A HISTORY OF ESSEX but to Ballingdon, close to Belchamp Walter, of which Morant could find no mention in Domesday. ' Belindune ' was held in Domesday by Peter de Valognes, and it is subsequently found held of his manor of Fakenham in Suffolk, which confirms the identification. Its chapel also is known to have been given to St. Alban's Abbey, to which Peter was a benefactor. The only remaining manor in this Half Hundred 1 was that of ' Bineslea,' which, although its name is now lost, can be shown to have been in the close vicinity of Belchamp Walter and Ballingdon.* The extremely small size of this Half Hundred, together with its name of archaic sound, suggest a possible survival from an earlier period than that at which the great Hundreds by which it is surrounded assumed their present form. The rest of the Domesday Hundreds have retained their identity and their names with very little alteration. ' Witbrictesherna ' is now ' Dengie,' and the ' Liberty of Havering-atte-Bower ' appears to have been taken out of Becontree, the 'Beventreu' of Domesday. Broadly speaking, the Essex Hundreds do not, either by their names or their areas, suggest archaic divisions. Nine of them, at least, take their names from parishes within their borders, and usually near their centres ; these are Rochford, Chelmsford, Witham, Tendring, Dunmow, Clavering, Harlow, Ongar and Waltham. Lexden, it is important to observe, contains two parishes which are cut off from the rest of the Hundred by the Domesday c Hundred ' of Colchester, a district containing between eleven and twelve thousand acres. This arrangement obviously suggests that the district of Colchester had, at some time, been taken out of Lexden Hundred, a suggestion strongly supported by the fact that Lexden parish itself is within the borough boundary. Becontree and Winstree are ancient names, and I cannot but think that ' Bentry Heath ' (now ' Becontree Heath ') in Dagenham was at one time the meeting- place of its Hundred, as must have been Hundred Heath (no longer on the map) in Tendring. When the Liberty of Havering was part of the Hundred, it would have been fairly central. Apart from Chelmsford and Rochford, three of the Essex Hundreds, Uttlesford, Hinckford and Chafford, took their name from fords, like several parishes in the county. 3 On the name of one of these three Hundreds, which has always been deemed an insoluble puzzle, Domesday throws, I think, no un- certain light. The great Hundred of Hinckford is entered in the Survey as that of Hidincfort (2), Hidincforda (2), Hidinghfort (i), Hidinghefort (i), Hidinghafort (2), Hidingeforda (i), Hidingaforda (6), Hidingforda (9), Hidingfort (10), and Hedingfort (i) ; 'but where 1 ' Walla ' was no more in it than were Theydon and Loughton, which divide it from ' Bineslea ' in the text (see pp. 537-8 below).
- It occurs in the great Hospitallers' cartulary (Nero E. VI. fo. 332^) as a place apparently in
the neighbourhood of Middleton and of Goldingham (in Bulmer), and Richard son of Peter de Binesle is found in Ancient Deeds, A. 539, in connection with Bulmer. ' ' Uttlesford Bridge ' in Wenden (in about the centre of the Hundred) preserves the memory of the first of these fords. The course of the great London road is marked by Stratford, Ilford, Romford, Widfbrd, Chelmsford, Easterford (Kelvedon), Copford and Empford (Stanway Bridge). 406
