Highley Forum articles on the history of Kinlet

A collection of short articles relating to the history of Kinlet

The Earmnwood manor accounts

I have recently been given a copy of the accounts for the manor of Earnwood in Kinlet for 1373-4. Earnwood is really the eastern half of the modern parish of Kinlet; in medieval times it was separate from Kinlet and was owned by the powerful Mortimer family. Few written records have come down to us from medieval times, but one of the most useful for local historians are the annual accounts provided by the steward for the Lord of the Manor. Each year he would provide a list of all expenses and receipts that were due to or from the owner of the manor. The Lord would have to spend money on such things as repairing boundaries or buildings and he would have to pay workmen for services. He would be due rents from his tenants, fines from the manor court as well as any profits from land that he farmed directly. All these should have been carefully recorded by the steward. For large landowners such as the Mortimers, the steward was a particularly important figure; with landholdings scattered over England, Wales and Ireland and frequent intrigues at court, it is unlikely that the lord would ever find time to set foot in places such as Earnwood. However, the Mortimers had their own civil servants to keep their domains working properly. In 1373-4, in Earnwood their man was Jevan de Chamber.

Much of the income of Earnwood came from rents; these are not listed but would be from the various farms and smallholdings scattered over the manor. Earnwood was an unusual manor in that much of it was formed by the Wyre Forest. This was reserved as a hunting forest and part was enclosed by a wooden fence for the deer. Jevan, in addition to acting as steward, was also parker with special responsibility for the deer. A considerable sum of money was spent on maintaining the fence around the park. At one point the park crossed the Borle Brook to enter into Highley and here 4/- was spent building a fence across the brook. The deer themselves were well looked after. Hay was brought into the park for them to eat and two men were employed in the middle of winter cutting down ivy and other shrubs for the deer to eat. The hay was grown in meadows beside the brook and the Severn. One of the more interesting tasks was at Easter when seven deer were caught and transported to one of the King’s parks, presumably as a gift. A number of extra men had to be hired in for this job; two men with three horses took a week to move the deer.

A lot of work was done repairing a barn; William and Roger the carpenters made new sills and replaced the wattle walls. William also made a new door for the stable and two men were paid for carrying manure out of the stables and generally cleaning the home farm in the month of July.

The accounts include payments for ploughing and haymaking, although in these cases the work seems to have been done by the tenant farmers; such work would be considered to be part of their rent. In the course of the year there only appear to have been two cows on the farm. One was “paid… for the larder [of the Lord of the Manor] in the month of October”; it was common practice to slaughter unwanted stock before the start of winter. The farm had a dovecote, a fruit garden and a rabbit warren. It appears that the rabbits caused Jervan particular annoyance; “1 pot of tar bought for smearing the trees wickedly eaten by the rabbits, 8d”.

I would like to thank Dr Sylvia Watts and her Medieval Latin Class for the transcript.

Related Links on this Website

• Earnwood Manor Accounts 1373-4 (theme:20060909131337)

Logmill, Kinlet

Logmill was located on the Kinlet side of the Borle Brook, just below Kinlet Colliery. However, it did not take its water supply from the Borle but from a minor stream that rises by Catsley in Kinlet and flows past the colliery into the Borle.

The mill was built on land that in the middle ages was part of the park of Earnwood. This was essentially a deer farm, to provide animals for the owners of the park, the Mortimer family. In the 16th Century the park was leased by the crown to a variety of owners. In 1565 it was held by Sir George Blount of Kinlet Hall. A survey describes how the park was ruinous and ripe to be converted to farmland. However, it was not Blount who benefited from this, for Earnwood with most of the rest of the Wyre Forest passed to Sir Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester and favourite of Queen Elizabeth 1st. Dudley did not acquire land for the view. He was a hard-headed business man, who required his estates to make money for him. In the Cleobury part of the forest, he set about doing this by building two blast furnaces. These used locally mined ironstone and charcoal made in his own woods to produce iron. There is little doubt that he used the woods in Kinlet for a charcoal supply. However, in Earnwood Park he had a different plan. He seems to have felled what remained of the woods and converted the whole area to agriculture; most of the current Severn Lodge farm was probably carved out of the former park.

At the time Dudley was doing this, grain prices were increasing steadily. It was profitable to grow cereals. It seems likely that Dudley realised that with the increased grain that was being produced on his newly established farms, there would need to be new mills to convert this to flour. Thus he may have taken the decision to build the corn mill that was to become Logwood mill. At any rate, it is certain when Dudley took over Earnwood in 1565 the mill had not been built; a year before he died, in 1587, it was at work. It is entirely in keeping with Dudley’s work in Cleobury that he should have also taken the lead in building the mill.

By the late 18th Century the mill had found a new use as a logwood mill. Logwood was the name given to the heartwood of the tropical hardwood Haematoxydon campectonium, imported from Central America. This yields a dark blue or black dye, used in the textile and leather industries. The wood was cut into short lengths, reduced to chips and then ground to a powder. The powder was then used by dyers to produce their dye. It seems likely that logwood chips would be taken up the Severn as far as Bargate, taken the short distance to the mill by road and then ground to a powder. The journey would be reversed and the powder would be taken to Bewdley or beyond to be sold.
The grinding of logwood was the final work undertaken at the mill. However, it seems that the building survived for 50 or so years after milling ceased. It is likely that it was converted to a cottage. In the early 19th Century around three families lived at Logwood (I have previously written about Ann Broom, “strumpet” of Logwood mill). The old mill was probably knocked down about 1850 but a cottage remained on the site until the 20th Century.

Kinlet Water Meadows

Today there are a number of pools by Kinlet Hall. The ages and original purposes of the pools are far from clear; some at least are probably medieval in origin but they may well have been extended at later times. What is certain is that they were all in existence by the late Eighteenth Century when they are shown on maps of that period.

The accounts of the Kinlet estate survive from the end of the 18th Century. They show how the pools were adapted to an apparently new use at this time. On April 25th 1791, one George Ashcroft was paid £2-9-6 for making a drainage ditch (a “sough”) from the “upper pool” in Shepcote Meadow to the New Paddock and Drapier’s Leasow; a total of 33 roods at 1/6 per rood. A rood is 7 yards, so the water course would have run 231 yards. The location of these fields is shown in the sketch plan. The accounts do not say why this watercourse was made but a few years later they are more explicit. In January 1801 John Aston and his men were paid for 47 days work for making “floating gutters” in Dog Kennel Lawn (see map). A floating gutter was the name given to a water channel used to deliberately flood a field to create a “water meadow”. This was a common agricultural practice; the fields were flooded in the winter when the water would help protect the soil from the frost and improve the fertility of the land. The water would subsequently be drained off to allow growth in the spring. It was normally used to encourage the growth of grass for sheep grazing. In February 1801 a pair of leather boots were purchased for Wallace, one of the farm labourers, to allow him “to attend the floating of the water”.

The water meadows at Dog Kennel Lawn and Drapiers Leasow were fed by small pools. However in 1802 a more substantial work was carried out using Day House Pool. This is one of the pools involved in the current fishery scheme; as you go down the drive to Kinlet Hall it is on the west side of the culvert over the stream. It is currently dry as its dam was breached some years ago. However in 1802 it was clearly intact as John Head and his men built a water course from it, across the drive to Barn Hill field. Quite how the system worked in Barn Hill is not clear; the field slopes down quite steeply to the brook and only the very lowest part could ever have been flooded unless it was cut in a series of terraces.

The water meadows seem to have worked for about 10 years before vanishing from the accounts. However at least the water course to Barn Hill is still visible on the ground. If you stand on the drive facing the hall, level with the top of the old dam of Day House Pool, on your right you will notice a distinct track winding across the pasture. This is about a yard wide and marks the old water course; a interesting reminder of part of Kinlet’s history.