The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XV

Y the side of the road now called "Western Bank" is a modern house which bears the singular name of Mushroom Hall. "So," says Hunter, "a cottage was called which was built upon the waste or common called Crookes Moor when uninclosed. The story was that it was built, covered in, and a pot boiled between sunset and sunrise, and this it was alleged gave a right to the ground on which it stood, according to the custom of the Manor. It stood for many years, and with additions and improvements afforded what they thought a sufficient habitation for the family by whom it was at first erected, and I believe occasioned some trouble to the commissioners when these commons came to be inclosed."

The name of the house was intended to express in a jocular way the haste in which it was built, for a crop of mushrooms will spring up in the course of a single night. A squatter, if I may so call him, had built hastily by the road which crossed the waste, the word westen being Old English for a waste or desert, and "Western Bank" being merely a popular and erroneous way of explaining a forgotten word.

But why did the squatter build his cottage so hastily? The tradition reported by Hunter gives the reason. If the house could be "covered in, and a pot boiled between sunset and sunrise" he had then acquired an indefeasible right to remain, and, strange though it may appear, this was in fact the ancient custom. In Hampshire there was an old tenure of land called "keyhole tenure," by which if a squatter could build a house or hut in one night, and get his fire lighted before the morning he could not be disturbed. It was the lighting of the fire, and not, as Hunter puts it, the boiling of the pot, which gave the squatter the right to hold his tenement, for the house-fire was regarded as sacred and inviolate, and as derived from the ever-burning village fire. It was the custom amongst the Norsemen to hallow waste lands by carrying fire upon them, and this hallowing by fire gave a title to such lands. "The kindling and maintaining of the fire," says Grimm, "upon real estate was proof of its lawful occupation and possession."

The place-name Unthank which occurs in Holmesfield near Dronfield, and elsewhere, means "without leave," and it implies the settlement of a person upon the waste without the leave of the lord or of the community of freeholders which had, or claimed, the ownership of such waste.

There is a place near Clough Houses, Rotherham, called Given Land, and a place called Lord's Gift at Ranmoor, now included within Sir F. T. Mappin's grounds, or lying just above his residence. Taking these words in their present meaning one would suppose that, in old times, these pieces of land were given by the lord, or by the freeholders, to some person or persons, or else that the lord or the community had acquiesced in a trespass. But this was not the case, for the words "gift" and "given" had acquired a technical meaning. In Swedish, says Ihre, the word gift, otherwise bolgift, is "specially applied to the pledge (pignus) whereby we receive the lands of others to be cultivated." And he says that giþtabol is "hired land." Elsewhere he explains gift as "earnest money, (arrha) given in proof of hiring or leasing, and for a certain number of years." And then he mentions a word giftostämma which he defines as :the term agreed upon between the lord and his tenant, which is commonly said to be six years." If then we may apply the Swedish custom to England we shall see that Given Land near Rotherham means "leased land," and Lord's Gift at Ranmoor means "land leased by the lord" to a tenant for a term of years, a pledge, or, as we should now call it, a premium, being first given by the tenant.

We thus get some interesting glimpses of the way in which waste lands were anciently brought into cultivation, and of the practices of early squatters.