[143]See previous chapter, [p. 96], foot-note.
[144]For some account of the contents of these barrows and potteries, see chapters [xvii.] and [xviii.]
[145]Lewis: Topographical Remarks on the New Forest, p. 80, foot-note. I have not, however, been able to find his authority. A tradition of the sort lingers in the neighbourhood. Blount (Fragmenta Antiquitatis, Ed. Beckwith, p. 115. 1815) says that Richard Carevile held here six librates a year of land in chief of Edward I., by finding a sergeant-at-arms for forty days every year in the King’s army. See, also, the Testa de Nevill, p. 231 (101), No. 3.
[146]Dugdale: Monasticon Anglicanum, Ed. 1830, vol. vi., part ii., p. 761. Leland, however (Itin., vol. iii., f. 72, p. 88, Ed. Hearne), says it was given to King’s College, Cambridge.
[147]The Chronicle. Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 26. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 4.
[148]Same edition as before, p. iv. a. Its manor then belonged to that of Rockbourne, and was held in demesne by the Conqueror, as it had also been by Edward the Confessor. Two hydes and a half, and a wood capable of supporting fifty swine, were taken into the Forest. From the mention of a priest (presbyter), who received twenty shillings from some land in the Isle of Wight, there may have been, though by no means necessarily, a church, situated, as the old yew would perhaps show, in the present churchyard, and of which the Norman doorway may be the last remains.
The Valley of the Avon, as was mentioned in chapter v., [p. 51], foot-note, appears from its nature to have been, with the exception of the east coast, the most flourishing district of any in the neighbourhood of the Forest. It is worth, however, noticing that many of its mills were rented not only by a money value, but by the additional payment of so many eels. Thus at Charford (Cerdeford) the mill is rented at 15s. and 1,250 eels, and at Burgate (Borgate) the mill paid 10s. and 1,000 eels, whilst at Ibbesley (Tibeslei) the rental was only 10s. and 700 eels (Domesday, as before, pp. xix. a, iv. b, xviii. a). The latter place had two hydes, and Burgate its woods and pasture, which maintained forty hogs, taken into the Forest; but Charford with its ninety-one acres of meadow-land, seems not to have been afforested, which, taken with other instances, shows that the best land was, as a rule, spared.
[149]In the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1828, vol. 98, part, ii., p. 17, is a sketch of the house, taken fifty years ago, which, with the exception of some parts now pulled down, much resembles its present condition.
[150]Monmouth, like a second Warbeck, was in all probability on his way through the Forest to Lymington, where Dore, the mayor, had raised for him a troop of men, and would assist him to embark. At Axminster, in Dorsetshire, there is a local MS. record, “Ecclesiastica, or the Book of Remembrance,” made by some member of the Axminster Independent Chapel, of the sufferings of Monmouth’s followers, which appears to have been unknown to Macaulay.
[151]There was formerly a cell here, subordinate to the Abbey of Saint Saviour le Vicomte in Normandy, to which it was given by William de Solariis, A.D. 1163, but dissolved by Henry VI., and its revenues annexed to Eton. Tanner’s Notitia Monastica, Hants., No. xii. See, also, Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum, Ed. 1830, vol. vi., part. ii., p. 1046.