Watermill at Greensted

An entry in Domesday Book⁹ of 1086 records the existence of a mill in Greensted. The entry appears under the Hundred of Ongar, and within the estate of a landowner named Hamo the Steward. Within a longer entry for the parish, it is stated that:

".... [There is] woodland for 400 pigs. [There are] 16 acres of meadow. [There is] now 1 mill ...."

In total, the woodland of Greensted supported 520 pigs. Domesday woodland in East Anglia was measured according to its capacity to support pigs, fed from the available acorns and beech mast. This method of estimating the value of woodland would have been quick, and maybe more relevant to the intended purpose of Domesday, than assessing area in acres since the number of pigs would have been known closely. Pigs may be translated to a measurement of area if it is assumed that one pig required roughly one acre of woodland. This conversion from pigs to acres can only be a rule of thumb, but there is some analyses to justify this, based on otherwise quantified acreages of woodland within Essex.¹⁰ Therefore, the woodland in Greensted may have amounted to around 500 acres, leading to the conclusion that Greensted was considerably more wooded then than it is today.

Domesday records not only the condition and structure of a settlement, but also the changes in the settlement during the 20 years of the Norman Conquest, between 1066 and 1086. Thus the mill was in existence at Domesday, but the use of "now" in the entry implies that it was built during and not before the Norman Conquest. About one in three settlements in Essex were recorded as having a mill.¹¹ A few of these places are recorded as possessing a fraction of a mill, generally the result of sharing a mill with a neighbouring settlement. Other settlements possessed several mills; Ham, now East and West Ham, was even recorded as having eight mills, just one less than existed twenty years before.

Analysis of the sites of these mills suggests that all the mills were watermills, invariably aligned along watercourses. Darby states that the distribution of these mills is sometimes a puzzle, with some of the larger settlements being without a mill, suggesting that some mills might not have been noted.

A later reference to a mill in Greensted is to be found in the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem of 1349. Such inquisitions were set up to establish the extent and ownership of an estate following the death of a tenant-in-chief, holding an estate directly from the king. The inquest was held before a jury of twelve local men of high standing. During this process, the inheritance of the estate would have been confirmed. The entry of the inquest into the estate of Robert Burghcher (Bourchier)¹² includes property in Grenestede:

"Greenestede. A messuage, 60a land, 8a. meadow, 15a. pasture, a wood, and 19s. 3 1/2d. rent, a watermill, a windmill, and pleas &c. of court, with the advowson of the church, held of Ralph, baron of Stafford, as of the manor of Aungre, service not known."

A "messuage" is a homestead. The "advowson" carries the right to appoint a priest to a benefice, usually associated with a parish church. A watermill still operates and a windmill has now been added to the estate.

Greensted is a small parish. One stream passes along the length of the parish, forming the border of the parish before entering the Cripsey Brook at the E end of the parish. The position of the watermill on this stream is easily determined from the existing landscape. Extensive alterations must have taken place to change the course of the stream. The distance from the Hall to the site of the mill is about 200 yards. Since there is no other evidence of a watermill on the stream, this site is likely to be the Domesday site.

The details of the site of the Mill have changed, as shown on recent OS series maps. The current topography confirms the construction of the millpond and defines the millrace, together with the development of a banked island, possibly for the actual site of the mill itself. There is a noticeable drop in the stream at this point, so much so that previous owners of Greensted Hall have constructed small waterfalls by the addition of groups of stones in the stream. The site is now well wooded, more so than shown in the OS survey of c.1870, and the site is obscured.

My thanks are due to Mrs Clare Coxe for the tour of the site.

Robert Brooks

Sources

1. Williams, Dr Ann, and Martin, Prof G. H., The Domesday Book: A Complete Translation, Alecto Historical Editions/Penguin Books, London, 2003, p.1011.
2. Rackham, Oliver, Ancient Woodland: Its History, Vegetation and Uses in England, Edward Arnold, London, 1980.
3. Darby, J. C., The Domesday Geography of Eastern England, Cambridge, 1952, pp.248–249.
4. Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, IX, 239, 18 May, 23 Edward III.