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Pitstone 1800 - 1850 part 2

Pitstone today is a sprawling place with little shape or design. Approach it by car from the west along the Marsworth road or the Lower Icknield Way as some maps inaccurately describe it and you are in the danger of missing it altogether. After breasting the steep hillock where the road crosses the railway line and skirting the great Cement Works with its long screen of poplars fronting the road on the right, a confused mass of houses more or less of modern aspect is seen on the left hand side. Next follows a road junction with a roundabout, and, beyond that, more houses lining the road on the left. If you continue driving along the main road, after a few minutes it gradually bends right and begins to climb. Around another sharp bend to the left- and suddenly you are in Ivinghoe. Here at least, is a village which looks as one imagines a village should look, a high street lined with old brick and timber cottages, in the centre a church of noble proportions facing the village green, an ancient inn on the corner- only a manor house is missing to complete the stereotype.

The contrast between the two villages, so close together, remains striking even after closer inspection. Pitstone has no centre, or rather, it has three. A full quarter of a mile to the south of the spread of houses on the north side of Marsworth road, which constitutes the principle population grouping is marked on the map as Pitstone Green, is Pitstone proper or Church End. Here, redundant and forlorn in the shadow of the Cement Works stand the parish church, a tiny 13th century structure. Nearby is a large moated farmhouse, its extensive outbuildings now empty and deserted, a nineteenth century vicarage and a school, and adjoining the church and strung along Vicarage road, which links Church End with the Marsworth road, a scattering of 19th and 20th century houses.

The third centre, Brook End, even tinier than Church End, is nearer to Ivinghoe than either of the other two and consist of a group of old cottages tucked away to the North of Marsworth Road.

The dispersed character of the village is closely linked with feature of the landscape now largely obscured by the changes which have taken place during the past century or so, but formerly of great significance in the economy of the parish. Foremost amongst them are the springs which rise on the edge of the chalk hills to the south of the village, and the Green. From Cowhill Spring near the Upper Icknield Way the stream of Whistle Brook flows - or rather flowed, for it is now largely covered up and invisible - down to Church Farm, where it filled the deep moat which surrounds the house, and on through the centre of the parish, skirting the edge of the Green before escaping into Ivinghoe. The Green itself, now cut in two by the Marsworth road and partly built upon, was still at the beginning of the nineteenth century a vast open space of over a hundred acres of common pasture.

Spread out along the eastern edge, following the outer bank of the stream for much of its length, here the majority of the cottages and farmhouses which constitute the village. Only a very few of these old cottages still survive hidden behind the modern bungalows which front the Cheddington road. At the back of the houses ran a narrow envelope of enclosures - gardens and meadows - which, leaving the houses behind, continued along the stream as far as the Church. Behind the closes, to the east and south stretched the furlongs and strips of the village open fields.

This is approximately how Pitstone Green looked at the beginning of the nineteenth century as shown in a parish map of the period. The picture requires some modifications: at the north end - where Chequers Lane is now - a group of houses projected at right angles to the others adjoining a miniature common called Coles Green, while at the southern end the houses diverged from the stream curving west along the southern edge of the Green to the vicinity of the present cement works. North of Coles Green in an island of enclosed green fields, conspicuous against the flat landscape, stood - and still stands - the solitary farmhouse of Yardley Farm.

Of the other two centres, Church End consisted of Church Farm and immediately adjoining the church, the ruins of another large farmhouse, Parsonage Farm. There were no other buildings but, halfway between the church and the Green, a few scattered roadside cottages were to be seen. At Brook End there was a water Mill worked by a branch of Whistle Brook, a mill house and several haphazardly placed cottages all surrounded by another green island of enclosed ground.

It is tempting to speculate about how the village might have evolved over the centuries. An obvious assumption is that the original Saxon settlement was in the neighbourhood of the church and that at some later period the inhabitants moved northwards along the stream. Certainly the heavy land in the vicinity of the Green must have required extensive clearing, evidence of which survives in the field name of Stocking, as found in Stocking Close and Stocking Furlong, which indicates an area cleared of trees. On the other hand the relatively small area of enclosed ground at Church End is against there ever having been any large settlement there. The name Pitstone throws little light on the matter. In its extended alternative Pightlestone it means Pictels Thornbush, an ambiguous description, unlike Ivinghoe which contains a reference to the "ho" or spur of the Chilterns in which the village is situated.

Whilst the question of origin is likely to remain obscure and recent findings in the field of medieval village archaeology caution us against the facile assumptions about continuity of development, two general points can be made. The first is that by 1800 settlement at both the Green and Brook End was of considerable antiquity. As proof of this, in regard to the Green, are the two or three surviving old houses near Chequers Lane, which date back to the mid-sixteenth century and nearby Yardley Farm marks the site of the meeting place in Anglo Saxon times of the ancient hundred of Erlai, reference to Brook End, too, is found in a deed of the l4th Century (B.A.S. Ashridge Coll.E7/7.

The second point is that Pitstone's development is intimately bound up with its medieval manorial structure. Once again the contrast with Ivinghoe is striking for while Ivinghoe was the centre of a very large manor which for centuries going back before the Conquest belonged to a single lord, the Bishop of Winchester, Pitstone, though as a parish less than half its size, accounted in 1068 for four distinct manors. These were the Manors later known, Morrants, Neyrnuts, Butlers and Yarley - the latter a sub-manor. Besides Yardley Farm, the sites of two of the other three manor houses can be identified. Parsonage Farm, now completely destroyed, was the manor house of Morrants, the principal manor, while Church Farm, formerly called Place House, was the seat of the manor of Butlers.

Today. Church Farm represents Pitstone's most impressive link with its manorial past. Apart from the unusually well preserved moat, the farmhouse itself conceals behind a bland 18th century exterior a complete wing of the original 16th century timber framed mansion, the greater part of which was taken down in the seventeenth century. The house must have been erected by the Lees - a branch of the more famous Lees of Quarrenden - who acquired the manor in 1529. Through the Lees it has interesting associations with the Catholic opposition to the Elizabethan Church settlement for this branch of the family remained loyal to the old faith and paid a heavy price for doing so. Roger Lee, the last to reside at Pitstone, played an important role as go-between for the intrepid Jesuit, John Gerard who was active in the area in the late 1590s. Gerard tells us in his autobiography that it was Lee who arranged his introduction to Sir Everard Digby of Gayhurst under cover of a common interest in. hawking and hunting. The bluff, pleasure-loving Digby little realised that on this occasion he himself was the quarry and that his meeting with the hawk-nosed stranger with his stylish cloths and his skill at cards would set him on the road that led to the Gunpowder Treason and the bloody stage of Tyburn.

The shape of Pitstone parish is quite as untypical as that of the village itself. Its outline roughly resembles a fish with the Green occupying the belly and the tail fins containing the wooded ground still known as Pitstone Common. The "body" at its widest point just south of the Icknield Way is about one mile across, while at its narrowest, before it widens again to form the "tail fins", it is a mere yards. At one time the parish extended beyond Pitstone Common to the south in a long narrow strip of land some 2.5 miles long and a quarter of a mile wide looking on the map like a ribbon attached to the fish tail and trailing behind it. This area of the parish, called Nettleden from the small village situated near its farthest extremity, was transferred toHertfordshire in 1894 and is now part of the parish of Little Gaddesden.

Centuries before that date, though technically a chapelry of Pitstone, it was for most practical purposes a separate parish with its own incumbent and a separate poor rate. Occasionally though - as, for instance, in the case of the 1840 tithe apportionment - the two were not distinguished, with consequent risk of ambiguity. So, although it has been excluded from our story, in the interpretation of some of the documents the existence of Nettleden has to be kept in mind. Nettleden has also a special significance in that it contained within its boundaries, in addition to Nettleden village and the small hamlet of Frithsden, Ashridge, site of a notable medieval religious house and in later times the seat of the great landed estate to which it gave its name. All three names, incidentally indicate the woodland origin of the settlements.

Pitstone Common - to which we now return - lies on rising ground some two miles or more distant from Pitstone Green. If begins at the point where the chalk hills are overlaid with a deposit of clay with flints, an infertile belt which comprehended several other upland commons of adjoining parishes - Ivinghoe, Aldbury and Berkhampsted among them. Originally it was, or at least included, a common wood and it is as such that it is referred to in documents as late as the 17th century. Its early importance as a source of fuel and timber is clearly demonstrated by the existence of the "wood book", a late 14th century record which lists the quantities wood to which the occupier of land within the parish were customarily entitled. This document is of particular interest in that it makes no clear distinction between the four manors into which, as we have seen, the parish was divided.

More information about the regulation of the common wood comes to light in the late l6th century in connection with & dispute in which the lord of Morrant was accused by the lords of the other manors and the village of depriving them of their rights. Evidence was given of the holding on alternate years of "an accustomable common hewthe" for the felling of timber. That this was not the first such dispute is evident from an undated draft petition of the early 16th century which survives among the Ashridge estate records. Addressed to the Earl of Shrewsbury in his capacity of chief lord from his "tenants and inhabitants of Pychelesthorne" it complains that the rector of Ashridge and his convent "taketh from your tenants and inhabitants of ' Pychelesthorne aforesaid our Common and common wood called Pychelesthorne Wood".

A description of Pitstone Common in 1753 (Kalm) makes no mention of trees but only of furze bushes. Probably by this time much of the original common had been enclosed and is doubtless represented by the large wood shown on the 1809 map as Pitstone Copse and now called Sallow Copse. Nothing further is heard of rights of felling timber after the 17th century but it is clear that the inhabitants of Pitstone enjoyed rights of colleting furze for fuel up to the enclosure of 1855.

Immediately to the northwest of Pitstone Common is a broad valley watered by several small springs from which the ground gradually rises again to the edge of the Chiltern ridge. At the bottom of the valley, straddling the parish boundary with Ivinghoe stands a large farmhouse whose name, Duncome Farm, recalls a family long associated with the locality. Their seat, known as Barley End House stood on this site until the late 18th Century and its cellars still remain beneath the newer buildings. Barley End - the name is now associated with another, smaller farmhouse not far to the west of Duncombe Farm along a narrow, winding road - was once a small hamlet, not untypical of many other scattered Chiltern settlements which have since contracted in size or disappeared altogether. Though partly in Ivinghoe, manorially it was linked to the principal manor of Morrants. At the beginning of the l9th Century the area was marked by a belt of enclosed fields which had been so since the early 18t Century and probably long before that. West of this belt, where the middle chalk of the hills breaks through the valley gravel to produce an expanse of bare, hedgeless terrain, was another area of open arable fields complementary to those in the plain below.

The separate history of Pitstone's four manors effectively came to an and in the opening years of the 17th Century when the arrival of the Egertons at Ashridge opened a new chapter in the history of the district as a whole.

At the beginning of the 19th Century the Ashridge estate accounted for not far short of half of the total area of land in Pitstone parish. Most of the remainder was divided among fewer than twenty lesser proprietors of from one to one hundred acres apiece. The majority of these proprietors were not resident in Pitstone, though a few lived in neighbouring parishes. The only resident owner-occupier on any significant scale were the Williamsons who farmed some 70 acres in the parish but they, ironically, were comparatively recent arrivals. As a group the yeomanry had ceased to exist in Pitstone well before 1800 and their places had been taken by tenant farmers.

All available evidence suggests that the Ashridge estate holding in 1800 was exactly the same as it had been half a century earlier and, indeed, some existing early rentals suggest that it had been of a similar extent a quarter-century before that. Upwards of a hundred acres consisted of park and woodland forming part of the demesne, while the rest was let to tenants, There were four farms in all, but three of them had for many years been consistently let to a single tenant, as can be deduced from a rental of 1761 - one of the very few to survive - coupled with the evidence of the parish land tax assessments which are extant from 1782 to 1832. The three farms in question are not identified in the rental, but must have included Church Farm and Parsonage Farm; the combined acreage is estimated at 507 acres rented at £307 per annum by William Collins. The fourth farm, Yardley Farm, whose acreage is not stated in the 176l rental, may have been somewhat smaller than its later size of just under a hundred acres; the tenant. Widow Fenn, paid a rent of £50. In 1724 the respective tenants had been John Collins, rented at £225.10,0 and "Mr. Theed", paying £30 for "Yarley Farm". By 1800 the tenants were James Stevens and William Tompkins.

In contrast with the Ashridge estate, the other holdings seem to have been much less static during the half century or so preceding 1800. The land tax assessments (including an isolated earlier assessment of 1755 which luckily survives but has the drawback that it lists occupiers only) show numerous changes in the ownership of individual properties and a distinct tendency for holdings to grow in size by process of amalgamation. Owner-occupiers were already the exception by the time the main series of assessments begins and they remain so throughout.

There were three principal ways in which property might come to be in the possession of outsiders to the parish - by purchase for incorporation into a neighbouring estate, by purchase as an investment, and as a result of the vagaries of inheritance coupled with a degree of geographical mobility on the part of the family concerned.

The "Ashridge estate itself is of course an example of the first process though by far the most important, Ashridge was not the only land estate to hold property in the parish. The Stocks estate. so called, its seat, Stocks House in neighbouring Aldbury, comprised, in 1800’s. 30-odd acres in the Barley End area, had formally belonged to a branch of Duncombes from whom it had passed by inheritance around the middle of the eighteenth century to William Hayton, Esquire, of Ivinghoe, member of a family of minor gentry which had earlier produced a Clerk of the Peace for Bucks. To the original Dunscome property in Barley End, Rayton added as the land tax assessments indicate, several small purchases of woodland from various owners.

Then early in the new century he acquired Little Barley End Farm (120 acres) from the Cock family in whose possession it had been for at least a century. The extent of the property in Pitstone was now just under 150 acres, making it the second largest holding in the parish. On Raytons death in 1811 the estate passed to his sister, Harriot, wife of James Gordon; their son James Adam Gordon eventually inherited in 1832.

The principal Duncombe estate Barley End in Pitstone and Ivinghoe and their seat, Barley End House, had descended to the family of Lucy who were the owners in 1800. They apparently did not reside and indeed it is possible that Barley End House had already been demolished by this date and replaced by the present farmhouse. The property – about 60 acres of it in Pitstone – was swallowed up by Ashridge around 1810.

Most of the remaining owners in 1800 were not landed in the usual sense of the word. They were a mixed lot including a widow living in Northampton, a surgeon in Marlyebone a gentleman in Forest Gate, Essex. Several were residents in the neighbouring towns of Tring, Leighton Buzzard and Berkhamstead. Absentee ownership of this kind was by no means uncommon, as can be seen from the addresses as given by the voters in the county roll book of 1784, though it looks as if Pitstone had a greater proportion than most parishes. From a study of surviving title deeds in the Ashridge estate collection, it is clear that most absentee holdings can be divided into two principle groups – those acquired as the result of inheritance or marriage and those acquired through purchase.

Absentee ownership by inheritance was usually the result of the failure of direct heirs coupled with a degree of geographical mobility on the part of the family concerned. Ownership of this kind was apt to be of a relatively short duration but might well persist through two or more generations. The small farm which belonged to Thomas Collyer, butcher, of Pitstone at the time of his death in 1770 passed first to his brother John Collyer, of Wingrove, to his nephew, another John Collyer, labourer, also of Wingrove. It was not finally sold until 1814 by which time John Collyer, Senior was in Canada as a soldier in the 19th Regiment of the Light Dragoons. The purchaser was Henry Eustace, tenant, who thus became owner-occupier; he eventually sold up to Ashridge in 1822.

There was always the possibility, however, that an absentee inheritor would decide to return and occupy the property either personally or through a member of his family. This is what happened in the case of the Williamsons, previously mentioned. When Humphrey Payne of Seabrook in Cheddington, gent, member of an old established family, died in 1785, he left his lands in Cheddington and Pitstone, consisting of Seabrook farm (135 acres) and two small farms with a combined acreage of around 70 acres in Pitstone to William Williamson of Farnham Royal near Slough in South Bucks. William was presumably a relation but the nature of the relationship is not clear. William Williamson died in 1802 leaving his estate to his brother John, a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital. John Williamson, in turn, by his will proved in 1809, settled the Pitstone farms on his nephew Humphrey, son of his brother Christopher Williamson of Farnham Royal, farrier, and his heirs male; Seabrook farm went to Humphrey’s brother John. At the time of inheriting, Humphrey had already been in occupation of the Pitstone property for a year or two; previously he had been living in Hedgerley, Bucks, where his two sons Moses and Humphrey were born. From this time onwards the family continued to reside at Pitstone and to play a part in its affairs. They are still represented there today. (1990?)

Absentee owners, as a result of purchase, probably include all or most of those identified as residents in the neighbouring towns. In some instances at any rate such purchasers can be seen as a director investment in land or capital, realised in trade. The 28 acres owned by Mrs Elizabeth Billington of Berkhamstead for instance, had been purchased in 1791 by her father, William Billington, a member of the last old Yeoman families of Pitstone. George Griffin of Tring who acquired some 33 acres in Pitstone and 70 acres in Ivinghoe in 1789 was a grocer by trade. He is exceptional in that he chose to reside on his property and is later described as “of Ivinghoe, gentleman

Not all absentee estates in 1800 were the result of recent purchases. The 45 acres belonging to Lydia Mead of Chesham, for instance belonged to her family since 1689; they are described in the deeds as tanners of Chesham. Lydia Mead eventually married George as her second husband and their combined estates in Pitstone were conveyed to Ashridge in 1827.

Table showing Owners holdings of 1 acre or more and upwards in 1800

Note. Further information has been compiled by combining several separate sources, principally the land tax assessment which does not give acreage – the 1809 map of terriers – which does not include the Barley End area of the parish and the inclosure claims book of 1853 which includes a statement of purchases from 1803.

As can be seen from the above table, the expansion of Ashridge estate commenced around 1803 by the 7th Earl, continued steadily during the following decades. In all over 600 acres were acquired in Pitstone alone at a total cost in the region of £30,000. By the middle of the century as the following table shows, most of the absentee owners had been swallowed up.

Owners of 1 acre and upwards in 1848 (taken from the Parish Rate Valuation Book):-

Hand in hand with the expansion of the area of the estate went the process of reorganisation of the farms. Unfortunately the lack of a continuous series of estate accounts makes it impossible to follow the process in detail. To add to the difficulties, the land tax on the estate was redeemed in 1805 and thereafter the annual assessments usually give separate particulars of the newly acquired property only. The general effect of the reorganisation is. However, clear enough - the creation by means of amalgamation and addition, a small number of substantial farms of 100 acres and upward. One entirely new farm, Pitstone Green Farm was created and we shall be looking at it separately. The surviving diary of the estate steward William Buckingham for 1813 gives us a glimpse of how the changes were effected. (15 April) "To Newman with plan of Pightstone Farm (Church Farm) examining the pieces to be taken from the farm to be put to Duncombe Farm"

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