DOMESDAY SURVEY of the ancient family of Croft. But William's fief was as strangely severed as that of Ralf de Tosny, for, besides two Dorset manors, it comprised lands in all three of the eastern counties. We have now dealt with the fiefs specially associated with Hereford- shire, and may glance at the holdings of barons who belonged to other counties. A foremost place is claimed by those of Durand of Gloucester and of Drogo Fitz Ponz, because the former represents the house which obtained the earldom of Hereford, while the latter, as has been said, founded the house of Clifford. Durand de Gloucester was otherwise known as Durand the Sheriff (Vicecomes) and is, indeed, once so styled in the Herefordshire portion of Domesday ; '* for his is one of those cases in which the sheriff of a shire adopted its capital as his surname. But an entry under his Herefordshire lands speaks of King William giving a manor to Roger ' de Pistes,' and, as Mr. Alfred S. Ellis in his valuable researches has shown, Roger and Durand derived this name from Pitres on the Seine above Rouen. Roger, we learn from Domesday, had received lands from William Fitz Osbern, and was doubt- less one of those whom he had led in his inroads on Wales, for Durand is found at the date of the Survey holding Caldicot on the Severn, where the highway into South Wales traverses the Nedden Brook. Durand had succeeded his brother Roger as sheriff-in-fee of Gloucestershire, and had given, Domesday tells us, land which he held in Archenfield to St. Peter's for his brother's soul. He was in turn succeeded as sheriff by his brother's son Walter, who is found in the Survey holding jointly with him at Rochford and Laysters in our county, and who subsequently obtained from the bishop of Hereford, under Henry I, Little Hereford and Ullingswick to hold by knight's service. This Walter was father of Miles, created earl of Hereford in 1 141. Dru Fitz Ponz was the tenant in capite of some small Herefordshire manors, but is chiefly of interest here for his connexion with Clifford and its lord, of which I have spoken above. His successor, Richard Fitz Ponz, who is supposed to have been his brother, married Maud, daughter of the above Walter de Gloucester,^"" by whom he was father of Walter, who assumed the surname of Clifford. As befitted a lord marcher, ' Richard son of Ponson ' established himself in Wales, holding Llandovery and Cantref Bychan within thirty years of Domesday."^ The lands of Gilbert Fitz Turold were somewhat curiously scattered, but — save for single manors in Warwickshire, Cambridgeshire, and Essex — lay in the four western counties of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester, and Somerset. He was evidently yet another of those whom Earl William Fitz Osbern installed on the Welsh border, for in our county we find it recorded that the earl gave him ' Walelege ' with its domus defensabilis and its
- great wood for hunting.' He is elsewhere recorded to have endowed
Evesham Abbey with lands for the earl's soul. In addition to the lands entered as his fief he held one of the Archenfield manors. He is believed to have forfeited his fief, and the descent of his lands is obscure. But Rotherwas on the Wye was afterwards held of the Honour of Gloucester by the De La Mare family, who also held of that honour lands in Gloucester- shire which had been Gilbert's. It is at least probable that Ilbert Fitz Turold, Under Leominster. " Bristol and Glouc. Arch. Trans, iv. "" See my Anct. Chart. (Pipe R. Soc), 21. "" See my Studies in Peerage and Family Hist. 215. 279
