Bayleaf, re-erected at the Museum
Bayleaf – perhaps the most iconic
building to be re-erected at the Museum –
is a timber-framed Wealden hall house from
Chiddingstone in Kent. It has six rooms, four
on the ground floor and two upstairs. The
house was built in two phases. The earliest part,
which has been dendro-dated to 1405-1430,
consisted of an open hall and service end.
This was probably attached to an earlier
structure, which stood where the solar or upper
end bay now stands. It is believed that the
upper end bay that gave the building its
present form was added in the early 16th century,
replacing the earlier structure.
Bayleaf on its original site at Chiddingstone.
The parish of Chiddingstone, comprising
about 6,000 acres and with an estimated
population in the 1560s of 475, is on the western
side of the Kent Weald, close to the Surrey
border. The village of Chiddingstone consists of a
high street and the church of St Mary. Most
of the inhabitants were (and still are)
scattered widely throughout the parish.
Chiddingstone straddles both low and high Weald,
the original site of Bayleaf lying in the low Weald. The
high and low Wealds were separated both
demographically and industrially, with the high
Weald more heavily populated and industrialised
than the low Weald. Overall the Kent Weald was the
poorest of Kent’s agricultural regions and
within the Kent Weald the western Weald was
poorer, less industrialised and more sparsely
populated than the other Wealden districts,
particularly the central Weald where the woollen
textile industry was based.
The ‘gentry manor’ of Bore
Place
All land in the Kent Weald, like
elsewhere in England, was held of
some lordship or directly of the Crown.
However, seigneurial control was weak and tenants’
involvement with their manor was limited to paying
a small annual quitrent or ground rent, doing
(occasional) suit of court and paying a
heriot (usually the best beast) for the right to
take up land on the death of the previous tenant.
A feature of the late 15th and 16th centuries was
the appearance of what are described as ‘gentry
manors’ or estates in all parts of the
Weald, the result of either successful estate
building by local residents or of purchase by
newcomers to the Weald. These estates frequently
included land held of more than one manor. An
example of this was the Bore Place ‘manor’,
or estate, with lands in at least three different
manors. The owners of Bore Place, like most
other landowners in the Weald during this period,
managed their property by leasing out large
blocks of it and rents would have formed an
important part of their income. Unlike some
landowners, however, they retained demesne
lands, which in 1518 included approximately
50 acres of arable and 150 acres of
pasture, together with meadows, woods and
parkland.
From the
late 15th century and throughout the 16th century
Bore Place was held by a succession of eminent
London lawyers, all of whom continued to
maintain London residences. John Alphegh held the
estate until his death in 1489. He left it to his
daughter, Margaret, and her husband, Robert,
later Sir Robert, Rede. On Rede’s death in
1518 the estate passed to his daughter, Bridget,
and her husband, Thomas, later Sir Thomas,
Willoughby. Bridget continued to hold the estate
after her husband’s death in 1545 and on her own
death in 1558 it passed to her grandson,
Thomas Willoughby.
Bayleaf farm
The origins and development of Bayleaf
are unclear. The name ‘Bayleaf’ is a
corruption of the word ‘Bailey’ and it is probable
that it was named after its original occupant,
Henry Bailey. We know that at the end of the 14th
century Henry Bailey was holding about
100 acres of land in the area that later
became Bayleaf farm and that he died in around
1430. He may therefore have
been responsible for building the original
house. The earliest reference to Bayleaf (‘Bayles’)
is in the will of John Alphegh dated 1489, and it
thereafter appears regularly in rentals and other
documents throughout the 16th century as ‘Baylys’,
‘Bailes’, ‘Bayleaze’ and ‘Baylies’.
From the early 16th century Bayleaf
is described as a ‘fee farm’ and the tenants
paid an annual rent of 110s. The exact acreage at this date is unknown
although it is reasonable to assume on the basis of earlier and later evidence
that it was somewhere in the region of 100-130 acres. The description of the
tenants as ‘farmers’ (firmarius) and the fact that they were paying a fixed rent
indicates that Bayleaf was being held on a long-term lease, for a term of years or
for a succession of lives (usually three – e.g. father, son, grandson). This means
that the tenants were unaffected by the custom of ‘gavelkind’ which was distinctive
to Kent and was characterised by partible inheritance amongst male
heirs (that is, land was split equally amongst them).
The evidence for tenure of Bayleaf
during the 16th century is relatively clear, although the exact dates for each
tenant are not. It is likely that Thomas Wells (the first) held Bayleaf from at
least 1500 to 1510, Edward Wells held Bayleaf from about 1510 to 1520,
Richard Scoriar held Bayleaf from about 1520 to 1540 and Thomas Wells (the
second) held Bayleaf from about 1550 to about 1590. The exact relationship
between these men is unknown: an obvious explanation would be Thomas
Wells (the first) was the father of Edward Wells who was
the father of Thomas Wells (the second), but other
relationships are possible. Why Richard
Scoriar was holding the lease is unclear: possibly it was during the minority of
Thomas Wells (the second). The only one of these men about whom anything
is known is the second Thomas Wells. No wills survive for any of them, one of
the most useful sources of information for men and women at this date.
What do we know about Thomas
Wells?
There is a document dated 1556 which
records an agreement between Thomas Wells
and Lady Bridget Willoughby, then the owner of
Bore Place, in which he agrees to supply her with wheat and
oats for a period of five years and to ‘bring and carry or cause to be brought
and carried yearly during the space of 20 years’ from London to ‘the house of
the said Lady Willoughby called Bore one
sufficient wain load of such victuals
and stuff as she or any other to her use shall buy and provide for the provision
of her house’. In this document Thomas Wells is described as a ‘carpenter and
farmer’. Ten years later when Thomas Willoughby (the second) mortgaged
Bayleaf ‘with all its lands, appurtenances, pastures and woods now in the
tenure and occupation of Thomas Wells’ to Richard Water, a wealthy miller,
Thomas Wells is described as a yeoman. So he was a farmer, a carpenter and, at
least by 1566, a yeoman. A yeoman is a
recognised economic class in the early modern period and usually describes
someone who was farming at least 100 acres. He was above ‘husbandman’ but
below ‘gentleman’. In other words, yeomen constituted a rural middle class.
He would expect to produce a large marketable surplus each year and be a
regular employer of non-family labour.
Evidence from London, where carpenters were organized in a
craft guild (the carpenters’ company) suggests that the profession was not a
very profitable one. However, outside London and the larger provincial towns
the activities of carpenters were unregulated which means that there are few
details of how the craft was organised or of the wealth it generated. As a
carpenter Thomas Wells might have been responsible for building entire
houses as well as commercial and industrial buildings. The more successful
carpenters acted as architect contractors,
arranging for materials and sub-contracting with other craftsmen.
Analysis of tax and poor rate assessments suggests that
Thomas Wells was a wealthy man within his community – in the top 10% of the
Chiddingstone population – which would have made him a substantial, and
respected, member of the community. This is reflected in his local office
holding. In 1562 he was elected to the office of constable of the hundred of
Somerden, an unpaid position he would have held for two years. A hundred was
a unit of administration covering a number of parishes. As a constable for
the hundred he (together with another constable) would have overseen the
collection of poor rates, the supervision of parochial officers and the
maintenance of roads and bridges. Together with petty constables they were
also responsible for controlling any disturbances within their communities.
Between 1565 and 1566 Thomas Wells also served as one of two collectors of
the poor, an office (later called overseers of the poor) that emerged from
the developing poor law legislation of the 16th century.
Bayleaf farm comprised between 100-130 acres of land, a
mixture of arable, pasture, woods and meadow. How it is farmed is unclear.
In this region of Kent livestock farming – cattle rather than sheep – was
predominant. Only one quarter of the demesne lands were being used for
arable in the early 16th century, the remainder being pasture, even though
this meant that the owners of Bore Place were obliged to buy in additional
grain to supply their household. Like Thomas Wells, they grew wheat and
oats. Barley, which did not grow well on the heavy clay soils of the Weald,
had to be bought in. The commercial value of cattle was in their meat and
hides, with some of the cattle destined for the London market. Bailiff’s
accounts for Bore Place which survive for the years 1513-1514, 1516-1517 and
1517-1518 show that the bailiff (William Walker) was selling livestock to
individual traders spread out over an approximately 40-mile radius from
Chiddingstone, including to a trader from Southwark where the London tanning
industry was based.
The baptism register for Chiddingstone, which begins in
1566, records the birth of five of Thomas Wells’ children within a 10-year
period – three boys and two girls. By this date he already had at least one
son, Thomas, which we know because there is a record of his burial in 1572.
Another son, Percival, died aged two in 1571. A ‘snapshot’ of the Wells
family in December 1578 at home in Bayleaf would find Thomas and Mrs Wells,
Anne aged seven, Henry aged five, Ralph aged two and Martha aged one month.
There may have been one or two older children whose births pre-date the
start of the baptism register and who survived to adulthood. It is likely
that the Wells’ household included at least one, and probably two, female
domestic servants, so called ‘life cycle’ servants who entered service in
their mid-teens and stayed until they married in their early to mid
twenties. This means that the Wells’ household is likely to have been large
at between nine and 10 people, considerably larger than the average early
modern household of five but consistent with what is known of other
Chiddingstone yeomen families at this date. Thomas Wells must have relied on
paid labour to manage his farm, probably day labourers who would have been
employed on a seasonal basis. Such men are likely to have maintained their
own households and so would not have been resident in Bayleaf.
It is probable that Thomas Wells was illiterate. Although
unequivocal corroboration for this is missing, in 1581 only seven out of 17
jurors of the Somerden hundred court – men of the same status as Thomas
Wells – were able to sign their names: the rest indicated their assent with
their ‘mark’. Had he been able to write one would expect him to have signed
the 1556 agreement he entered into with Lady Bridget Willoughby, discussed
above. Instead, he ‘signs’ it with his seal. Although nationally literacy
levels were rising throughout the early modern period, outside of London and
larger urban centres illiteracy remained the norm below the ranks of gentry.
Bayleaf during dismantling. The solar end has been
removed,
leaving the original hall and service end.
Bailiffs for Bore Place?
The question of whether or not the occupants of Bayleaf
were literate takes on more significance when we consider the evidence for
whether or not they were bailiffs. The link between the occupants of Bayleaf
and the office of the bailiff derives in the first instance from
the belief that ‘Bayleaf’ is a corruption of the word
‘bailiff’. However, as we have seen, it is more likely that Bayleaf took its
name from the original occupant, who was probably Henry Bailey. Whilst the
surname ‘Bailey’ derives from the office of bailiff, by the 15th century the
link between the occupation and the surname had become historic. Weight has
been added to the Bayleaf/bailiff association by the reference in Lady
Bridget Willoughby’s will of 1556 to ‘William Wells my bailiff’. Who William
Wells was and his relation to the tenants of Bayleaf is unclear. His name
does not appear in contemporary tax records for Chiddingstone or the
adjacent communities, which may indicate that he fell below the tax
threshold or that his status as a dependent servant exempted him. Whilst it
is reasonable to assume he was related to Edward or Thomas Wells, he may
have been part of their wider kin network, resident either in Chiddingstone
or its environs. We do know that between 1513 and 1518 the Bore Place
bailiff was a man called William Walker, who had no connection with Bayleaf.
In his will of 1519 Sir Robert Rede left Walker a tenement called ‘Mayes’ in
the neighbouring village of Sundridge, and it is likely that this is where
Walker lived during Rede’s lifetime.
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