The Sociology of an English Village: Gosforth

W. M. Williams

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781136259142
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This is Volume XI of thirteen in a collection on the Urban and Regional Sociology. Initially published in 1956, the subject of this work is Gosforth in the North West with its long history and because it contained both a village and scattered farms. The field-work took place between July 1950 and February 1952, and further field-work was carried out in the summer of 1953.

APPENDIX VIII

PART I. THE SETTLEMENT PATTERN OF MEDIEVAL GOSFORTH

THE four vills into which the ancient parish of Gosforth was divided, Neuton, Gosford, Seschalis and Boulton, were units which must have included, respectively, the areas known to–day as Newton and Newton Manor, Gosforth Village, Seascale and Bolton. The few identifiable place–names add a little to our knowledge of the extent of these vills. In Neuton, for example, were Fleming–hall¹ and Lingbank,² and other evidence suggests that the area lying between the present road from Gosforth village to New Mill and New Mill Beck, which forms the north–west boundary of the present parish, also lay in this vill.³ In the vill of Boulton are Morthweyt Bee,⁴ Boltonheued,⁵ and Thornbanc,⁶ while there are no place–names in the vill of Gosford which have survived the centuries.

Each deed in the Chartulary of St. Bees concerning a grant of land includes details of the lands surrounding it. When people whose land adjoined made grants, it is possible to form an approximate idea of the distance separating each portion, and the dwellings stated to be upon them. From this it appears certain that in each vill the settlements were dispersed over their total area. This is admittedly based on the assumption that the pieces of land mentioned in the Chartulary were at least roughly equivalent in length and breadth. It is possible that they were, in fact, elongated strips, and that, say, a grant of land thirty acres in area referred to a strip forty yards wide and nearly a mile and a half long. Such strips, if arranged side by side, with dwellings at one end, could result in a form of settlement similar to the ‘line village’ of the type found in France and Louisiana.⁷ Such an arrangement is, of course, completely alien to the history of the area, and it would require an almost cataclysmic transformation from this form to the dispersed type to agree with the evidence which exists for the area at a later date.

Scattered evidence from the fourteenth century make the probability of the dispersed type of settlement even greater. A document dated 1303 mentions a dwelling at ‘Briggepeting’,⁸ and there are references to others at ‘Sevenhoues’ in 1310,⁹ ‘Thystilton’¹⁰ in 1318, ‘Todobrig in Boulton’ in 1363,¹¹ ‘Pyel’, ‘Julianholm’ and ‘Scale’ in 1365,¹² and ‘Keldebank’ in 1376.¹³

PART II. TOWNSHIP, VILL, AND MANOR

IT has proved impossible to determine the exact relationship between the vill, the township, and the manor, and I have been unable to find more than a few scattered references to the boundaries of manors in this area, and to the operation of the manorial system.¹⁴ The information available gives little indication of the characteristics of the Gosforth manors, but fortunately the manorial system appears to have little or no importance in an understanding of the present social life of the parish. Manorial rights were in the hands of freeholders in the parish over a century ago at least.

Of greater importance, but almost as obscure, is the relationship between the vill and the township which succeeded it as the unit of local administration. The vill of Gosford had no counterpart in the townships when the latter are first mentioned in local documents, and presumably must have been divided up between them when the township system was adopted. Further evidence that the boundaries of the vills and the townships were not identical is given in tabular form below.

Place–name.	In the Vill of:	In the Township of:
Lyngbank	Neuton	Boonwood
Flemynghall	Neuton	Boonwood
Briggepeting	Gosford	Boonwood
Gillbanc ^15	Gosford	Boonwood
Helewynherge ^16	Gosford	Boonwood
Morthweyt	Boulton	Bolton High
Boltonheued	Boulton	Bolton High
Thombanc	Boulton	Bolton Low
Toddelryg ^17	Boulton	Bolton High
Stubsat^18	Boulton	Bolton Low
Thystilton	Boulton	Bolton High
Julian Holm	Boulton	Bolton High
Sevenhoues	Boulton	Bolton Low
Scar green ^19	Gosford	Ponsonby

The method which was used to determine boundaries, and the reason for the disappearance of ‘Gosford’ as an administrative unit are unknown. It is, however, important to note that the division into townships reflected the dispersed type of settlement already characteristic of the vill, in that it was not considered necessary to make a township of what we may describe as the ‘embryonic’ village of Gosforth.

Once established, the townships did not remain unchanged throughout the centuries. In 1600, three churchwardens witnessed the Rector’s signature in the Parish Register. In 1697, when the Churchwardens’ Accounts begin, there are four churchwardens, each living in his own township, which were given as Seascale, Boonwood, Crook of Bleng, and Bolton. An entry of May 3,1780, names ten members of the newly instituted church jury, two each for the five divisions of Gosforth, High End of Bolton, Low End of Bolton, Boonwood, and Seascale.²⁰

Moreover, the boundaries of the townships vary considerably in local documents, and several places are given as first in one township and then in another. For this reason the map of townships (Fig. 12) based on three sources ²¹ of roughly the same date, which do not differ from each other in any significant detail, shows only the boundaries in 1850. Sources of an earlier ²² or later ²³ date would give maps with different boundaries.

NOTES

INTRODUCTION (pages 1-4)

1. Excluding a boy’s preparatory school with a transient population of about so masters and pupils.

2. A letter from Grindal, Bishop of London, to Secretary Cecil. Quoted in Gay, E. F., ‘The Midland Revolt and the Inquisitions of Depopulation’, Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. (N.S.), XVIII (1902), p. 21 on.

3. See map accompanying Nicolson, J., and Burn, R., The History and Anti-quities of the Counties of Westmorland and Cumberland (London, 1777).

CHAPTER I(pages 5-33)

1. Wilson, J., The Register of the Priory of St. Bees, Surtees Society, Vol. CXXVI (London, 1915).

2. In the custody of the Rector of Gosforth.

3.In the custody of the Parish Clerk of Gosforth.

4.The maps, which are constructed on several different scales, are, in accord-ance with the provisions of the Enclosure Act, of the common land only. None of the holdings are shown, but the surveyors printed the names of the owners of those holdings which adjoined the common, and indicated the point on the edge of the common where any two holdings met.

5. Records exist for five holdings (respectively 92, 90, 65, 64 and 36 acres) which show that there has been no significant change in their arable acreage since the beginning of the nineteenth century. From the evidence there is no reason to suppose that there has been any important redistribution of the arable land of those farms which have survived from 1800 to the present day, excluding of cours...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• MAPS AND TEXT FIGURES
• Preface
• Introduction
• I. THE ECONOMY
• II. THE FAMILY
• III. SOME ASPECTS OF THE LIFE CYCLE
• IV. KINSHIP
• V. THE SOCIAL CLASSES
• VI. FORMAL AND INFORMAL ASSOCIATIONS
• VII. NEIGHBOURS
• VIII. COMMUNITY
• IX. GOSFORTH AND THE OUTSIDE WORLD
• X. RELIGION
• CONCLUSION
• I Place of Birth of Occupiers, their Wives, and Parents
• 11 Size of Holdings
• 111 Male Labour on Farms
• IV Some Methodological Considerations in the Study of Social Class
• v Statistics relating to the Study of the Social Classes
• VI 'Familiar' Names as Symbols of Class Position
• VII Parochial Organizations
• VIII Part I. The Settlement Pattern of Medieval Gosforth
• NOTES
• Index