My talk is based on an amazing Survey taken in 1564, 6 years into the reign of Queen Elizabeth I that I came across in the Devon Record Office. For a long time I could not do much with it, until contacting Steven Hobbs, who had earlier translated and published the Forde Abbey Cartulary and was an expert on these early surveys. It is a wonderful record of the village after it`s nearly 300 years of possession by Forde Abbey and its transition to ownership by the wealthy Sir William Petre, who was Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth in that year. There are 15 pages of the document shown here, each of which is beautifully written.

I have attempted to make sense of the mass of information that comes from the translation of the survey and listed the main facts in a chart shown here. It is based on the size of the land holding from the smallest to the largest. The original burgage plots were half an acre. This was not found sufficient to support a family and by 1564 they had been amalgamated into an acre, often with an additional acre of common land which was the area area south of the street to the sea. The total acreage comes to 348 acres, which compares to 546 acres today. The difference can be explained by John Hourde, the Surveyor, not including some common land, woods and land owned by the Rector, which were worh £13 a year.  He goes on to describe that “The parson’s living rises very much on tithe fish. There is a stay or resting place for boats at the mouth of the river Char, and 9 fisher boats belong to the same.”
Newlands, which at that time was part of the village had a total of 126 acres. This was rented by Joan Tybbes. She was the widow of Ralph Tybbes, who had formerly been the Steward for the village and had lived in what is today the Abbots House, built for him by his Uncle, Thomas Chard, the last Abbott of Forde. A number of the names shown in the list are familiar to us today in a different form. Examples of this is Foxley acre, Lilly mead, Wesley, the Grange, Rhodehorn and Newlands. The full translation of the 1564 Survey can be seen on my freshford website. The total rent was £27 per annum – not a bad rate of return on the £25 that Sir William Petre paid for the village.

The Survey is preserved in a thick volume shown here, of all the many estates Sir William Petre had accumulated. They cover many counties including Devon where he had over 36,000 acres including the town of Axminster. I have split the Talk into two parts again based on the Survey as the last page contains a description of the village's boundary. It describes the neighbouring estates and its owners in that year. This has been a revelation to me and after tremendous research have been able to pinpoint where they were situated and who owned them at that time.

Returning back to the 1564 survey, I will now attempt to analyse it and come up with some conclusions during this Talk.
But first I want to look at the early history of Charmouth leading up to its sale by Queen Elizabeth.
Again, we are fortunate that Steven Hobbs was able to translate the  Cartulary for Forde Abbey, still held by the Roper family there today,  whose first 72 entries refer to Charmouth  and Newlands and are full of information relating to them.

The most important of these is in 1300, when the Abbot transformed the village into a Borough. Each villager would have a burgage plot of 1/2 acre on either side of the Street stretching back to a bank in the south and high wall in the north. There are still vestiges of these today to be seen after 700 years. The boundary wall has stood up well and has only been pierced in a few places since then. This slide shows the wall today and the section along Barr's Lane.

This is a close up of the 1841 Tithe map with the 13th century wall unbroken parallel to The Street and signs of the former bank on the southern side of it. It clearly shows how important The Street was with few buildings between it and the beach.

 The latest Ordnance Survey Map still shows the 13th century wall almost complete to the north of the Street. There are still a number of the original boundary walls of the burgage plots leading up to the wall still surviving.

As well as the 1564 survey there are three other important lists of villagers that have survived which are shown here and reveal a thriving village supporting a population estimated by K.J. Penn in his Historic Towns  in Dorset  as being over 200. This was high when one considers that it had only reached 369 by 1801. The prominent family in all the lists are the Limbreys.  In 1574 Edward Lymbrey purchased a number of properties , including The Elms (Manns) and Charmouth House (Fountain) from Sir John Petre. At the time of his death he is receiving an annual rent of £40 a year, which he leaves to his son, Edward.
John Man appears on both the 1545 and 1542 Rolls. Thanks to the survival of the deeds to “The Elms”, owned by Charmouth Parish Council, we now know that he once occupied this property nearly 500 years ago.

I have extracted the villagers from the previous lists and placed them in alphabetical order. From these it can be seen that the Limbrey family were the most prominent and were classed as merchants in the 1588 list , contributing towards the charge of Queen Elizabeth`s ships. The 1545 list shows  35 heads of households and the 1564 survey has 48 heads. This with partners and children would probably account for at least 40 houses and a population of over 200 in Elizabethan times.

The Protestation was an attempt to avert the English Civil War. In July 1641, Parliament passed a bill requiring those over the age of 18 to sign the Protestation, an oath of allegiance to King Charles I. The List for Charmouth still survives, with its signatures and is kept in  the Houses of Parliament Archives. It contains the original signatures of almost the entire Male population of the village in that year.  Although this is much later, it does provide an accurate list of the male population at that time, which had grown considerably from the reign of Elizabeth.

No single owner of Charmouth had more impact on its history than Forde Abbey whose Abbots were to be it's Lords for nearly 350 years. Their Abbey had been founded in 1147 and in time was to become one of the richest and most learned institutions in England. By the end of the 13th century, they owned over 30,000 acres of land in Devon, Dorset and Somerset. It seems that land would be given to them on the understanding that they prayed for the souls of the donor.

The abbey of Forde had received a number of bequests of land in Charmouth from 1189 and by 1539, the year of its dissolution had been Lords of the Manor for nearly 350 years. The village had prospered under them, especially with the last Abbot, Thomas Chard (1477 – 1544). He succeeded to the position in 1521, a position he was to hold for eighteen years. He  devoted great energy and vast sums on the improvement of their monastic buildings. He built an entirely new wing at Forde Abbey with carved panels  including his initials T.C. as well as a new Hall and Lodgings for himself. The richly carved tower he constructed above the entrance still has a Latin inscription above the tall oriel window that reads ”made in the year of our Lord 1528 by Thomas Chard, Abbot”.

He was to do likewise in Charmouth where his cousin, Ralph Tibbes (his mother's surname) was Steward, which still has his T.C. initials above the former entrance to his House.

The Lay Subsidy of 1525 which includes Ralph Tibbes, revealed a population of about 200. It was shown to account for less than 10% of the total income of the Abbey. Abbot Chard’s masterplan was interrupted in 1539 by the dissolution of the larger monasteries. He handed Forde Abbey quietly over to the Crown, becoming vicar of Thorncombe until his death in 1543.Ralph Tibbes and his son Thomas were to become  Bailiffs and Stewards of the Manors of Charmouth, Toller and Turnemouth, with an annuity of £5 in the year 1535. They were no doubt to hold that role in the fine house, Thomas was to have built for them. Ralph with his son Edward was later to appear on the 1542 Muster Roll List for the village possessing suits of armour.

The Survey taken by Sir William Petre, the new owner of the Village in 1564  refers to The Abbots House is as follows:
William Bowdythe holds by copy dated 22 Jul 1546, a messuage or cottage and 2 acres of land viz; a curtilage and le Common close. for lives of himself and brother Robert; fine 40s , rent 20s  ‘this is fairest house [in] the town and buylded by the last abbot of Forde.’ This house granted to Roger Collwill and his children, Nicholas and Rebecca, by copy 28 1561; fine £6.  This provides some useful information as it shows the house with an acre of land and an acre of Common land which corresponds with later estimates being rented by William Bowditch in 1546. It was later occupied by Roger Colwell in 1561, who appears in 1588 on the List of Merchants contributing towards the Queens Ships as paying the highest Tax of 10 shillings and 8 pence, the same as Edward Limbry. This is the year of his death and in his Will which has survived he is described as a Clothier whose bequests included his wife, Alice and children Nicholas and Rebecca. I feel confident that he held the position of Steward for the village and acted as agent for Sir William Petre and collected the rents for him.

This engraving by Carter Galpin from 1825 allows us to get an impression of how the Abbotts House may have looked  at the time of Queen Elizabeth, with its original doorway in the center and think stone walls.

This slide shows the original section before later extensions. The floor plan represents how the original layout of the interior with its Solar, Hall and Kitchen. The majority of this has survived and been restored by the present owners.

This slide helps with a comparison of the early engraving of the Abbotts House and its layout today with the later additions.

The interior today has been magnificently restored to reveal many of the original features of paneling and mullioned windows.

Queen Elizabeth in the 6th year of Her reign (1564) granted the Lordship and Manor to Robert and William Caldwell, Gentlemen and their heirs with all their rights , members, liberties and appurtenances whatsoever to the late dissolved Monastery of Ford in the County of Devon belonging and all tenements and  also the Advowson of the Rectory and Church of Charmouth with their rights and all messuages, mills, dove houses, fishing places. The Caldwells acted as agents for Sir William Petre who pays just £25 for the entire village and its neighbour, Newlands. This figure seems low, but there are many other examples to compare it with. Sir Giles Strangways bought Abbotsbury from the King, with 2,000 acres of land, for £1,096. Robert Henley paid £1,920 for 1,400 acres of Lyme Regis, Sir George Somers paid £1,000 for 1,000 acres in Upwey. It would seem that if you had the money, you would pay just £1 to £2 an acre for land after the reformation.
Sir William Petre is shown as being one of the 4 members of a commission that was set up by Queen Elizabeth on June 24th 1564 to sell a number of Rectories and Adowsons and other properties to raise money, which included Charmouth. He must have taken advantage of his position and used the Caldwells, who were his neighbours in London to act as Agents for him in this purchase. A copy was later made of the original document which is shown here.

In 1535, Henry VIII ordered his Chief Secretary, Thomas Cromwell, to put in train the process that was to lead to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  Cromwell's Proctor or assistant, a young lawyer from Devon called William Petre, had the job of visiting the monastic houses of Southern England to draw up a record of their possessions and to persuade them to surrender to the King. Sir William was immensely wealthy and used his position as Secretary of State for King's Henry VIII, Edward, Queen's Mary and Elizabeth to increase it with the dissolution of the monastic estates. He was known to have 36,000 acres in Devon alone.
The house he had built, Ingatestone in Essex is still home for his descendants. He died in 1572 and briefly his son Sir John Petre owned Charmouth. Altogether they were to be landlords for just 10 years, but there is a record of this time in the Deeds to several houses in the village which detail Sir John giving 2000 years leases on them. The family tree for the Petres detail that Sir William's daughter, Dorothy married Nicholas Wadham of Branscombe in Devon and with their combined wealth were able to build and endow Wadham College in Oxford which still has statues of them both above it's Gateway. Another branch of the Wadhams were to become Lords of the Manor of Catherston, which adjoins Charmouth.
In 1539 The total income for Forde Abbey was £373 and Charmouth accounted for £21 of this. Although most of the Abbey Estate was sold off soon after for £49 to Richard Pollard, Charmouth was to remain with the Crown until it was sold by Queen Elizabeth in 1564 with other villages to raise funds. Petre already owned many huge estates and after paying just £25 was able to receive an annual income according to his survey of  £27 a year.

  When Sir William died in 1572, his widow continued to reside at Ingatestone Hall, and so John and wife Mary Waldegrave, then resident at Writtle Park, looked for another property to suit their status. In 1574, John added West Thorndon Hall and a further 12,000 acres to the family estate, which became the principal seat of the family. He was to  finance the purchase by selling off a number of estates including Charmouth. Both the present day “Elms” and “Limes” on the Street have deeds that show in 1575 they belonged to Sir John Petre. He was to sell properties off piecemeal, with the bulk including Newlands being bought by his close friend, Sir William Pole in 1576. 

Amongst the many Estates that Sir William Petre owned was that of Shute, shown in the slide, just outside Axminster in Devon and about 7 miles from Charmouth. William Pole purchased Shute House for £300 in 1560 from Sir William Petre. Later in 1575 he was to have further dealings with his son, when he purchased the Manor of Charmouth. He had possessions throughout many parts of the neighbourhood—Kilmington, Musbury, Dalwood, Colyford and Colyton and Seaton. He died at Shute in 1587 in his seventy-third year and was buried in Colyton Church. His eldest son, only twenty-six years of age at the time, erected a remarkable monument to him there. He was to sell Newlands, which once formed part of Charmouth to William Wadham of Catherston in 1590. There are a number of magnificent memorials to them in their chapel at Colyton.

One of the more famous Lords of the Manor of Charmouth was Sir William Pole who meticulously recorded the history of Devon and its illustrious families. But it was not to be published until 200 years later by an ancestor, Prince to illumine his own work, The Worthies of Devon”. Educated at Exeter College, Oxford, coincidentally the same as the Petres he was a member of the Inner Temple in London, where he resided at times. He went on to be a Justice of the Peace in Exeter and later on Sheriff. He married Mary Peryham who was to have 11 children, depicted on her elaborate tomb in Colyton.

In 1300, William, Abbot of Forde, required each burgess of Charmouth to have his corn ground at his mill. It would have been very important for the village in the time of Queen Elizabeth and was described as a Grist Mill  with 30 acres around it, which was  leased by Joan, Widow of John Paine from Sir William Petre. It was John, son of William who was to sell the Manor to Sir William Pole, whose descendants sold the Manor to William Ellesdon, but retained the Mill lands until they disposed of them to Robert Knight in 1789.  This photo from 1890 gives us an idea of the area around the Mill before it was transformed into Manor Farm Holiday Centre in recent times.

This plan is my interpretation of how the village may have appeared in 1564. I have attempted to add buildings and features to the Tithe Map which would have existed in Tudor Charmouth. fireplace properties are much older than they appear as they have been refaced, such as the Abbots House, The Elms and Manor House opposite the Church. There would have been at least three Inns - The Fountain, Rose and Crown as well as the George which is still operating. A weekly market was held in front of the Church. The area between the Bank and the Sea was common land divided into half acre and acre plots, some of which still exist. Many of the houses are listed today and this has helped where early construction has occurred and been recorded. fireplace was to spend a fortune improving the village with his cousin, Ralph Tybbes as its Steward and living in its finest House, now the Abbots House. It was during his time as Abbot that the Church was improved and upgraded according to Hutchins. Both the George and the Fountain Inn, now Charmouth House have contemporary features from his time. There is also a fine fireplace and roof at the Manor, which had formerly been the Grange for the Abbey. I will now highlight some of the buildings that have survived from the 16th century although in most cases much altered. The majority of the villagers would have had to settle for houses  with thick cob walls  and wattle and daub interior walls with thatched roofs. The Abbots House and the Church would have stood out with their fine stone walls. There was an estimated 40 properties along the Street at that time, mainly on the north side. The majority had combined 2 of the original ½ acre burgage plots and a further acre of Common land. They would have paid a nominal rent to the Abbot and later Sir William Petre, their new landlord from 1564.  The majority of villagers would eke out a living from the cattle and crops they grew on it.

This photo from 1870 looking up the Street to the church shows the ancient “Abbots House” on the left and “The George” on the right, both of which stood in 1564. The Heritage Listing for the George Inn confirms that it has a 16th century roof  and a number of other historic features and would have been one of the properties built for  Thomas Chard as an Inn before 1539 when he poured money into the village to improve it. It is difficult to pin point “The George Inn” precisely in the 1564 survey. . Although I feel confident that it was leased by a member of the Limbrey family who were prominent at that time and appear on the early records of “The Fountain Inn”, the other hostelry at the top of the village.

Another old photo from 1880 looking down the Street to the old bridge. The building shown in the centre formerly stood on the site of Swiss Cottage/ Red Bluff. It was originally an Inn known as the “Rose and Crown”. The Deeds to the property are now held at the Somerset Record Office and go back to 1561 when John Tye of Plumtree in Devon sold it to William Borcombe of Wootton Fitzpaine and  that it stood between the tenements owned by John Wadham, Esq of Catherston and that of Honor Borcombe. All of whose names are listed in the 1564 survey. Many of the buildings shown here would have dated back to Tudor times, although altered over the centuries.

The building on the corner of the junction of the Street and Barrs Lane was actually called “Streets” and with its neighbours would have dated back to the 16th century. There were large gaps on the other side which were not built on until the 20th century. This Victorian photograph helps us visualise how it once looked with its thatched roofs.

It is difficult to recognise this view taken in 1890 looking down the Street. The Ivy clad building on the left formed a shop that was later built on the side of “Little Lodge”. It has since been demolished and is now a space for car parking. The deeds to Little Lodge go back to when it was known as Yandover. It is this house that is referred to on 1564 as being occupied by the widow, Joan  Lymbery. There was a hay house and 16 acres of land with it.

This early photograph from 1890 looking down the street is one of the few that show the Old Manor House on the left opposite the Church. In 1564 it was called “The Grange” and was leased from Sir William Petre by Joan Borcombe. At that time, it had 51 acres of land around it. A later 18th century survey for the Manor lands corresponds to the description of the fields. Forde Abbey had a number of Granges in Dorset including Leigh and Broadway. A similar one existed for Abbotsbury at Abbotts Wootton, which still exists and is known today as “Upper Wootton Grange”.

The Manor house today, which has been split into three sections. The Heritage listing for the building points to the 16th Century with its roof construction under the present roof and an open fireplace with moulded stone jambs and Tudor-arch head with recessed spandrels. It would definitely have been  built in  Abbot Chard`s time before 1539.

This photograph taken in 1860 shows the Court in the distance. In 1297 there is record of a Guildhall where the Manor Courts would be held there  under the auspices of the Monks of Forde Abbey. In 1588 Anthony Tutchen may well have been living in the adjacent building as he is described as a Merchant contributing the largest amount for the Queens Ship for the village in that year. It was to be his grandson, Anthony Tutchen  who had made his fortune in shipping in London who in 1673 left the property and an acre of land as an Almshouse for the Charmouth poor. This was later to be demolished and rebuilt on Lower Sea Lane.

The Farm House for Foxley Farm is seen here in 1870 on the left.  The Listing describes it as 16th century based on the roof and other features.  The 1564 survey refers to Agnes Lymbery, now the wife of John James renting a cottage and 16 acres  including 3 acres at Foxley acre. There was eventually 60 acres of land stretching behind the farmhouse as far as Old Lyme Hill.

The Well Head stands on the south side at top of the Street with a frontage that dates back to the 1930`s. Behind it is a much older building.The famous historian - Reginald Pavey who did so much in his life to record the villages history was to live in this house from 1926 until 1973, who had the original deeds and in one of his note books listed them back to 1683 when it was owned by William Balston’s widow. In the 1564 Survey there is a reference to the family :John Balston (dead) holds one burgage and his son, Anthony Balston was now the tenant paying 6d rent a year”. This earlier house may still be incorporated into the property whose original walls are very thick. The Balston’s were an important family and in 1575 Anne Balston’s Will of 1575 lists a number of bequests to her family and friends. In 1642 William Balston appears on the Protestation List for the village. It is this gentleman who on his death in 1671 provides us with a link to the original deeds. The  photograph shows the older part of the house at the rear in 1888 when the Harrisons, shown here, lived there.

This astonishing early photograph clearly shows how rural Charmouth was in the past with the barn and walls of the Foxley Farm at the rear of the houses now known as Badgers and Foxley Cottage

Amongst the Deeds to Charmouth House now kept by the Charmouth History Society is one that refers to John Petre in 1575 selling a block of land and buildings to Edward Lymbry.
“All that messuage, cottage or tenement lying between a cottage then in the tenure of William Rockett on the west side of another cottage then in the tenure of William Best on the East side and the queen's highway on the north side. It consists of Barnes,Stables, edifices, lands, meadows, pastures, common ways, paths, woods, under woods, easements”. There were 5 acres of land on the east side of Higher Sea lane and a further 60 acres on the west side  that would form the Foxley Farm with its farmhouse on the Street mentioned earlier. In Tudor times it was an Inn called the Fountain after the spring that fed a small stream, which still runs at the side of Higher Sea Lane. William Rocket and William Best, both appear on the 1564 Survey and Edward Lymbery in the 1588 Survey as one of the wealthiest Merchants. The “Fountain Inn”is shown on the right of this photograph from 1880 with its former iron railings.

The ivy clad “Elms" shown here has the distinction of being the only house to retain its lease for 2,000 years, which was made between John Petre of Writtle and Richard Piers of Lyme in 27th April 1575. Two other houses had similar leases but they have been lost. Richard Piers was a Lyme draper. The house in 1575 was known as "Mann's Tenement" and was occupied by Thomas Mann. The lease describes it as "a cottage with one acre of land ad­joining to the south side also another acre of land lying between the land of Thomas Jese on the north side and the land of William Webber on the south side and common of pasture for a mare and her foal or two cows

A view of the Garden at the rear of the Elms which clearly shows the original building John Man lived in 1545 on the left before it was dramatically altered. He is listed on both the Subsidy and Muster Rolls.

There is a record from the year 1281, which relates to this event as follows: “Notification by Robert [Wickhampton], Bishop of Salisbury, that he has been informed by many trustworthy men that the secular chapel of Charmouth , built a long time ago near the sea, has been ruined by the battering of the sea and storms. He gives his authority and assent to the Abbot and monks of Forde, the postulant patrons of the chapel, to move it to a more suitable site than the shore and build a chapel on their own land to the honour of the blessed apostle Matthew and All Saints, in which they may provide clerics and secular priests to minister divine service”.
The church was rebuilt by the monks where the present church stands. William Hutchins in his History of Dorset refers to it being restored by Thomas Chard during his time as Abbott of Forde. The drawing shown here is the only illustration so far found of the earlier edifice that was demolished in 1835 and rebuilt with its new dedication to St. Andrew.

This photograph from 1910 shows Stonebarrow Manor when it was a school. An earlier building stood on the site in Tudor times surrounded by 150 acres of land referred to as “Newlands” The Forde Cartulary  has a number of references to it and its tenants. It shows that In the mid 13th century Geoffrey le Bonere  was leasing it from them, which includes a description of its boundaries. It appears in early maps as a distinct area to the east of Charmouth with its junction by the River Char. Although separate for the village it was included in the land holding of Charmouth. This is clearly shown when in 1564 both were bought by Sir William Petre and his Survey of them was taken. It records that John Payne in 1561 held  180 acres of lands in Newlands which included 90 acres of common, 6 acres of meadow, 73 acres of Pasture, 1 acre of wood and 10 acres of Common. It also refers to William Lymbery having 18 acres of land called Newlands. After the dissolution, Newlands reverted to the Crown and in 1564 Queen Elizabeth sold Charmouth and the advowson of Newland to Sir William Petre. His son John, sold the Manor to William Pole of Shute, Near Axminster in 1575,whose son, the Antiquarian, Sir William Pole, conveyed Newlands to William Wadham of Catherston in 1590. But nine years later the family were to sell it with the Manor of Catherston to Sir John Jeffrey.

Newlands  after its separation from Charmouth  by William Pole in 1575 was often advertised for sale and here are some of these, with a description of the house and fields in 1783.

The 1841 Tithe Map shows Newlands under the Parish of Whitchurch Canonicorum and the reference Book that goes with it supplies the names of the different fields and their acreage. It still had an area of about 123 acres, almost the same as 1564.  The owner was the Reverend. Thomas Nayler, who was Rector of St. Peters Church in Marylebone, London at the time. He was later to move to no. 2 Hillside in Charmouth with his family.

There will be a half hour break for refreshments and in the second part of my talk I will cover the families that were to buy or inherit the adjoining Estates of Lyme Regis, Wootton Fitzpaine, Catherston and Berne shown on the map here.