Places
Bygrave is a village that lies between Baldock and Ashwell. Today, it is remote from traffic, which passes along the A505 to the south and the A507 to the west. This is partly a result of Victorian history, when the railway cut off its connections to the south and east in the 1840s. In the Middle Ages, it was home to a market and its fair continued until the 1880s or 90s. The village has mysterious earthworks; a deserted hamlet; an Iron Age and Roman landscape can be reconstructed in the western half of the parish; the remains of a woolly mammoth from the south-western corner are now on display in North Hertfordshire Museum.
A beaker, probably hand made at Much Hadham, typical of pots made after 400
Two years ago, I put together a small exhibition for Baldock Museum on Roman Baldock. It meant not only choosing a selection of interesting objects not on display in North Hertfordshire Museum but also writing the text for panels on the wall. I wrote enough to put into a leaflet, which I intended to make available at the Museum. As well as telling the story of the ancient town and its people, it contained a brief catalogue of the artefacts in the cases. It so happened that the exhibition coincided with a major programme of work on Baldock Town Hall, which meant that the Museum was closed for a long stretch during the year it was supposed to be on open.
Now that North Hertfordshire Museum is also temporarily closed, it seems a good idea to make the leaflet available for people to read. It explains how the ancient settlement has been revealed over the past hundred years. Beginning with remote prehistory, it looks at why the settlement came to grow up in the hollow between the hills of North Hertfordshire. The main part of the leaflet talks about the development and decline of the Roman town, looking especially at its people and their beliefs. The catalogue gives further insights into the history of Baldock. There are 22 A5 pages in all.
The village of Nuthampstead is at the far eastern end of North Hertfordshire, the only parish in the district to have a border with Essex. It shares a lot of characteristics with north-east Essex and south Cambridgeshire. It is part of a loose association of parishes in the area, known as ‘the Hundred Parishes’, covering 1100 km2. Local historian David Heathcote proposed the name. The village is perhaps best known today, especially among the older generation, as the home of some 3000 US airmen, at first of the 55th Fighter Group, later replaced by the 398th Bomb Group. The Americans unkindly referred to their temporary home as Mudhampstead on account of the clay soils.
The parish of Nuthampstead, showing designated Archaeological Areas in pale green (map licensed from the Ordnance Survey)
Several headwaters of the River Quin, a tributary of the Rib, rise in Nuthampstead; the name is not ancient, being first recorded on Kitchin’s map of the county, published in 1750. It is a back-formation from Quinbury (Quenebury, ‘Queen’s manor’ in 1325) in Braughing. In the Middle Ages, it was known as le Burne. There is one spring to the east of Five Acre Wood and another north of Mossop’s Grove, both in the north of the parish, one to the east of Little Cokenach and one in Scales Park in the southeast corner.
Domesday Book
Although Nuthampstead does not appear under this name in Domesday Book, it was a manor of Barkway held from Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1086 by someone called Hugh. It is simply named as Bercheuuei and was assessed to pay tax of £6 on three hides of arable land. Historians suggest that the other manor in Nuthampstead, known as Berwick, was the holding belonging to Eadgar Ætheling in 1086, and held by Godwin; this was assessed for 1½ hides, taxable at 40 shillings (£2). In January 1066, two of Asgar’s men had the manors. Asgar was a significant landowner, with holdings in Afleduuicha, Ashwell, Bengeo, Bozen, Braughing, Brickendon, Digswell, Much Hadham, Hainstone, Hare Street, Hexton, Hixham, Hoddesdon, Hormead, Hyde Hall, Ichetone, Libury, the Pelhams, Sawbridgeworth, Shenley, Stanstead, Stiuichesuuorde, Theobald Street, Thorley, Wallington, Wickham and Wormley. Most of these are in eastern Hertfordshire.
Domesday Book records the taxable population as consisting of 12 villeins and a priest, with four ploughlands between them, 15 cottars and six slaves on Hugh’s holding and four bordars, four cottars and one slave with two ploughs on Eadgar’s land. Three ploughlands were in Hugh’s demesne and one in Eadgar’s. There was half a ploughland of meadow, pasture and enough woodland to provide pannage for 50 pigs on Hugh’s manor, pasture and woodland for 15 pigs on Eadgar’s; Hugh’s pasture and woodland were taxed at 2 shillings. These 43 adult males may imply a population of about 269 people, considerably more substantial than the population of 152 recorded in the census of 2011.
The taxable value, which was £8 (£6 + 40s) in 1066 and again in 1086, fell to just £3 10s when Geoffrey and Eadgar acquired the manors. The reasons for this are unknown; in Cheshire and Yorkshire, revenues fell after the ‘harrying of the north’, when William I led a punitive campaign against an English rebellion, burning fields and houses, and killing a significant proportion of the population. It is unlikely that this happened in Nuthampstead.
Read about the archaeology of Nuthampstead here.
Read about a 1992 fieldwalking survey on the border of Nuthampstead and Barkway here.