Page:History of Norfolk 5.djvu/60

 solidated by consent of ''Will. Gresham'', Esq. patron of them all; and this church was immediately pulled down. The steeple is round, and is still standing, being very small, as was the church, which had a nave, chancel, and south porch; the churchyard is ploughed up to the walls; it stands on a hill between Hertford-bridges and Intwood, on the south side of the river, and the ruins are seen at some distance. There are a very few houses besides the hall; the whole village belonging with Intwood, to John Lord Hobart of Blickling.

More east, on the same side of the river, on a promontory, bounded on the south-east by the river Taüs, are seen the ruins of another church, properly enough called

MERKESHALL
It being at that time, the mark out of the great lake at the division of the rivers, though by corruption it is now called Matteshall; the whole village, as well as the church, is dilapidated, there being only one farm-house in its precinct, which was lately built by the Pettus family, called Matteshall-Hall, where the farmer lives that occupies the whole.

This village belonged in the Confessor's days to Godwin, a freeman of Bishop Stigand, who held it at two carucates in demean; the whole was then 5l. per annum, besides the church, which had 6 acres of glebe, worth 12d. per annum. At the Conquest it belonged to Ralf Beaufoe, was worth 11l. a year, had a freeman that held 6 acres in Dunston, which belonged to this manor, of which the King and Earl had the soc or lete, and the town was then 6 furlongs long and 5 broad, and paid 6''d. ob. geld or tax''.

Afterwards it belonged to Hubert de Ria, or Rhye, being settled on him by the Beaufoe family, when Henry son of Hubert married Agnes de Beaufoe; this Hubert gave the tithes of his demeans in Merkeshall, to the monks of Norwich, and Henry de Ria and Agnes his wife, confirmed them. On the division of the barony of Rhye, this went to Isabel, who married for her 2d husband, Roger son of Hugh de Cressi, who had a daughter named Isabel, married to ''Alex. de Poringland, and before that, to Will, de Merkeshall, whose son, Peter de Merkeshall, was lord here; and after him Sir William de