Georgian farming

Wisson Hill flourished as a 500-acre tenanted farm from the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries. The Paytons prospered. “The Paytons of Barton in the seventeenth century must have been men of superior education and of a good locus standi, though they never possessed any Manorial privileges…” according to Procter Vernon-Wadley in his [1903?] Synoptical History of Bidford: not bad from Tudor yeoman farmers.

This local history tells a story which gives some insight into how this agricultural family got ahead. “To this [Manorial] Court came Wm. Payton and Margery his wife…and rendered up into the hands of the lord one messuage and one cottage lately built and one virgate of land with appurtenances in Barton, formerly the land of John Torpley, and now in the tenure of…William Payton…that the lord aforesaid might reconvey [the property] to John Payton [their son]…and therefore pay to the lord a heriot”. [Original Manorial record SCLA DR58/1]

John Payton was therefore well set up by his successful parents and was in a position to built a substantial stone manor house next door in 1663. Through the seventeenth century the Paytons thrived, with big families, so it seems likely that another part of the Payton family would have lived at Wisson Hill, at least to start with.

Often the records show the bald facts of births, marriages and deaths, but in the Church of St. Laurence in Bidford-on-Avon, which would have been a focal point for the whole community, this memorial to a loving mother who died in childbirth shares the raw emotion of her loss. The memorial slab seems to have been a victim of Bidford Church’s 1835 alterations, so the right hand edge of the slab is missing, along with some wording, but the sentiment is intact.

John Payton probably sold this farm between 1670 and 1680, based on a review of manorial surveys and the Payton name largely disappears from the records, as family property took on the name of Payton daughters’ husbands, through the marriages, both in 1723, of Ann Payton with William Bacon, and Elizabeth Payton with Richard Baker.

By 1750 the property emerges in the ownership of Alice Deacon. Alice’s involvement with farming in Barton was probably extremely remote. She was born around 1705, the daughter of Christopher Cass, who was a celebrated master mason and sculptor in London. When Christopher died in 1734, Alice received a legacy of £1,000, with which trustees were to buy property for her. Alice owned this property in her own right, later also inheriting the property of her wine merchant husband, Henry Deacon, in 1756-7. The farm would have been rented out to a tenant, although we don’t have a name for the family living in Wisson Hill until the records of Enclosure.

Enclosure in 1777

Until 1777, farming in Barton – as in so many parts of England – would have continued in the centuries-old pattern of open fields. A series of Acts of Parliament ‘rationalised’ the fine patchwork of landholdings that had developed over many generations, creating coherent areas of territory for landowners. The Act affecting Barton and Marlcliffe came into force in 1777 (a year after neighbouring Dorsington), with Alice Deacon (or Alice Hiller, since her re-marriage to Maurice Hiller) allotted 87 acres for her holdings in the open fields.

The strips of land that were ploughed in the same way to create ridges and furrows before Enclosure can be seen in the field called Wisson Hill, which is now used for grazing.

Enclosure had a huge impact on farming communities:

• Loss of common rights often led to real hardship for those at the bottom of the scale, with many having to move away to find work
• The now familiar English countryside, with a chequerboard of fields enclosed by hedges or stone walls, with isolated farmhouses, dates from Enclosure, as do recorded rights of way
• Agricultural productivity grew, as landowners were able to introduce efficiencies and innovations

At this time we first hear about George Hurst as the tenant farmer and this family have accidentally left very rich and personal history.

The Hurst family

When George Hurst died in 1795, two fabulously detailed documents were recorded, both now held in the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Archives.

Farm accounts

The farm accounts were recorded for the executors of Henry Hurst’s will and expenditure is recorded for clover, bean, oat and other seed, coal, sheepskins, a certificate, a bill for boring a pump, payments to the poor, ratt catcher, turnpike charges and the Parson’s Easter dues.

This little notebook (SCLA ER5/1377c), compiled by Thomas Smith of Pebworth, also includes payments for farm workers from April 7th to July 3rd 1795, giving the name of each worker, what they were doing in each field and how much they were paid for the week. So while the American War of Independence was simmering and the British government under George III was imposing a tax of one guinea a year on hair powder, in Barton:

• Bettey Reeve for 18 weeks Housekeeping £1 1 shilling and 0 pence
• James Gee 3 days for Hoeing Beans at Staple Hill at 5 pence a day, one shilling and threepence
• For 3 days Hoeing Beans in the Hole Ground, Thomas Callow 3 shillings and sixpence, Callow’s Wife 1 shilling and ninepence, Callow’s Son 2 shillings
• James Joyner Getting in y wheat Rick 1 day at 1 shilling and fourpence
• Pd Mr Smith for Valueing Goods 4 days at 5/ £1
• To a half of the Leaveys from Lady day 1795 to St. Mich^ee 95 £31 and 12 shillings [Rent to Alice Hiller?]
• Osborn Blacksmiths Bill £1, 5 shillings and tenpence

Inventory of farming and household items

This amazing inventory (SCLA ER5/1377a), taken on 18th April 1795, starts with ‘Half a Dozen of Ash Flag bottom’s Chairs and one Elbow Chair’ in the Parlour worth 12 shillings and continues around the farmhouse, room by room. The ‘Delf Ware’ worth 2 shillings and sixpence may well relate to the fragments found and displayed in the holiday house now.

In the Brewhouse is listed ‘1 Brewing Furnace Copper’ worth £2 and 15 shillings, as well as ‘1 Small ditto’ worth £1 2s – the smaller one may well be the copper tub still in the same stone building and it can be seen where the larger one was has been removed.

The Best Room had a Swing Glass [mirror] and several chests of drawers. The feather beds were valued by weight and worth £3-4. It is not clear whether the over 100 bags of Dryed Bacon were stored in the Servants Room but what is certain is that the value of food and agricultural equipment was generally much higher than furniture and domestic chattels.

The contents of the Barn range from wagons to dung pikes. Given that Enclosure was less than 20 years before the inventory was taken, many of these items would have been used to farm the open fields in a system dating back to medieval times. Everything had a value, from ‘Some Odd Saw’d Timber’ to ‘For Beer left in the Cellar after the Threshing was finished & the workmen discharged £3 and 16 shillings’.

My favourite is probably the list of farm horses, with their names, ages and values. The most valuable was 4-year old Captain at £27, but in the list of 15 horses, five are worth over £20 each, showing their value to the farm. Nine-year old Venture and ‘Jack about 16 or 17’ were shown as having no value. Some of the horse shoes collected from the working fields and displayed in the house may have come from these horses and it’s no wonder that the smithing bill was significant.

The cows were also named, such as Dazey and Blackatop, each with a calf, and valued at over £20 for the four animals. Growing crops were valued, field by field. Rent is shown as due to Mr. Hiller (Alice’s husband) and also Mr. Bacon (in 1723 Ann Payton married William Bacon, showing the local continuity with the land).

Wheat, Barley, Beans and Oates were valued at £1,472, more than half the total inventory value. Wheat and beans are still regularly grown in the same fields, although barley and oats have been swapped for oilseed rape and sometimes ‘exotic’ crops, such as mangetout or salad onions.

The sad story of ‘lunatic’ George Hurst

During renovation, grafitti was found cut into the plaster of the gable bedroom wall. It seems to show a tally, the name Henry Hurst written several times and possibly the figure 1817.

Documentary research has uncovered the sad case of Henry Hurst, the son of tenant farmer Henry Hurst who took over the farm in 1796. The younger Henry was christened at Bidford on 17th June 1789, but an inquisition into his state of mind in November 1834 (a Writ de Lunatico Inquirendo) concluded that he was ‘a Lunatic and of unsound mind and does not enjoy lucid intervals so that he is not sufficient for the government of himself his Manors Messuages Lands Tenements Goods and Chattels and that’…[he had been in the same state of lunacy since 31st October 1814]…’but how and by what means he…so became a Lunatic and of unsound mind the jurors aforesaid know not unless by the visitation of God’. [The National Archives C 211/12/H201]

There seems to have been a strong focus on Henry’s property – ‘George Hurst… the eldest and only brother and nearer heir’ – typical of this sort of enquiry. Whoever started this process (brother George?), three commissioners appointed a jury of men who knew Henry Hurst, Gentleman. Whilst apparently looking into a person’s state of mind, an inquiry was often more bothered about the risk of a person squandering family fortunes. This process is now handled in UK through Guardianship or Conservatorship legal processes.

The Inquisition says that ‘Henry Hurst is of the Age of Forty Five years or thereabouts’ in 1834, which matches his birth date, and the date of 1814 as the start of his lunacy would be consistent with a date of 1817 scratched into the wall. It is possible that a 28-year old Henry was shut in that room, which sounds harsh to us now, but was actually relatively gentle treatment on account of his social status. It seems that he lived a quiet existence in neighbouring Welford until his burial at Bidford on 17th March 1859, at the age of 69 – a good age for the time – and much older than a poor lunatic would have achieved.

There are two aspects of this inquisition that strike me as slightly odd:

1. The timing. If Henry had been considered a lunatic for the last 20 years, why hold an Inquisition now? The Inquisition was held in November 1834 and Henry’s father died in May 1835 – perhaps the older Henry was obviously failing and there was a panic to avoid a messy inheritance situation?
2. William Tipping was one of the 13 jurors appointed and William Tipping was appointed as tenant farmer by 1841, when we next have information. If it seems as if I am ungenerously suspicious of William Tipping, have a look at the ‘Victorian vandalism’ that happened at Wisson Hill during his tenure…

Henry’s graffiti is now framed and side-lit for holiday house guests to see in the gable bedroom.

• Tree-ring dating to 1530
• Tudor construction
• Georgian farming
• Victorian vandalism
• Agricultural decline
• Decay and change