Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 8.djvu/185

 9* s. viii. AUG. si, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

177

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 1901.

CONTENTS. No. 192

NOTES : Land Tenures in Crowland, 177 Bevis Marks Synagogue, 179 Shakespeare's Books, 180 Mistakes of Authors, 181 Battle of Copenhagen Schnebbelie New Testament Translation, 182 American Words, 183.

QUERIES :-MS. Plays by William Percy-Gold Ring, 183 Royal Personages "Looks wise, the pretty fool"- Francis, Duke of Guise Chalking under a Pot Etonian Woodwork Prince of Wales Sovereign " Doorman " Corlett of Douglas Dublin Booksellers, 184 Cartwright Ospringe Domus Dei Poem Wanted Mr. George F Brangwit John Peachi Rev. W. Mosse ' Pastoral in Pink' Bonaparte Queries Nineveh, 185 -" Ghetto "- ' Bolten " " There were giants in the land, " 186

REPLIES : St. Clement Danes, 186 The 'Marseillaise,' 187 'Burial of Sir John Moore,' 188 " Veirium " Napoleon's Library " Penny in the forehead" Source of Quotation, 189 -Civil List Pensions Sir Francis Jones, 190' Pseudodoxia Epidemica 'Pews annexed to Houses, 191 " Collate" Greek Pronunciation "Hill me up" West-Countrymen's Tails Green Unlucky, 192 Craw- ford " Mere man "St. Edmund, 193 Catherine Street Theatre Spider Folk-lore, 194.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Chadwyck Healey's ' History of Part of West Somerset ' Bardsley's 'Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames' Cunningham's 'Essay on Western Civilization in its Economic Aspects ' Skeat's ' Place- Names of Cambridgeshire.'

Notices to Correspondents.

TENURES OF LAND IN CROWLAND.

DURING a short visit to Crowland in South Lincolnshire in June, 1900, I took notice of some customs relating to the tenure of land in that place.

The Postland estate, forming the east por- tion of Crowland, formerly belonged to the Marquis of Exeter, who was also lord of the manor of Crowland. This is a large " fine arbitrary" manor, including about a hundred houses and cottages and over 2,000 acres of land. The Postland estate and the manor were sold some years ago to Lord Normanton, and he in 1885 sold the manorial rights to Messrs. Paine & Brettell, of Chertsey, in the county of Surrey, solicitors, who called on most of the copyholders to enfranchise under the Copyhold Acts. A large number of copy- holders did so, the lord and tenant agreeing as to the terms, though in some cases the lord's compensation was fixed by the Land Commissioners, and a rent charge imposed.

Before the enfranchisement there were various persons whose holdings were known as " whole copyholds " and " half copyholds." A * whole copyhold " consisted of a house and garden with four acres of arable land in a place just outside the village called the

Alderlands, together with land known as a " whole right " in the great adjoining fen or plain called the Wash, and also common appurtenant. A "half copyhold" consisted of a house and garden with two acres of arable land in the Alderlands, with land in the Wash called a "half right," and also common appurtenant. These plots of arable land are not intermixed with other plots. They are rectangular or nearly square in form, and are separated from each other not by balks or hedges, but by small ditches. I was informed that originally there were no "half copyholds," but I doubt the accuracy of this. These "whole" and "half" copy- holds are locally known as " lots."

In North Street I examined two adjoining plots consisting of two long strips containing a rood of land each. A thatched cottage, with its gable towards the street, stands upon each plot, and upon it are sheds and outbuildings called "hovels." The cottages are set back, at a rough estimate, about 50 ft. from the street, and each cottage adjoins one of the long boundary lines of the strips, so that there is room for a cart to pass along the "drove" or road between each cottage and the opposite hedge. I was told that each of these roods of land has two acres of arable land in the Alderlands and a "half right" in the Wash, the entire holding forming a " half copyhold." The occupant of one of these two cottages said that before the enfranchise- ment copyhold cottages and arable land could not be sold separate!} 7, but must go together I was also told by the same occu- pant that if a copyholder built on a portion of his copyhold land, an increased fine was payable to the lord on death or alienation, for the new building increased the annual value of the property. The land in the Wash could be dealt with separately, as the copy- holder desired.

In parts of the town as, for instance, in South Street there were formerly houses on one side of the street only, and the owners of these claimed the strip of land on the opposite side of the road, and in time built upon that strip. Th cottages built on these strips previous to enfranchisement could not be alienated from the " whole copyhold " or "half copyhold," as the case might be, to which they severally belonged.

I had a good deal of talk with the occupant and owner of one of the above-named cottages in North Street. Noticing at that end of his cottage which was nearest to the street a small, low building, which was rounded off like the apse of an old church, I laid my hand on the thatch and said, "What do you call this?"