
Yes, that would have come from the church window
It all seem a very long time ago now
Are you talking about Anglo Saxons, or us ?
No, I think us !
Do you know what really started it all, our writing the book? It was a coin !
Oh !
A coin, about as big as my, oh, that fingernail
that I found with the team on Burrow Hill at the end of one season
When . . . and you weren't there. And of course, when you find coins on Burrow Hill you keep pretty quiet about them
and this coin was the only one of its type known It still is the only one known
of a king of East Anglia who's only mention is in the writings of a monk . . . a Durham monk
in the thirteenth century, and so this coin was so special
Obviously, we didn't tell people and I suppose I should apologise at this late stage
that I didn't immediately get in touch with you Well, I am very upset, of course!
So, when you did discover from a lecture you went to
you quite rightly wanted to know a bit more about it
What haven't I been told in the last twenty years . . . sort of thing
and of course, it was about well, it was just before the year 2000, I suppose
which was the year I retired, although I did carry on working part-time for a company
for another two years, and I got involved with a voluntary organisation as well. But anyway, that all
And of course, you were also living in Woodbridge, so I was in Woodbridge. Yes
It's not that I hadn't kept up my interest in Butley, of course No, no. But, not so easy to call in on
No, no
So . . .
If you remember, it was almost accidental You'd been doing the history of your house
and some research into the village history of Butley, hadn't you?
Yes. I'd been on a course, actually, back in 1986, I think it was, that got me really inspired
and, yes, I had looked into the history of the house which I'd actually been able to discover relatively easily
and I thought, "Oh, this history business, there's nothing to it really!" Until you discover of course, that there's a lot more to it
Of course, at an earlier stage of the research, you'd said, after about six months
you said . . . "Well, you can go on doing research forever. I think we should write it now"
And I was, sort of feeling, there were so many holes that we hadn't really got the first base
But then, at that stage, I think you were thinking of something quite modest
Yes
and I quite keen that we did something which really put the history of this forgotten peninsula on the map
And of course, we did find it very difficult to fill in some of the periods, didn't we – the eighteenth century, I think
The eighteenth century was the hardest, really, wasn't it?
It was one of the worst, and we decided to cut out the really early things It was just a mention of Burrow Hill, incidentally
So we didn't plod through the thing in a sort of simply chronological style, did we
We, we, well in fact, we didn't have a book plan. We wrote topics, didn't we. Vic: Yes, yes
and again, you were a bit concerned And I said "Oh, it will fit itself together eventually"
And of course, we had to, well I mean, the fact was that you were living near Southampton
and I was here in Suffolk for most of the time. Well, nearly all of the time, wasn't it.
It wasn't so easy to get together . . . and, of course, we did meet at the National Archives, on occasions
and of course, an example of how material gets spread around
I mean, manorial records for Butley were in Ipswich Record Office,
Bury St Edmunds Record Office and the British Library. We went there as well, didn't we.
So they were in those three different locations Yes
And then of course, you're never quite sure when something will turn out to be really important, to shed light
You wade through large, large vellum documents of medieval gobbledegook,
hoping there's going to be one little clause buried somewhere in there
talking in a tiny whisper, because you can't speak in the Record Office and you're trying to help each other
Well I think it was the National Archives that are the worst I kept getting this frog in my throat as I was
and you were tapping on to the laptop as I was saying "Mutter, mutter, cough, cough" "Shhhh"
That's right, and we'd had sessions doing this
and when you put in a ticket for something, you're never quite sure
if it's going to be a small book or one of these enormous things arriving on a trolley
And we put in – do you remember – for the case of arson between . . . was it Punt . . .
Punt and Denney. Punt and Denney Arson, it was, in Butley, wasn't it
Yes, and it was . . . and that was a case that had been brought to the King's Court in Westminster, hadn't it
So we were expecting a trolley to arrive, and it was a single sheet of paper!
And it wasn't really arson Well, it could have been arson but it was all to do with
finding of silver – which almost certainly had come from Butley Priory, and had been stolen
It was 1540, just after the Dissolution, wasn't it – the closure of it – and this hemphouse was on fire
(presumably it was the thatch) and in the thatch they found this silver which had almost certainly been stolen
And that was really the reason this Deposition had reached the King
Nothing to do with arson. It was a little shed that had burnt down! But it was what was in it
And we'd always been mystified that when the commissioners came to make an inventory of Butley Priory
they said there was nothing in it worth anything but the lead Nothing in it except lead and cattle, wasn't it
So we wanted to know where the silver had gone
Of course, some monastic houses smuggled it abroad, didn't they, to the parent houses Vic: Did they. Yes
But, it is fascinating
And of course, it was the ex-warrener (well, you'd probably see there was a warrener)
the man who'd been a warrener at the priory at the time of the Dissolution
was one of the . . . deponents of the people who were telling the story
of how there were out batfowling And do you remember the fun about batfowling?
Well, neither of us, we both, sort of tried to guess what batfowling could be
and you'd typed it up on your . . .
laptop No, I didn't have a laptop in those days, and
It was a spell-check or something which accepted it !
Yes, it threw me completely ! So I then had to look in the Oxford Dictionary
and discovered it was not, not fowling bats, as we thought
but batting fowls In other words, knocking them off their perches in the night
and catching them in the nets Valerie: So they were poaching, weren't they
Well . . . either poaching or it was with the permission of the land-owner
It's just possible, I suppose. But anyway I don't know Valerie: Oh right
That's guesswork isn't it Valerie: Yes
Yes, so, then, gradually we started to compile as you say, these sort of chapters
Well they weren't chapters at that stage they were just subjects, weren't they
Because if you haven't got a body of information ready you don't quite know were your research is going to take you
so you can't really create an entity as a subject And another wonderful thing was that letter from Elizabeth Forth
Oh, yes, in Norwich Record Office Valerie: Another single sheet of paper
Yes indeed, which they got catalogued as a 17th century (I think it was) or 18th century letter
but they had no idea what it was about And we were able to say, well actually, it was written in May 1593
from London to Elizabeth Forth's sister. Valerie: By one of our key characters
Valerie: A very tragic story
of the Forth heir, who'd made this disastrous marriage to a Catholic girl, who'd written the letter
Vic: Yes, to her sister, in Norfolk
Most of the documents we have are, sort of official in some form or another, so they're sort of edited or slanted by lawyers
But that was, that was, she was pouring out her heart to her sister. So that was really moving
Valerie: Do you remember a local historian who lived in Woodbridge ? George Arnott
I know of him. I never met him though, did you?
Yes, I met him with my boss in the British Museum, Rupert Bruce-Mitford
because George had a Garden Party in his little walled garden
which was just near the market square in Woodbridge Yes. I know where that is. Yes
and of course, Rupert was treated almost like visiting royalty or the Pope
and all kinds of people brought sherds they'd found in Mohenjo-daro or wherever
for pronouncement from the great man
So that was my meeting of George Arnott, and of course he was immensely knowledgeable
and he and his father who were Estate Agents and Auctioneers I think that was their business
had had access to house clearances and sales through the years
and so he'd been able to collect a large number of documents and he wrote three small wonderful books
Vic: The Orwell Estuary . . . one was called the Valerie: Orwell? Is it?
Vic: Anyway the three main rivers, wasn't it Valerie: Yes, of Suffolk
The reason they're so good is, not only did he have the historical knowledge but he was a sailor
so the one I first read was about Burrow Hill, naturally, so it was about the river
and he had anchored just under the cliffs of Gedgrave and looked at Burrow Hill. So it was a really lovely evocation of it
But something he said in that book was the idea, he mentioned the idea
that Carlton, in Domesday, could have been located at Chillesford
And of course, in the survey, one of the entries for the Carlton Manor is next to the Chillesford entry
and George obviously realised that and then he picked up the Carlton place-name which was attached to the mill
What we now know as Butley Mills (plural) was at one point, had three names, didn't it
Alias . . . Butley alias . . . Chillesford . . . alias Carlton Yes
And of course, now, looking back after all our work, I think we can see how it came to have this funny mixture of names
because it was the conflation of what had been three separate mills, once. Yes.
And the third mill we identified as coming from the south of the parish because of an old . . . well, an 18th century map
which had Carlton and Mill place-names on the stream which ran down from Capel Green
and ran along Stonebridge . . . across the marsh
And of course, when the river walls were built and the rivers drain that valley (the streams round the rivers)
were all organised and rationalised, that particular mill, and the stream, disappeared. Yes.
They were no longer needed. So the Carlton Mill, the name, was relocated up to the main outlet in the north, the Butley line
Vic: The estuary Valerie: And then we had a boundary dispute with the relocation of the mill
because there was something like 75 feet of land,
which had once been Butley's land moved into Chillesford land
because they moved the mill to another outlet to slip it down and that's in the Court Records! Vic: Yes, indeed
And that's wonderful. They got very cross about this and so they took a big stone and cart and planted it there
So there was, every now and then there's a lovely insight into village life
And of course, the other manor that I don't think it was entirely located the exact location in the
in the Suffolk version of the Domesday Book (the Suffolk translation) was the Laneburgh Manor which
Yes. Well there are two volumes, aren't there We've got a map here, which is very tiny with numbers on
but Laneburgh is put way out in Hollesley, somewhere in Hollesley, I think. Vic: Right.
and again, we were able to, again, from an old document, wasn't it a 14th century document is it, here
able to say, well it's part of what is now Boyton Parish In fact it's near what's called Scotland Fen, these days, isn't it
When you look at the parish map of Boyton,
you can get a very good idea of where Laneburgh was, because there's the funny bulge
what is now Scotland Fen, another problem of a place-name Yes
And we found the reason for Scotland Fen, because various local people were convinced it related to a time of great poverty
when Scotsmen drove their cattle down and took poor land and grazed
and we were able to identify a Duchess's gamekeeper, Scottish gamekeeper. Vic: Yes.
Moving the posts out on the heathland, where of course there are no distinguishing features really out there, were there
except the little mound called, The Spy, which the shepherds would climb to be able to find their sheep. Yes
Sheep on the heath. Valerie: So it was the Duchess of Hamilton. It was in our difficult 18th century period
and it was a Scottish gamekeeper who came down and tried to filch a few acres for the Duchess from whoever it was.
I can't remember quite who it was, now. But anyway
It was the Boyton, was it not the Boyton Trustees who were involved in that? The Almshouse trustees
Which is why the record survived because, of course, they were very careful in keeping the accounts of things and various transactions. Yes
So one can imagine the Boyton people getting very cross about this, you know, Scottish gamekeeper.
and calling it, Little Scotland, you know, he's made Little Boyton Little Scotland. Yes
Something that is important to mention is the way this book is trying to appeal to a great many different people
People with different levels of interest. We were very keen that the villagers and local people would find it interesting
and judging by their reactions, they do, and some of them say "I keep it by my bed"
or "I will never . . ." you know . . . "every page has got something of interest". That's the sort of thing they say.
And then, we wanted it to be useful for people who were doing local research, so we've mentioned a lot of the local people
who are involved in different activities . . . and there's a good index for that.
And then, we really wanted it to be an academic book which of course, it doesn't appear to be.
of course, the title doesn't help with Untold Tales it sounds a bit . . . Yes
Valerie: But Untold Tales is really Vic: It draws other people in though, doesn't it
Valerie: Well, we're really saying this is unpublished, otherwise unpublished historical research. Vic: Research yes
and at the back, if you can flip through to find where we've written, in small print, haven't we,
the reference and the documentary details of everything.
We've got different kinds of bibliographies We've got a glossary, and then . . . these . . .
every page has the sources for what we have written.
And I think in that, we have been really obsessively careful
to give a really good working tool for any serious historian. Vic: For anyone to follow. Yes.
And that of course, is something I suspect academics haven't picked up on yet. Vic: No. Maybe not.
I mean, that was the most difficult well, apart from some of the, some of the Latin, I will confess
I did rely very . . . oh well, entirely on you But that's one of the hardest things to decide
where to pitch the book really. Who was the readership. Yes.
and you could easily fall between two stools, or you could become obsessively . . . the general reader
and secondly, for the historian. But . . .
Again, if you flip again. Yes.
One or two people have said that we've done very well, you know, historians – that we've done very well to, you know, balance it in that way.
But we've used boxes, haven't we, so we've enabled people either to focus on something
I mean, here's pipes, so some people have found pipes in their gardens, so they'll look at that.
Or, it's been some quite difficult area, which is to explain something in the story without interrupting the narrative.
And then of course, at the beginning of a chapter,
which, I have to say . . . this idea . . . I picked up from a wonderful American academic (now dead) Lionel Casson.
He's written a marvellous book on ships and seamanship in the ancient Mediterranean
and he's had this larger print first page telling you what's in the chapter, so you know
and then it gradually gets smaller print as he gets to the more academic footnotes. Vic: Oh, I see.
Which means you can get to things very, very easily. Of course, that was another issue.
Do you have footnotes or do you put them at the end?
People are put off by footnotes, aren't they, it interrupts the read Yes exactly.
Oh I'll tell you something quite interesting.
I've just seen this name . . . Joseph Arch here, who was the founder of the Agricultural Workers Union
back in the 1870s, and he actually came to Butley when the big strike was on in 1876, I think it was.
and he took tea at The Oyster Inn because he was a Methodist and therefore was a teetotaller
and he addressed the labourers in Woodbridge where they used to congregate and march round the town
saying "No tyranny!" And there's that lovely expression where one of them described . . .
"We come marching in like soldiers . . . but we go home like a flock of sheep."
And that was quoted, I think in The Times [newspaper] because it was a Times correspondent who wrote up about the . . .
Anyway when I was having a rambling holiday just earlier this year I went to a village called Barford in Warwickshire
and I knew Joseph Arch came from Warwickshire and there's a pub there called the Joseph Arch Inn, or pub
Well I hope you didn't just have tea in it.
No, it was Happy Hour ! I actually joined the Happy Hour for a few minutes.
I was only just in time for that.
and of course, he was born in the village and died in the village and his house is still there
almost opposite the hotel that we were staying in. Isn't that incredible. Valerie: Yes. Yes. Lovely.
Presumably you knew more than any of your colleagues about all this? Oh that's the trouble, you see
The previous year (well, we're really digressing now) but when we went to near Swindon I was telling them about the fritillery meadows there
They think Harrup knows everything, but of course, he doesn't ! Yes
And of course, getting illustrations. I was very . . . Oh, that was your . . .
Yes I know, you didn't really think illustrations were . . .
and then your children sort of informed you that they are jolly important.
I didn't know how far and wide you were prepared to travel and get permissions to reproduce them.
Yes. Some were very difficult. But it was lovely to try to find the odd picture of a local person which told a story.
And this one I'm particularly fond of . . . Louise Reeve, because local people had told me about her as a old woman.
And there was this lovely photograph of her in her uniform as a Forestry (I don't know what her term was)
but she was employed along with a team of young women to plant the forest
which was such a feature of the landscape before the Great Storm.
Yes. Yes
And they just, it was just harrowed by a horse and then these girls planted, by hand, these thousands of saplings
And she's got a badge, you see, in her hat, and huge pockets. Probably she kept her lunch in there
This is a lovely one, isn't it? This picture of Claud Reed with his tractor.
Vic: Yes. He's had to give up farming now.
So it's . . . and of course, it does cover really, pretty well from . . . the tail end of the priory
We didn't deal with the priory in great detail, partly because I suppose it's . . . well, we
When you say we didn't . . . repeating
I thought it was jolly important that we didn't just repeat already published information.
We were trying . . . because that would have unbalanced the book, for a start . . . and it's been well published.
and the local historians brought it all together in a neat booklet recently. So in a way that freed us, not to do that
and to concentrate on the personalities and particularly that difficult period at the Dissolution
to see how much continuity there was with the staff and what happened
And of course, the wonderful thing was the list of all the people who were at the priory on the day it was closed
with all their trades like I said, the warrener, earlier
Yes, and on a serious level, it was good to examine the difference in agricultural practices or not
between the monastic organisation and, you know, the capitalist farming entrepreneurs. Yes.
and to look at the affect on this particular area
which quite often doesn't fit the sort of broad brush (I suppose) generalisation.
I don't know what the analyses of people who are looking historically on a bigger scale
Yes I think the Sandlings probably don't fit some of the patterns
For instance, we don't have nuclear villages for the most part. They're scattered, aren't they.
People always assume (local people) that was the plague, you know and not understand this represents an earlier pattern.
And also, of course, the other thing. Well, it was a revelation to me really
because I always thought that the heathland was virtually uncultivatable
until recent years when the irrigation was introduced.
But in fact, there were periods when they were planted with arable crops, or parts, large parts were, weren't they. Yes.
And something else we looked at were woodland and see just how little of it was wooded
And I found this hard to understand And I thought, in the past, of the importance of timber on every level
for fuel and tools, carts, houses . . . . . . a great demand
and then you look, that we didn't have Enclosure Acts here because the land had been enclosed centuries before
for the most part, apart from the big sheep walks. And so the plots tend to be about an acre
because that's what is easily ploughed within is it, for one team, in a . . . I'm trying to remember
It must be a day Otherwise they wouldn't have done the job properly
And of course, that depends on the soil, doesn't it Well of course. Yes
And of course, the hedges round the fields all had trees growing in them. So this was in lieu of woodland
you had your timber supply was round your fields. Vic: Yes
And we haven't . . . we've got Staverton as an old woodland
which of course, was a park but not a deer park for the greater part of its life.
We think, right at the beginning it probably was, and it is now because the Kemballs are already there
But it was a huge resource for pasture and for forage in bad weather, you know, sheep were kept alive on holly branches
the ones that go high up, about three quarters of the plant. And of course, it was used for
I found one particular will, where he talked about his 'wethers' which are sheep, aren't they, male sheep, I think
in Staverton Park and his bullock in there, or something like that
Anyway, certainly part of it, probably the part that was not
where most of the trees had been removed at some stage or perhaps were never there. Yes
I don't know, but within the park perimeter animals were kept
Copyholders would keep their animals there. Almost like a Common I suppose, in a way
Though perhaps they only leased it or something like that, rather than have Common Rights.
But, as a detail, we don't know. No.
And of course, if you look at the Norden Map you can see that Staverton Park which is beautifully portrayed
he doesn't show an even spread of trees. There are areas which are 'un-treed'
and a strip down the side which is cultivated. Vic: Yes.
And then there are the sort of tiny woodlands which exist in the priory
I think I worked out the proportion, it's a very small proportion that is wooded,
and Little Heywood over between Capel and Boyton is really the oldest wood that we've got
The one that people think that is so old, which is the one by the priory which is now called Water Wood. Yes.
in the past was called Asholt Wood. Exactly the same size at the Dissolution as it is today.
but was described as "an indifferent plantation"
in other words not a natural wood. But it had been coppiced Ash because it's 'Asholt'
which would have been tremendously valuable. It's the most valuable wood for fire and for tools
and it's close to the priory's yard where all these activities took place
And it's, of course, where all the daffodils grow and which Richard Mabey featured in his radio programme this year
And of course, they spread all across that valley, don't they up into what is now Oak Wood. Yes
which used to be called Water Wood and when you walk in it you can see why
There are springs up there which make it permanently damp
Which was the other wood, the Belle . . .
Belle Goodwin's. That was in private hands That wasn't the manorial . . .
part of the wood and if you look at it, you can see it's coppice. Right.
Whereas the Great Wood, as it was called when it wasn't called Water Wood or Oak Wood
has got a few oak trees – big oaks.
But if you look at them, they're all stunted or twisted. There's something wrong. Yes.
and that's because Walter . . . (gosh, what was he called, beginning with 'B') Walter Boynton
Vic: Oh the old man. You mean Boynton, in the [19]20s
Walter Boynton, in the 20s, bought this large part of the estate for next to nothing,
and he bought it with his wife's railway money because they lived at Melton Grange
and he was stuck for cash and so he ripped out all the trees and he used machine-chains to drag them out
And so he took out all the trees of any quality from that wood
and the ones that are left are the ones that weren't any use or of no value
And that's why the tracks are so deeply rutted It's the result of Walter's activities
Yes, he did a lot of damage, didn't he Valerie: Yes
Well . . . one finds these cycles of prosperity and depression that have an appalling effect on local people.
Dearth and Plenty, I think did we call it that at some point?
I was just wondering about our list of . . . list of people at the priory
Because we've got the warrener, was it? We broke them down differently. Didn't we do the children separately?
I thought there was no point in just reproducing it as everybody reproduced it
We broke it down differently. Yes It helps you to see if you've got any relatives there
Yes. The children are listed somewhere.
But I was thinking . . . yes, I think . . . I did a huge amount of work on transcribing wills
and several of the people who actually were listed as part of the household of the priory
in other words, the lay people who worked on the farm (there were nearly 70 of them, I believe)
I mean, we're talking about 5000 acres, and a lot of it would be heathland, of course, and not a lot of labour needed for it.
Yes, what I found with all these wills, and there must have been several hundred I must have transcribed,
is that it's often more interesting
although little bits that appear on the original will that don't appear on the copy that was made for the ecclesiastical court.
because all the wills had to be cleared. The probate had to be granted by an ecclesiastical court.
And sometimes there was a little bit added at the bottom that they wouldn't transcribe because it wasn't necessary.
And one of them I particularly liked was one of the canons at the priory had written this will
Well, for a man who had died but his widow was being referred to
when he put a note at the bottom, addressed to a Master Cente (who I presume was one of the ecclesiastical officers)
and saying "Please be kind to this poor woman (meaning the widow) because this is the first will I have ever written."
And so he was worried that he hadn't written it in such legal terms that would enable her to
be the proper beneficiary of her deceased husband's will.
And then there was another case, around about 1540 where someone wrote at the end of the will
that he was riding past this house in Hollesley where a man lay dying, and he said to him
"You ought to get 'so-and-so' to witness your will"
and don't forget [in effect] to surrender your copyhold to me."
because it was the manorial lord of Wantisden who actually was writing it
So again, little insights into how things worked really. I mean, I've often wondered with wills
how they managed to be (most of them) very well written really. Especially, think of those that were written in Latin
They must have been rehearsed in advance it seems to me. Yes.
Or the scrivener who is fluent in Latin is taking the instructions from the ill person
and actually writing it in a form which the author . . . nobody can actually read !
I can't picture that happening because I did read one will, where, actually, it was rehearsed before whatever it was, the priest
I suppose it was, and I just wonder whether in fact, sort of like, notes were taken and then it was written up
Unless of course, it was desperate, and the person was on the point of death and this was not possible.
But when you think of really long wills there's no way you could take it down at the time, I don't think
because the person who is dying, is going to be much more rambling
"Oh, and so-and-so. I must leave so-and-so to so-and-so." Yes.
But of course, that brings up to another point. Sometimes people have made their wills long before they die
when they are alright. And of course it's always a danger for me to think "Oh the will date is the death date"
And then to later find, you know a long search to find when
And even the probate can take four or five years because there's been a dispute. So there are all these little nuances
that you need to be aware of . . . and traps . . . I suppose you could say. Yes.