Description:

Private research aimed at identifying land holdings in Michaelchurch Escley described in a survey of the Rentals of the manor of Ewyas Lacy carried out for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester after being given a moiety of the manor by Queen Elizabeth I.

Land tenure in Michaelchurch Escley: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1566

Observations:

The lands identified exclude forests, commons and waste, and also exclude parts of Michaelchurch Escley that were within the moiety of the manor that had devolved to Lord Abergavenny. The survey reports one forest called Cefn Bach ‘lying in the townships of Creswell [Craswall] and Michael Church Escley containing by estimation 10 acres of land of Welsh measure [40 English acres] where is no woods and the pasture thereof used among the tenants [who] pay nothing for the pasture by privilege to them granted, as they do allege.’ Other forests are mentioned but do not fall within Michaelchurch. Of the commons mentioned, one falls within Michaelchurch, being ‘Cefn y Fagwyr [Cefn y Fagor, or Vagar Hill] containing [blank] acres lying in Michael Church Escley which is used freely by all the said tenants…’

As to the existence of a principal dwelling or manor house that might have been the forerunner of the present day Michaelchurch Court, limited light is shed by this survey. The manor [of Ewyas Lacy] is described as ‘a great circuit and very good ground … there is no manor house belonging to the same [the Earl of Leicester’s moiety including much of present day Michaelchurch] except a small house which was called the court house and now in great decay’, but this is probably the house in Longtown, near the castle, where the Ewyas Lacy manorial courts sat in times past. There are, however, a small number of ‘messuages’ [un-named dwelling houses with associated buildings] identified in Michaelchurch Escley that have extensive freehold land attached and were therefore probably substantial and important buildings; these belonged to the Gilbert, Howell, Baskerville, Vaughan, and Thomas families.

It is also interesting to note that there were only 300 tenants in the whole of this moiety of the Lordship of Ewyas Lacy at this time, most of whom were freeholders. It is also evident that the tenure of land, and the exact division of it between the two moieties of the Lordship, was far from precisely established.

Rents are noted as 1d per Welsh acre for free [freehold] land, and 3d per acre for ‘free bound’ land. ‘Customary’ land seems to have been let for 21 year terms at 3d per Welsh acre.

[1] The document states one Welsh acre equals four English acres in this survey, although definitions of two or three English acres to one Welsh can be found in other sources.