The Hall of Waltheof/Chapter XXI

HERE was a curious way of feeding sheep in Hallamshire during the winter which has been recorded by De la Pryme, the Yorkshire antiquary. In his diary, under the year 1696, he says: "In the south-west of Yorkshire, at and about Bradfield, and in Darbishire, they feed all their sheep in winter with holly leaves and bark, which they eat more greedily than any grass. To every farm there is so many holly trees; and the more there is the farm is dearer; but care is taken to plant great numbers of them in all farms thereabouts. And all these holly trees are smooth leaved, and not prickly. As soon as the sheep sees the sheppard come with an ax in his hand they follow him to the first tree he comes at, and stands all in a round about the tree, expecting impatiently the fall of a bow, which, when it is fallen, all as many as can eats thereof, and the sheppard going further to another tree, all those that could not come in unto the eating of the first follow him to this, and so on. As soon as they have eaten all the leaves they begin of the bark and pairs it all of."

"A hag of hollin," says Hunter, "was the holly trees growing upon a certain portion of ground in the commons of the manor of Sheffield. The lord was accustomed to let or sell them by the hag." "Hag" means pasture, being the Old Norse hagi. When, therefore, Harrison in his survey speaks of a "hagg of hollin in the wood bank and under the toft ends" at Stannington he means such a piece of ground containing hollies as could be let out to a tenant for feeding his sheep during the winter. In his survey of the manor of Sheffield Harrison gives a list of twenty-five persons who paid "hollin rents" for "hags" in various places, the first entry being that of Thomas Revill who paid £1 2s. 2½d. "for a hagg in Rivelin." It seems that goats, as well as sheep, were fed in this way, for in the middle of Harrison's list is the entry "three hags next the old lands reserv'd for the goates."

In Notes and Queries I expressed the opinion that "probably the tree in question was the holm oak, or ilex, whose leaves resemble the leaves of the holly," but I was corrected by Sir Herbert Maxwell who said: "'The holm oak (Quercus ilicifolius) is not a native species, and if it were so would form very unsuitable food for sheep. Indeed it is doubtful whether any but the very young shoots could be eaten by them. It is these only that bear spiny leaves (whence the name holm = hollin, i.e. holly oak). Unlike the holly, the foliage of the holm oak becomes harsh and dry with maturity, whereas the leaves of an old holly are as succulent as those of the young plant. No matter what the age of a holly, so long as the twigs are within reach of being cropped by cattle so long will the leaves on them remain armed with protective spines, but as soon as they attain a safe height the leaves become as smooth as those of a camellia.'"

This being the case, it was necessary that the shepherd should cut off the upper branches of the holly for the sheep and goats, and De la Pryme's account of the sheep following the shepherd to the nearest tree and waiting impatiently for the fall of the boughs is a very interesting relic of ancient custom.

A tract of land on Bradfield moors goes by the name of Hollin-dale or Holling-dale. Here probably some of the Bradfield men fed their sheep during the snows of winter.

Hunter, deriving his information from Wilson of Broomhead Hall, whose notes were written in 1741, says that Loxley was formerly "overgrown with holly trees, which were rented by several persons who had every one a hagge for their sheep to feed on in winter. There were a few of these trees then standing, but he supposed that they had been lately planted, or had sprung up from the old roots which had remained in the ground, for the whole were sold to Mr. Copley, a great iron master, about the year 1670, who stubbed all up. This general desolation has much injured the appearance of the hill side. When seen from Mr. Halliday's walks, it is a complete blank—fields divided from each other by straight stone walls, and on the summit a considerable tract yet unridded of the masses of stone, such as, though in a less degree, covered the whole of it formerly. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood have preserved the memory of Mr. Copley's devastation in these rude rhymes:


 * If Mr. Copley had never been born,
 * Or in his cradle had died,
 * Loxley Chace had never been torn,
 * Nor many a brave wood beside."

I append an old list of the persons who paid "hollin rents" in 1624. It will be observed that one of the tenants had a lease of the holly growing upon a particular portion of ground.

The names Revill, Ibbotson, Eyre, Shaw, Ronksley, Morton, and others show that it was in and about Bradfield, and in no other part of Hallamshire, that holly rents were taken. I can hardly imagine a more striking picture of old country life, I might almost say of patriarchal life, than that of the shepherds feeding their sheep in winter on the evergreen trees with which the steep and rocky sides of the Loxley valley were clothed.

The philologist may be interested to see the surname Spooner written Sponner, just as it is often pronounced now in this neighbourhood. I have often heard it pronounced spunner, as though it meant a spinner, rather than a maker of spoons.