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Hampstead Court Rolls
Translation and transcription of the Manorial Court Rolls of Hampstead
In 2000 the Camden History Society commissioned the translation of the Court Rolls of the Manor of Hampstead held by the London Metropolitan Archive. The original Court Books have disappeared, presumed destroyed by fire or water, and what is at LMA are copies of the proceedings of the Courts Baron, which were exclusively concerned with the transfer of Manorial land and buildings. Copies were therefore made as proof to be held by the tenants of the copyhold property granted by the Lord of the Manor or given, mortgaged or bequeathed by other Customary tenants. (Courts Leet were concerned with misdemeanours and legal proceedings and would give full details of the members of the "Homage", Customary tenants who acted as jury to advise the Steward, acting on behalf of the absentee Lord of the Manor. A few of the later Courts Baron list these names.
The Rolls are in manuscript and for the most part in Latin. Mrs Pauline Sidell has translated them into modern English and, where the text resorts to English (rather peculiarly spelt by present standards) has transcribed it as it stands. Dr Peter Woodford has word-processed Mrs Sidell’s manuscript into the form you see here.
The earliest extant roll begins with a Court of 1572 in the reign of Elizabeth I and consists of 10 folios, leaping lightly over the rest of the 16th century; the Courts become more frequent through and into the reigns of James I and Charles I. Subsequent Rolls usually record a Court session at least once every year, and are highly variable in length and number of folios. The series will probably come to an end with the reappearance of Court Books in the 18th century, the date of which has not yet been securely ascertained.
Out of interest, Dr Woodford has highlighted in blue the name of a Customary tenant or a member of the Homage when it first appears in any one Roll and is compiling a list of such names – male and female – in case this might aid genealogical research in the district, which extended over a large area, from West End (bordering on Kilburn) in present-day West Hampstead to the village of Pond Street in the east, and from North End to the border with Belsize and Chalcots in the south. These lists will appear on the website in due course.
Observations and queries gratefully received by Dr Peter Woodford
DocumentsDate added
This Roll contains one regular Court Baron, in May 1695, and a Special Court Baron in the following February, which because of the fact that years began at this period in April has to be numbered 1695/6 although the text names it as being in 1695.
Court Roll No.15 records the Court Baron of May 1696, chiefly concerned with conveyancing of cottages and smallholdings, but also with several grants of land abutting on the Heath 'by the Lord's grace and favour'.
Hampstead Court Roll 16 contains the proceedings of a single Court Baron in May 1697: conveyancing of relatively small properties and some regularisation of building on the fringes of Hampstead Heath, formerly waste land of the Manor.
This very long Roll includes a record of the historic grant of six acres of swampy land containing the chalybeate well to fourteen gentlemen comprising the flower of the gentry of Hampstead to act as trustees (though this is not stated in the Roll) of the Hampstead Wells Charity intended to benefit the poor of Hampstead "for ever".
A few months before this, the Rolls record the sale of the tenancy of Slyes, acquired by Lord Robert Russell (a son of the 1st Duke of Bedford) just four years earlier. The buyer was Thomas Foley of Witley Court, Wrocestershire, who immediately became a member of the Hampstead upper-class set, and one of the trustees of the charity mentioned above.