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Ballingham
Herefordshire |
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Ballingham sits in a great loop in the Wye. This view is
from the north-east in August 2005 |
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St Dubricius church, Ballingham and
hall
Photograph © Chris
Musson & the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club |
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Ballingham has been associated with the old British name
Badgualan. However
Bruce Coplestone-Crow suggests that this is probably wrong
and that the Badgualan site is more likely to have been
at Carey in the same parish.
He suggests that Ballingham derives from an unrecorded Old
English form Badelingaham - 'land in a river-bend
belonging to Badela's people'.
Some time
after 1237 Devereux to St Guthlac's Priory in Hereford. In
exchange the prior paid 65 marks and an annual rental of 5
marks and 32 gallons of honey. The church was re-built in the
13th century and it is likely that it this was associated with
the acquisition of the manor by the monks. |
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St Dubricius, Ballingham. The nave is 13th century. The
chancel was rebuilt and the west tower erected in the late
14th century.
Image courtesy of
Hereford City Library |
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Records of St Guthlac's priory from the years 1237 to 1271
record land and property transactions at Ballingham. This
business would have been conducted in the manorial court in
the manor house, a predecessor of the current manor house. The
prior's bailiff would preside over the court, while other
officials were John the provost and Radulf the summoner.
Adam, son at Alfrich with his wife Sybil lived at
Kilfodes, an earlier name for what is now Kilforge. |
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Saycell's in 2006. The
recent name Saycell's farm may be associated with one or more
Seysils in the 13th century - Seysil, son of Adam and Amabla,
Seysil, son of Elias, and Seysil 'le souper'. |
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Dunn's farm is
likely to derive from the Dun family which included in the
13th century Mael, David Wogan and Jago Dun.
At the dissolution St Guthlac and its properties was
acquired by John ap
Rice.
'Pope Nicholas’ Taxation, circa 1291,
records that the Prior of Hereford had at Ballingesham two
ploughlands, each worth £2 6s 8d, with rents af assise 18s and
pleas and perquisites 3s. These incidents imply a court baron;
therefore the Prior of the Benedictine monastery church of
Hereford held, as an appendage of his office, the Manor of
Ballingham.'
Ballingham had a long association with the Scudamore
family. In 1436 John Scudamore was seneschal of Ballingham at
a fee of 20 shillings a year. In 1453 Philip Scudamore of
Holme Lacy conveyed his interest in an estate in Ballingham
(which he had derived from his father George) to his younger
brother William. It is this William Scudamore who is assessed
on goods worth 26 pounds in 1536 or 57, when the three people
with property of a high enough value to be taxed were:- |
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William Scudamore (gentleman)
Richard Cope
William Witherston |
26 pounds
20 pounds
20 pounds |
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This estate descended down this branch of the family until
1704 when Sir Barnabas Scudamore sold it to Viscount
Scudamore, who held a mortgage on it. From that time it formed
part of the Holme Lacy estates.
Tax assessment from
Herefordshire Taxes in the Reign of Henry VIII edited
by M A Faraday:
Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club, Herefordshire, 2005 |
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Ballingham Hall in 2006 |
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An interesting insight into 17th
century ideas of diet and observance of Lent has been
researched by Cherry Newton.
In 1632 Penelope, the wife of John
Scudamore of Ballingham, was pregnant. She had already given
birth to three children two of whom were stillborn and the
third a sickly child.
The Lenten diet forbade 'meat' -
that is mammals and birds. Penelope was not well and
apparently the diet of fish and vegetables that was allowed
was very dangerous. The curate of Ballingham therefore wrote a
note granting her and her son John dispensation from the diet
on medical grounds. |
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From Ballingham Church Records
researched by Cherry Newton for LOWV
1632
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‘To all to whom this writing shall
come and apportion. I Richard Charles Clark Curate of the
Parish Church of Ballingham do send greetings in our Lord God
and …..and whereas Penelope Scudamore, the wife of John
Scudamore of Ballingham, Esq. being now with child, and having
borne three children before this time with great sickness and
danger that two of ye said three children were borne dead and
ye third a very weak & sickly child, and that ye said Penelope
is at this present sick and cannot eat fish & such other
things as one appointed to be eaten on fish days without much
danger to herself and the child she now breedeth, now know ye
that I the said Richard
Charles tending ye safety and health
of ye said Penelope and of her son John Scudamore now living
who is at this present a very weak child and sick have given
and granted, and by those presents do give and grant licence
and liberty generally and respectively to ye said Penelope &
John her said son as ………by the laws and statutes of this realm
of England I beg to eat all sorts of flesh, Beef & Veale
excepted, during the continuance of the general sickness of
the said Penelope and John.’
History has recorded that Penelope and her son John survived;
Penelope gave birth to at least another five children. The
frail John, born in 1630, was knighted and lived at Ballingham
Hall built by his grandfather in 1602 before his death in
1684. |
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Holme Lacy estates were
frequently surveyed, beginning in the 16th century. This map
of Ballingham dating to 1780 is by Richard Frizell and is very
accurate - it can be overlain onto a modern OS map. North is
to the right. The
map is reproduced here by kind permission of the Scudamore
family. |
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An earlier estate map of Ballingham. It is entitled
A SURVEY of Sr Barnabas Scudamore's land in
BALLINGHAM CARY, and Severall other Lands and Woods on the
other side Wie in the County of Hereford Surveyed Ano Dni 1695
by John Pye.
map in British Library
- BL, Add. MS. 36307, G3. |
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In about 620 King Gwrgan gave Podum Sancti Badgualan
to Bishop Inabwy together with two and a half unciae of land.
At this period all the surrounding area would have been
British.
The name Carey seems to have originally applied to the Carey
Brook and is almost certainly the original British one. |
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The dotted red line marks the bounds of Podum Sancti Badgualan
in the 7th century. Modern parish boundaries are in yellow
Aerial photographs courtesy of
English
Nature.
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A re-grant of Lann Badgualan in hostio Crican
super Guy was made in the 9th century. By this time the
northern part of Erging (Archenfield) had been taken by Mercia.
The Taratyr brook which flows into the Wye at the
northern point of the land of Lann Badgualan formed the
boundary between the Welsh of Erging and the English. The
English would by this time have occupied Fownhope on the
opposite bank from Ballingham, although Kings Caple, also on
the east bank, was
in Archenfield (and still is). |
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