Another Grand Day Out
Another Grand Day Out
Part 1
The Search for Etton Manor
Etton Manor
Gill Webster, my trusted apple eating navigator and uncomplaining accomplice, and I went on another foray on Tuesday 12th Sept 2017. This was to search of the fourth sanctuary cross sometimes called the Molescroft Cross and the site of the de Etton family manor.
A week ago the weather was so poor we cancelled this outing and spent, as it turned out, useful time in the University of Hull library and also the Local History Centre. The twelfth of September was however, signalled to be better but we set off early as rain was forecast in the afternoon. There's nothing much better than a drive in the early morning sun though the Yorkshire Wolds with it's varied colours, its gently rolling landscape and the knowledge that going back to the distant past our forebears roamed and lived here. The Molescroft Cross proved a harder nut to crack but we are planning to go back which leaves the Etton Manor to be reported here. The Anglo Saxon and Norman periods are complex and changed over time so the following can only be taken as an overview and by no means a definitive statement. However, hopefully it puts various events and their repercussions into focus..
Lets Set the Scene
Pre 1066
From about 450 AD Britain was inhabited by the Anglo Saxons. These were a diverse group of peoples from German tribes (Goths, Saxons, Vandals etc) and some indigenous British groups (Mierci, Cantie, Westseaxe etc). Christianity was adopted and the British Isles was divided in to Kingdoms. We now use the term Old English to describe the spoken and written language at these times. Literature flowered and notable illuminated texts were produced. For governance the land was broken down into shires, a land area nearly equivalent our counties and these shires sub-divided into 'hundreds' which were administrative areas dealing with law and peace. Most Anglo Saxons were farmers and allotted land by 'the King' via a local Lord, a Thian, who organised the land into sections for agricultural use. Merit seems to have been part of the system of land tenure. Land was frequently given to a village but a family might farm their own land on condition they also farmed the Lords land as well. For 600 years Anglo Saxon society developed its own culture, laws, dress code, customs land tenure system etc. The last Anglo Saxon king was Edward the Confessor (b1003-d1066) who was crowned in London on 1042. At his death he handed the throne to Harold Godwin a move that changed Medieval England for ever!
Post 1066 -- and all that!
William became Duke of Normandy at the age of eight following the death of his father while he was on a pilgrimage. He weathered much unrest and warring between the French nobles but by his 20s was a competent soldier who stood for little fuss. For instance when he crushed a rebellion fomented by his cousin he cut off the feet and hands of the vanquished soldiers. During his reign Edward the Confessor spend time in France as his mother was French. and during this time he met William Duke of Normandy who he liked and promised him the crown of England to him when he died. The fact that Harold Godwin was given the English Crown by Edward the Confessor did not please William at all and so with 700 ships invaded England on 28th Sept 1066, the famous battle of Hasting occuring on Oct 14th 1066. The rest is what we say 'is history'.
To make sure he kept the muttering and rebellious Anglo Saxons 'down' he broke up their land ownership, agricultural and cultural system and imposed his own Norman ones. Not a popular move! Between 1069/70, the rebellious North of England was subjected to slaughter, looting, burning and as result famine and has gone down in history as The Harrying of the North. Old English was superseded by French and feudalism was developed. Feudalism established a hierarchy which kept the rich (French) nobles at the top of the pile and the Anglo Saxons at the bottom. To strengthen his position absolutely he gave the English land to his French noble friends on condition that they would support him militarily if need be. The old order was swept away, a new foreign one put in it's place.
Manorialism.
Manorialism, an essential part of Feudalism, has left our countryside dotted with reminders of it. While not a new system as the Romans used a version of it, the Normans imposed it on the conquered Anglo Saxons. The Anglo Saxon land owners were displaced and the King handed their land to his trusted French nobles to be worked on his behalf and that of the Lord of the Manor. The serfs and villeins who worked the land, an open filed ridge and furrow system, were tied to it and couldn't move from it. The Lords permission had to be sort for marriage and other aspects of their life. They were charged for use of the Lords bakery, mill, wine press and access to woodland. Some aspects of manorialism approached slavery. The area of land called a Manor was overseen by the Lord of the Manor who built a Manor House from which he, or his agent(s), could run his domain
Woodland became a sensitive issue as the upper orders wanted it for hunting and so excluded the lower orders. A little known aspect of this is that it prevented beekeepers of the middle ages from 'tree beekeeping' a form that was widely practised in eastern Europe. Only one well hidden example is found in England and that is was from the New Forest, a Royal Hunting Forrest. Had the beekeeper been caught it is likely that death would ensue.
Initially manors had protective moats but the moats became a status statement. There are about 6,000 moated sites in England of various sizes and the peak building period was between 1250 and 1350.
Etton Village
The village lies a mile north west of Cherry Burton, 2 miles west of Leconfield and 4 miles north west of Beverley. As a settlement it seems of considerable age. It is listed as having some famous 'sons'. One is Thomas Carling who, with a Yorkshire beer receipt, emigrated to the USA and founded the famous Carling Brewery. It has been said that a Rev. John Lothropp from Etton founded the town of Barnstable in Massachusetts, USA. The US Barnstable web site however, attributes this to a Rev. Joseph Hull!
The village of Etton apparently takes its name from a German farmer called Eata and means the farming settlement of Eata though is listed in the Doonmsday book as Ettone. It could be surmised that the village of Etton does not take its name from the de Etton family who had a moated manor house to the south east.
However, the important de Etton family were Norman and arrived after the Norman Conquest. Their main seat in the 1300 was Gilling Castle on a hill above Gilling East in the Ryedale district of North Yorkshire, just south east of Ampleforth. There is a Gilling West but this is in Richmondshire. The reference to a Gilling in the genealogies seems to be misleading as only a West and East Gilling can be found now. However, and confusingly, there is a Gilling marked on the Gough 1360 map but this is shown as being about a mile from Richmond in North Yorkshire. It is not marked on the Ogilby map of 1675! It definitely is the Gilling East where Thomas de Etton (son of Sir Ivo de Etton), started, in 1376, to build a Keep which developed into Etton Castle. The family linage seems complex though the castle past to the Fairfax family in 1492 when there was no male de Etton decedent. The first mention of a de Etton in the Etton parish records is of a Thomas de Etton being granted water rights (date unknown) for a mill pond. Whether this was the village mill pond referred to in a Charter of 1040 is unknown by me.
De Etton Family Manor
This is represented by a moated site 350 m south east of Low Hall, National Grid SE 98591 43376.
The site of the moated manor house is within the Park Land of Low Hall. It's about 300 m from the road and is reached by a slight detour right from the public foot path. This starts at a sharp right bend on Rootas Lane about a 1/3 of the way between New Rd/ Etton Rd and the B1248. It is possible to park on the wide verge but best done away from the corner. The foot path runs NNW from this point towards some large trees frequented by rooks. A gate leads to a larger field and the earth works can be made out as low undulations to the north east across the field. Fig 1.
Fig 1 The de Etton moated site
The sites' central platform is about 50 x 35 m so is much smaller than the Leconfield Castle site (see A Grand Day Our Part 3 on https://candp9.wixsite.com/website or Facebook). It is surrounded by a rather flat bottomed moat of varying depth and width which is grassed. (Figs 2, 3& 4). Because the site is on the top of a rise it is likely that the moat was dry, there being no stream or ditch to feed it. Excavated remains suggest the site dates from the twelfth century. Moats which are wet or damp, so the soil as a reduced oxygen level are good for artefact preservation.
Fig 2 The moat round the central plateau
Fig 3. The moat round the central plateau
Fig 4 The moat round the central plateaux
One suspects much of the sharp detail has been lost be the grazing of sheep over the centuries. Never the less the presence of the moat though probably shallower than originally clearly delineates the central plateaux.
The causeway entrance is visible on the NNW side (Fig 5) but has been much eroded. Outside moat, would have been other structures as evidenced by the humps and bumps. Indeed on the NW there seems to have been a small moated plateaux.
Fig 5 The causeway entrance to the NNW of the site.
Fig 6 Earthworks can be seen beyond the moat.
Tumulus. On the west side of the filed close to the path there is what seems to be a tumulus (Fig 7) though it is labelled on the OS map as earthworks. We didn't explore this. Others may care to but I don't know whose property it is on.
Fig 7. Earthworks perhaps a tumulus
This site while not being as 'dramatic' as the Leconfieled Castle site never the less let our minds roam back nearly 1,000 years to when England was permanently changed by Edward the Confessor giving his crown to Harold Godwin thus precipitating the battle of Hasting in which Harold Godwin was killed. Medieval England was never the same again.
Chris Coulson. Sept 2017