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CHAPTER 7 OTHER RECORDS And Time that takes survey of all the world Must have a stop. Shakespeare On the north aisle wall in St. Mary's is a tablet IistIng 'Benefactions to the Poor of the Parish of Sheephall'. This was erected early in the 19th century, probably to create a record as administration passed from the Nodes to the Heathcotes. The Nodes had left various bequests to the poor and the money had been invested in land. John Rudd in 1643 left provision for money to be sent before Candlemas to be distributed to several parishes 'in Bread upon a Sunday'. This was perhaps the start of the bread charity referred to in the will of Thomas Chapman of Stevenage, who died in 1666; the rent from two cottages in Stevenage to go to the bread charity of Shephall, Wymondley and Graveley:
Thomas Threader, who was a farmer and churchwarden at Shephall in the 18th century, left 10/- per annum chargeable on two copyhold houses in Shephall Green:
The Revd. John Jones recorded the first distribution of this charity:
The 'poor copyholders' also had a right to turn cows into a meadow in the parish between new Lammas Day (Aug. 1st) until new Candlemas (Feb. 2nd). During the summer such common land would be let to an individual. The distribution of bread continued into this century, not in the old fashion but by vouchers for loaves being issued to parishioners who qualified through low incomes. These were given at Christmas and Easter. There was also a quarterly cash dole given to the same families. Just before the First World War this payment was discontinued in favour of a bonus of 5cwt of coal given each year to those housewives thrifty enough to pay into a village coal club. Grocery and drapery vouchers were also issued at this time, and help given to the sick. The Shephall charities are now all vested in the Stevenage Consolidated Charities.
The parish chest also held a few papers relating to the Window and Land taxes. Among them are the assessments for 1764. The window tax was imposed by Parliament in 1696 to help meet the cost of re-minting the coinage. For 1763 there is also the assessment made by the churchwardens on behalf of John Gregory, overseer of the poor. From these papers one can discover who were the owners or occupiers of the larger houses in the parish at that time-, Mrs. Nodes, two years widowed, was living elsewhere and Shephall Bury was leased to Mr. Richard Hatley. He paid for 'windowlites' in the house, but the heirs of John Nodes were charged the landtax on the Bury Estate and its woods. The heirs of Robinson Lytton also paid substantially for their farmlands and woods. Next came the Revd. Mr. Nichs Cholwell for the 'vickreg' with 26 windows. Mr. John Gardner was at Half Hyde. Thomas Pinnock had the Bury farm in 1763 but he had died and a year later the house had been acquired by Mr. Hatley. Thomas Threader lived at Green End Farm, a house of 18 windows, the farm belonging to the late Mr. Nodes. John Gregory was a small farmer with the only other large house. Andrew Boustead kept the inn with only 7 windows; six other houses also had seven. One had six; otherwise the smaller cottages had not enough windows to be taxable. Three years later the Bury had bricked up five of its windows and the vicarage had lost nine. All had dispensed with one or two. One of the duties of the Overseers of the Poor was to take note of strangers staying in the parish. The Acts of Settlement of 1662 and 1697 gave power to overseers to remove any stranger if he had no prospect of work within 40 days, but anyone able to rent a property worth at least ₤10 a year was allowed to stay. Anyone leaving a viIlage, for seasonal work for instance, was welI advised to take a certificate with him saying that he could return to his own parish. On the other hand if he managed to stay for forty days in the new parish he could claim to be settled there. Bastard children did not receive a settlement certificate in the parish of their birth and persistent vagrants were sent to houses of correction and could be deported. There survive some thirty papers relating to settlement in the parish of Shephall in the 18th and 19th centuries, among them Jane Dellow's oath sworn before Tho. Bigge, one of His Majesty's Justices of the Peace, in 1760. When Ann Lodge was returned to her parish of Knebworth by the overseer he recorded on the reverse side of the order:
Other papers in the chest are bills - first a doctor's bill. Thomas Hicks made out a long list of visits he had made in 1829 to James Kimpton and his wife, having come daily from Jan. 20th to Feb. 9th and made nine other visits in February. He pens line after line of pills, mixtures, aperients, embrocations, phials of drops and a 'blister for the chest'. He makes out the account to the Parish of Shephall and adds:
Two draper's bills for materials bought by the overseer for the parish poor also deserve a place here; they are for cloths and measures almost beyond memory:
John Carrington's diaries record some visits to Shephall; for many years he was the Chief Constable of seven parishes within the Liberty of St. Albans including Shephall. He lived at Bramfield and travelled, often on horseback, to conduct his business. He wrote:
Long after the fields of Shephall were covered with houses, those of us who lived there in the old days were still apt, particularly if talking to an elderly local person, to identify direction and area by a field name. It meant far more than saying any new road name. A Lytton estate map of 1731 gives many names, sometimes with spelling variations, with which we were familiar; names such as Brooms, Ridgemonts, Sinks, Medalls, Oxleys, Leathy Half Hyde and Church fields. The field we called Barleycotts is written more correctly then as Burleycroft (from Burleigh). An adjacent narrow field called Solomon's Pightle had disappeared a century later when the parish tythe map was drawn, but not before it was recorded in the church baptism register
The tythe map names land near Half Hyde as Dovehouse field, but this century it had become Duffers field. Likewise on the Shephall manor land near Broadwater, Sheepcote Hill was known as Shipcadill. Afield we knew as Siansear is Siansean on the ordnance map, but the Lytton estate map calls it Sizehern. When George Nodes died in 1564 his will named a tenement in Shephall with an acre of land called Sumpe. Sumps is among fields listed in a marriage settlement between George Nodes and Elizabeth Harrington in 1698. Among other field names mentioned then and still in use into the 20th century are the Warren, the Grove, Randalls Hill, Homeley, Parsley Corner, Millfield, Parkers, Cowley Valley, Longmead, Blackburrow and Monks Wood. Several small closures are named as 'Pinneralls', Bushey, Barley or Miry. These still occur in an estate book of Sheephall Bury dated 1779 when some smaller fields had been created including the delightfully named
Small Gains and Flaggy Mead. There are large fields near Humbley Wood called Little and Great Bottom Shott, and Wood Shott. The Nodes also farmed many strips in the adjacent common lands in Humbley and Hagley commons. Mentioned too is a meadow called Roaring Meg and woodland 'formerly a chalk dell called Shackle Dell'. Various explanations have been given for Roaring Meg; some suggest a rushing noisy stream, and others claim it is the name of a large gun. Shackle Dell could be from 'shack' to turn (pigs) into stubble, or the name given to beechmast, acorns etc. fallen on the ground. By this century the common land strips had become large fields and many of the smaller closes including the Pinneralls had also disappeared. Miry Pinnerall remained on the ordnance map as Marymead Spring, but known to us as the Rookery. Close 39 on the estate plan Pinnerall Bank (where Shephall Lane meets Broadwater Crescent on today's street plan) had become known as Piddley Bank. Perhaps here should be mentioned four names which do not occur on any map but which were daily on our lips - first the Baker's Path which crossed the green. The Pightle was the small field between Siansean Spring and Peartree Spring where were the village allotments. The Twitchell was the small path from the green into the fields by Shephall Green Farm, and the Carsey the path which ran along the far side of the green. Did it acquire the already corrupted name in the 19th century when the trees were planted on the green, or was it an earlier footpath once known as the Causeway? There is no record or even a folk tradition of any ghostly happenings anywhere in the parish; however, it was believed that there was once a monastery in Whomerley Wood. This arose from the remnants of the settlement there, now regarded as the mediaeval home of the de Homlies. Several unusual flowers grew there which found their way into cottage gardens. The other half of the wood, which was within the old parish boundary of Shephall, was once owned by the Abbey of St. Albans, and known for this reason as Monks Wood. The other tradition was that the Red Lion was built by the monks when they were working on the church; but the old building (now incorporated in the modern enlargement) was not as old as that. There may have been an earlier building on the site, perhaps one of the homes where the monks were given a bed. In 1796 at the Court Baron of Richard Price, held by William Wilshire the younger, steward of Shephall manor,
The premises together with 16 acres of arable land were already leased out to Joseph Parker, yeoman. Sixty years earlier Joseph Paul as son and heir of Josias Paul, deceased, had been admitted as tenant. In 1764 Andrew Bouse or Boustead had succeeded John Farr; but it is not until 1796 that the tenement is named as the Red Lion. Another Joseph Parker is mentioned as tenant in 1801; by this time James Ind, common brewer, of Baldock had acquired the property. Later the Pryors, also of Baldock, bought up most of James Ind's properties. In 1811 the innkeeper was Francis Walters, followed by Thomas Hanchant. Entries in the Baptism register give John Hall in 1842 and Henry Chalkley in 1847. In the census of 1851 Sarah Chalkley, widow, is described as publican and farmer. Sometimes the 16 acres was let separately. When the Pryors in 1853 sold their Baldock brewery and 122 tied houses to Simpsons, Frederick Edwards was tenant. The 1861 census names Samuel Carter as carpenter and innkeeper, and that of 1871 gives David Deards, farming 30 acres as well as keeping the inn. He had four children under 7 years, so employed a 13 year old girl to help with the housework. Two agricultural labourers lived there too. Other innkeepers were Edward Deards (1874), Alfred Thompson (1890) and James Green (1912). As children we were discouraged from playing near the pub when it was open. It was mostly the preserve of the village men, although people would walk over from neighbouring villages on a summer evening or on a Sunday, and stop for refreshment, the families and women sitting outside. It was seldom anyone was the worse for drink. My particular memories are of errands to the kitchen door to buy the occasional item of grocery or 'fags' for my Dad. There was sometimes a treat of a jug of shandy or a bottle of fizzy lemonade. Our pennies and ha'pennies could be spent on sherbet fountains, gob stoppers, liquorice, toffees and chocolate bars. We only saw the inside of the building when the young daughter had a birthday party and we played in the tap room with its rough benches and tables, dart and shoveha'penny boards, and with sawdust on the floor. Alfred Lake was the innkeeper for some thirty years, farming several fields and keeping pigs. He saw the modernisation of the inn in 1953, about the time Greene King took over from Simpsons.
Alf Lake outside the Red Lion: 1920s
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