A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE Sutton Coldfield, Fillongley, ' Rincele,' Claverdon, Sowley, Bedworth, Packington, 'Ulverlei' and Arley, where the phrase ' cum oneratur ' refers to the mast it bore. At Erdington alone, near the Staffordshire border, is the woodland claimed as * in defense regis,' that is, as set apart for the king and his hunting ; but at Southam, at the other end of the county, the woodland was ' in the king's hands.' A grove (grava) is spoken of at Lighthorne and a spinetum at Weston, the latter being, probably, rather a thorn-wood than what we now call a ' spinny.' There is an unusual entry under Sowe, which records that the woodland of the king and of the abbot (of Coventry) and of Richard the forester together, was three ' leagues ' long and i ' league ' wide. The ' league ' of Domesday, it is true, was only a mile and a half, but one cannot insist too strongly on the utter vagueness of such statements and the folly of treating them as exact. The same remark applies to the ' hay ' (baia) at ' Donnelie,' ' half a league long and the same in width,' a fenced enclosure for capturing wild animals in what was then and long afterwards ' a wild Forest ground.' Of profits from pasture and from meadow we hear less than usual ; but at ' Cotes ' by Warwick they were valued at the large sum of 4, perhaps owing to the nearness of the borough, for it was only in excep- tional cases that either served for more than the lord and his peasants. The mill is one of the very few features of the Domesday Survey that can often be recognized to-day standing where it stood then. Indeed, as Mr. Walker has observed of ' Offeworde ' : In Dugdale's time the only indication of this place was a mill known as Offord's mill ; this name has now disappeared, although the mill is still shown on the ordnance survey maps. 1 Many mills at the time of the Survey paid their rent partly in kind, especially in eels from the mill pond. Twenty-five eels went to the 'stich,' of which measure a fixed number was usually due. Eels were due in this county from the mills of Stratford-on-Avon, Alveston, Atherstone-on- Stour, Wixford, Salford, Wootton Wawen, Spernall, Aston, and Barford, while that of Wasperton produced no less than twenty shillings, 1,000 eels, and four (horse) loads of salt, and that of Binton was responsible for four (horse)loads of grain, and three ' stiches ' of eels. Salt, at that time a valuable commodity, was produced either from saltpans on the coast or from inland brine-springs, as at Droitwich and Nantwich. The six Warwickshire entries in which it is mentioned deserve careful study, for, in my opinion, they all refer to salt obtained from Droitwich, which is less than ten miles from the Warwickshire border. This is expressly so stated in the case of Binton, where the revenue of its lord, William Fitz Corbucion, included three loads (summas) of salt from (Droit)wich, a and in that of Urse de Abetot's manor at Hill- 1 Some Notes en Domeiday Book, p. 37. The load seems to have been a ' mitta ' of salt, for we read that the tenants of the church of Worcester at Broadwas (Wore.) had to find horses, on Sundays, to carry salt from (Droit)Wich to Worcester, and that each horse was to carry ' unam mittam ' (Registrant Ptioratnt B.M. Wigom'unsis, P- 34")- 292
