Laurence Stubb, president of Magd. Coll., leased out the priory lands to John Sharp, husbandman, for the term of twenty years, as early as the seventeenth year of Henry VIII., viz., 1526: and it appears that Henry Newlyn had been in possession of the lease before, probably towards the end of the reign of Henry VII. Sharp’s rent was vi11. per ann.—Regist. B. p. 43.
By an abstract from a lease lying before me, it appears that Sharp found a house, two barns, a stable, and a duf-house [dove-house] built, and standing on the south side of the old priory, and late in the occupation of Newlyn. In this abstract also are to be seen the names of all the fields, many of which continue the same to this day.* Of some of them I shall take notice, where anything singular occurs.
And here first we meet with Paradyss [Paradise] mede. Every convent had its paradise; which probably was an enclosed orchard, pleasantly laid out, and planted with fruit-trees. Tylehouse grove, so distinguished from having a tiled house near it.† Butt-wood close; here the servants of the priory and the villageswains exercised themselves with their long bows, and shot at a mark against a butt, or bank.‡—Cundyth [conduit] wood: the engrosser of the lease not understanding this name, has made a strange barbarous word of it. Conduit wood was and is a steep, rough cow-pasture, lying above the priory, at about a quarter of a mile to the south-west. In the side of this field there is a spring
* It may not be amiss to mention here that various names of tithings, farms, fields, woods, etc., which appear in the ancient deeds, and evidences of several centuries standing, are still preserved in common use with little or no variation:—as Norton, Southington, Durton, Achangre, Blackmore, Bradshot, Rood, Plestor, etc., etc. At the same time it should be acknowledged that other places have entirely lost their original titles, as le Buri and Trucstede in this village; and la Liege, or la Lyge, which was the name of the original site of the Priory, etc.
† Men at first heaped sods, or fern, or heath, on their roofs to keep off the inclemencies of weather; and then by degrees laid straw or haum. The first refinements on roofing were shingles which are very ancient. Tiles are a late and imperfect covering, and were not much in use till the beginning of the sixteenth century, The first tiled house at Nottingham was in 1503.
‡ There is also a Butt-close just at the back of the village.
