Page:VCH Essex 1.djvu/480

 A HISTORY OF ESSEX asunder by the boundary not only of a Hundred, but of the county itself. The Stour constitutes so clear a boundary between what are now two counties and were once portions of distinct kingdoms that one would hardly expect to find an instance of overlapping. The great lordship of * Eiland ' however, which belonged to Suain of Essex, lay a cheval on the river, and was surveyed in Domesday partly under Essex and partly under Suffolk. It derived its name from the present ' Nayland,' where the site of ' Court Knoll ' is still marked by earthworks on the Suffolk side of the stream. This lordship comprised, in Suffolk, Wis- sington (or Wiston) to the west, Leavenheath to the north, and Stoke to the east of Nayland ; and in Essex, to the south, the two Horkesleys, the name of which accordingly does not appear in Domesday. The lordship had still the same constituents in much later days. 1 But this case is less remarkable than that of Bures on the same river a little higher up. The portion on the Suffolk side of the stream is the parish of Bures St. Mary ; on the Essex side Bures extends over 3,000 acres, of which the eastern half is in Lexden Hundred, and forms the parish of Mount Bures, while the western portion, ' Bures hamlet,' belongs to the Essex Hundred of Hinckford, although it is a hamlet of the Suffolk parish of Bures St. Mary. 2 To this anomalous position a reference is made in Domesday, which surveys a holding there under Essex, but adds : ' Hec terra est in comitatu de Sudfolc ' (fo. 84^). As at Nayland, the same lord was holding on both sides of the Stour, for Richard de Clare, John Fitz Waleram and Roger ' de Ramis ' were all tenants-in-chief at Bures, both in its Essex and its Suffolk portions. Another anomaly, though less extreme, is found in the case of Ballingdon and Brundon. These are both surveyed under Essex, although they belong, for certain purposes, to Suffolk. 3 In these, as in similar cases, Domesday follows the Hundred in which they were assessed for ' geld.' One may here, perhaps, refer to the singular fact that, higher up the stream, Kedington on its right bank and Haverhill, although both in Suffolk, were conversely, at one time, hamlets of Sturmere in Essex, according to Morant. This however appears to have been an error on his part. Sturmer, he wrote, was still assessed ' with its hamlets Haverhill and Ketton ' (ii. 347) ; but this assessment only referred to the Essex portion of Kedington, known (as in the case of Bures) as Kedington Hamlet, which has now ' been transferred to Suffolk for civil purposes ; ... it is now only included in Sturmere, Essex, for par- liamentary and land tax purposes.' * In 1 879 a detached part of Haverhill 1 See entry of Nov. 24, 1424, in Calendar of Patent Rolls. 2 Morant ignored all this, and treated Bures hamlet as part of the adjoining parish of Alphamstone. Its ambiguous position is thus set forth in Kelly's Post Office Directory : ' Bures Hamlet, a suburb of and in the parish of Bures St. Mary, Suffolk, ... in the Northern Division of the County [of Essex], Hinckford Hundred, South Hinckford Petty Sessional division (Halstead bench), Sudbury [Suffolk] union and county court district, and in the rural deanery and archdeaconry of Suffolk and diocese of Ely.' 3 ' Kelly ' states that ' Ballingdon (or Ballington) is a suburb of the town of Sudbury in Suffolk, . . . and with Brundon forms a parish. . . [in] the Northern division of the County [of Essex], Hinckford Hundred, Sudbury petty sessional division, Sudbury Union and County Court district. . . . Ballingdon with Brundon forms a rectory annexed to the vicarage of All Saints Sudbury.' Compare my Ancient Charters (Pipe Roll Society), p. 76. * Kelly. 408