(spe)+Farm+estates+1840s

A topographical approach to locate Spexhall's manors which are described in Copinger is to examine the early estate maps, the most comprehensive of which is that produced for the Tithe Commissioners.

In the 1840s, at the time of the Tithe Apportionment, Spexhall parish consisted for the most part of a narrow rectangle of land with its north-south long axis defined in the west for the most part by Spexhall Brook, a tributary of the northern Blyth (Figs 1 and 4). In the east the parish boundary is a straight line following Stone Street, from which two extensions, marked ‘A2, A3’, project to the boundary with Westhall.

Fig 1 Tithe Map distribution of Spexhall's farms ( A1= Grub Lane Allotments; A2=Hogg Lane Allotments; A3=Noller’s Allotments

The area of land between A2 and A3 belonged to Halesworth and it is assumed that it is one of three allotments of common land given to this community when the common was enclosed. Similarly, the two projections of Spexhall, together with the one marked ‘A1’ to the north represent common land given to Spexhall when common land it shared with the communities of Ilketshall, Westhall and Halesworth was enclosed and allotted to parishioners with commoner's rights. There is no documentary evidence these enclosures. The idea is based on circumstantial evidence that the northern projection A1 into Ilketshall is a discrete piece of land in 20 small blocks divided between 4 owners, and the two eastern extensions belong to three farms lying to the east of Stone Street (Farms 1 (Rose Farm), 2 (Wood Farm) and 6 (Noller’s Farm), only one of which (2) has land to the west of this road. Spexhall's larger, and probably older farms of a hundred or more acres, lie to the west of Stone Street. This suggests that the original eastern boundary of Spexhall was established along the edge of the common at Stone Street shortly after the parish was detached from Wissett.

As far as the date of enclosure is concerned, Rookyard Farm (Figs 2 and 3), which has most of the land belonging to Halesworth between Stone Street and the Westhall parish boundary (marked by Butt’s Road) was mapped in 1717. Only two of Rookyards twentyfive fields are positioned to the west of Stone Street. With this map as evidence, the latest date for its enclosure would be towards the end of the 17th century.

Fig 2 Rookyards, 1717 (north).

Fig 3 Rookyards, 1717 (south)

To the east of Stone Street the fields are aligned in a characteristic pattern of blocks of land running west to east. This pattern can also be taken as circumstantial evidence that the land to the east of Stone Street was enclosed and divided between Spexhall and Halesworth as a single unit (Fig 4).

The two purple dotted lines in Fig 4 mark the parish boundary between Spexhall and Halesworth, and define the north and south boundaries of extension A3 in Fig 1. The green lines mark continuous hedgerows eastwards from Stone Street. It is these lines that define the alignment of most of the fields situated to the east of Stone Street. The hedgerows actually cut across the parish boundary between the two communities to the north of Girling’s Farm and this is evidence that the common was divided between the two communities before the field boundaries were laid out. It may be that the reason for the surveyors aligning their new field boundaries in this way was the presence of an older curved track running between Stone Street and Westhall at Mill Post, which could be taken as a base line in flat country with no obvious topographical features. Three rights of way run parallel to this track, which may mark old ownership divisions.

The difference between the old and new field patterns on either side of Stone Street is particularly clear at Girlings Farm. To the east the fields are rectangular and arranged in parallel curves, whereas the older fields to the west are larger and have been set out in irregular shapes in relation to two small feeders of Spexhall Brook. There is a distinct pattern of smaller fields around the church, most of which is glebe.

Fig 4 Portion of the 6 in OS map of the 1880s

Fig 5 Layout of farm estates in the Tithe Map

The layout of Spexhall's farm estates at the time of the Tithe Apportionment is shown in Fig 5. With the exception of the uncoloured area by the church, and Allotment 1 where the coloured dots indicate ownerships without a farmstead, parish lands can be allocated to nine farms. It is reasonable to assume that the first of Spexhall's manors would have been close to its new parish church. Regarding the four manors described by Copinger, only three of the larger estates seem to fit this requirement: Wash Farm, Fairstead Farm and Spexhall Hall.

The lands owned by the Girling family (red hatching) are in three portions; the farmstead on Stone Street; a collection of fields by the church and a block in the south west corner centred on Wash Farm. On the modern map, Wash Farm is actually described as Spexhall Manor. Currently it is accessed through ornamental gates with a gatehouse, and along a treelined drive through landscaped grounds, but is clearly descended from a medium sized 'yeoman estate', which is in reality what most Suffolk manors were in terms of the way they generated income for their absentee lords.

At the time Copinger was writing his acccount of Spexhall's manors (circa 1906-7), Capt. Maclaine Whitting resided in the manor house of Spexhall Manor, which had recently been rebuilt and gentrified. This was the position in Kelly's Directory of 1892-3 was:

//The principal proprietors are Lady Bateman, George Long, Mr A H Girling, Mr J A Garrould, Mr Robert Chilvers, Rider Haggard, Capt. K D Whitting and Mr H A Girling.

Spexhall manor house, the residence of Capt. Witting is a large handsome brick mansion, standing in an elevated position. It was refronted in 1888 when the grounds were re-laid out and the stables and outbuildings rebuilt.//

If Whitting can be linked with Wash Farm this would solve part of the problem of detecting one of Spexhall's manorial estates in the absence of manorial rolls. Actually, from the sequence of properties visited by the ennumerator of the 1901 census it can be deduced that Captain Whitting resided at the site of Wash Farm, then called Manor Farm.

Regarding the site of Banyard's Manor described by Copinger, a possible candidate is the Spexhall Hall estate, which actually abuts the northern edge of the glebe land. Its moated farmstead is situated about a mile to the north of the church. Copinger describes Banyard's Manor as an estate that was once in dispute over the ownership of glebe land on Church Haugh Hills. The position of Church Haugh Hills is not known but the glebe land belonging to the church was on the other side of the valley from Wash Farm on rising ground.

It is probably too much to expect that the layout of farm estates at the start of the 19th century would be identical to that when the manorial system was intact. In historical terms we are searching for three main manors and one minor one. It is interesting that six of the larger Tithe Map estates existed as topographical pairs. Wash Farm is only 300 metres from Fairstead Farm (old name Bullock Fair Farm) and Spexhall Hall is virtually adjacent to Grove Farm. Maybe these two couples represent the splitting up of two primary manors. For example, according to Copinger, Banyard's manor was divided between two branches of the Glemham family in the mid 16th century and this might be the reason why the homesteads of Spexhall Hall and Grove Farm existing side by side. Another pair of properties, Wood Farm, and Whitehouse Farm on the eastern edge of the parish could have been derived from another of Copinger's manors, Burghards, with the possible later addition of land from the breakup of the Wash Farm manorial estate (Girlings).

The position of the church glebe is crucial to the positioning of Spexhalls primary manors and details of the distribution of land in the vicinity of the church is presented in Fig 6.

Fig 6 Distribution of land in the vicinity of the church //Red dot= Glebe, Rev. Robert Crutwell: Blue dot= Rev. John Holmes; Yellow dot= Wortwell Town Trustees; Green dot= Alburgh Town Trustees.//

The glebe was concentrated on the hill around the church. There is no mention of the disputed Hough Hills in the Apportionment, but it may be significant that the only reference to 'hills' is in the names of fields 239 and 238 (Great and Little Boxing Hill). Little Boxing Hill and another piece of glebe, Orchard Field (237) abutted the southern boundary of the Spexhall Hall estate. The remainder of the land in this part of the parish not included in the Girling's and Fairstead estates (green and red stripes) was divided among three owners. The Rev John Holmes had 9 small fields and a cottage and barn, amounting in total to about 10 acres. He also held some of the small fields at the tail end of the parish (316, 318; Fig 7). Apart from a small plantation this was occupied by three tenants. The rest was in the hands of Town Trustees of Aldburgh and Wortwell, two villages side by side in Norfolk. Aldburgh Town also owned Bleach Farm in Wissett, across the parish boundary, which was contiguous with fields 296 and 297 in Spexhall. This raises questions about how this area came to be arranged in several small parcels. Was the Rev. Holme' land originally glebe? How did land come into the posession of Wortwell and Aldeburgh, many miles away from Spexhall? The answers lie in the sale of manorial copyholds.

Fig 7 Tail end of Spexhall parish These questions are relevant to the history of the large block of land to which some of the above fields belong, together with Wash Farm itself, and the fields at the south western tail end of the parish (314, 315, 316, 317,318; Fig 7). The parish boundary, defines the eastern boundary of this Wash Farm block with Wissett, and wiggles across country defined only by hedgerows. The very obvious natural feature of Spexhall Brook in a deep glacial channel or 'gull' marks its western boundary (Wash Lane), which then continues north, where it actually becomes the parish boundary. It's as if the Wash Farm block was added to Spexhall after the community had been allocated all the land between Wash Lane and Stone Street. In other words, the first manor was based at Fairstead. Post-Domesday the manorial community of Spexhall became independent of Wissett and the manor's chapel become a parish church endowed with glebe land.

Be that as it may, equating the Wash Farm block with the copyhold lands of Spexhall Manor brings us to Domesday times when the lands of Wash Farm were part of Wissett. In this scenario the other manorial estate were later developments of this process of manorialisation of Spexhall, which included rights on commons beyond Stone Street that it shared with Halesworth and Westhall.

By the time the Tithe Apportionment was made, there is no evidence of copyholders, although there are no records as to when the various manors divested themselves of their ancient copyhold perogatives. The fate of Spexhall's four lordships described by Copinger is unknown.