Feniton History Group 23rd meeting

On Thursday 15^th Sept. 14 members, plus 2 visitors from Talaton met in the Nog Inn to hear Graeme tell us about his metal detector finds in East Devon. Apologies from Geoff, who is not so well, get well soon m’dear.

Graeme, aided by Ruth, set up a display of his collection on the pool table for us to handle and ask him about.

The talk started with the earliest finds, flint tools, Neolithic, some 4,500 years old. This gives you a picture of folk going about their daily tasks and working hides and taking meat from a kill.

Bronze age finds from around the hut circles found by the A30 when the new road was put through, 3,500 years old.

A gouge or chisel, it would have had a wooden handle.

Fenny Bridges, where the Battle took place in 1549 a sword scabbard chape.

Lead shot. Lead oil ampulas sold at fairs to take as an offering to a sacred site or relic.

This is fascinating and something to research further, the possibility of a site of a trading fair at Fairmile. Graeme has unearthed trading weights and coins covering the period c.1200 to 1500. The name of the hamlet may be a clue? But the local thought of the origin of the name is “A fair mile to Ottery”

Love tokens, bent coins that match, under a tree, where the owner took rest, lost his purse, which had rotted and left the coins, shillings, Charles II, William III, and Queen Anne 1711.

Beautiful Victorian silver thimbles, some damaged, perhaps thrown onto the midden. Buttons, buckles, and many brass fittings from horse harness. A stem from a clay pipe. Pottery shards. Coins.

To bring it up to date, a tray of bangles and rings found on the site at Escot after the “Beautiful Days” music event. Difficult site to work on, lots of can pull rings!!

Graeme explained that it is a back breaking hobby, cold in winter!! You need to know your detector well and learn it’s responses, you don’t want to spend all day digging up nails and horse shoes. As you walk the fields, with the land owner’s permission please, you can attune your eye to the flint tools and pottery. After rain you will find the soil washed off bringing the items to light.  The soil conditions and modern farming, ploughing and fertilizers will all affect old metals laying in the soil, some may rot away, others are preserved.   Like the bearded axe found the other side of Honiton.

Some of the items found are often eight or more inches down, this being due to the build up of soil through decay, erosion and build up through the centuries.

If you would like to see photos please look on YouTube   http://www.youtube.com/user/1973itsme

Items over 300 years old made of precious metals are recognised as Treasure Trove and need to be passed to a Museum who will direct the find to the Coroner. There is a Portable Antiquities Scheme.  http://finds.org.uk/

The Group would like to take this opportunity to thank Graeme and Ruth most sincerely for  giving this insight in to the soil under our feet.

Detecting Talk on the 15th Sept

This is not to be missed!!!

THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF FENITON

A journey through time with artefacts from Feniton & surrounding area.

You will be able to handle, examine & make comments on mainly metal detecting finds starting with worked flints from

Colesworthy Farm, Larkbeare & Escot.

Other items include:-

Escot in the Bronze Age

A very unusual find from Roman Britain

Evidence of a Mediaeval Fayre site at Fairmile

A sword chape from the Battle of Fenny Bridges 1549

A rare Blacksmith's palm guard

A Silver Penny of Richard I (Richard the Lionheart) 1189-1199 found at Honiton

Silver coins from Edward I 1272-1307, Elizabeth I 1558-1603, Charles I 1625-1649

Many other miscellaneous items e.g. musket balls, buckles, buttons etc.

Kind regards

Graeme

The 22nd meeting at the Nog Inn on the 14th July 2011

An evening of fascinating and wide ranging discussions.

The will of  Thomas BRYNSSEMEDE of Fenyton, Dated 5 Feb. 1546 is a mystery, who was this man and where did he fit into the village?

Jenny is interested in the history of vaccination and Benjamin Jesty, a Dorset farmer.

Brenda is intrigued by the Murray family of Thorn Cottage, and we all look forward to reading her results of this search. Bankruptcy and a duel held in Paris!

Pam is working on her family tree, as is Maggie.

David and Pam are looking into the history of Chancel Repairs, this is where some land owners are responsible of the cost of repairs. This website gives more detail:

http://www.chancel.org.uk/chancel-repair-liability.php

David is also working on the Northcote family from Buckerell. They lived in and re-built Feniton Court and the son, Rev. George Barons Northcote, he was the Rector (1860-1899) and lived in the Rectory, now Feniton House.

I am very keen to find out more about the 52,000 bricks made in “The Great Court”, where did the bricks get used? I found the agreement Sir George Cary made with the brick maker in 1598, the size “to be 12 inches in length and fyve and a half the least in breadth”. All the bricks in the yard and house at Colesworthy are 9 inches. Jonathan at Feniton Court tells me the bricks in the cellar there are about 9 inches also.

So if you live in an old property would love to hear from you if you have 12 inch bricks.

The tithe map was out for all to look at, you can see how the roads around the old village have been realigned. The changes in the field sizes as hedges and banks were removed in more recent years was noted. The names of the fields also have changed over the years. 

No meeting in August.

The talk on Metal Detecting is on 15^th September 2011.

The next museum visit is on Tues. 26^th July and fortnightly thereafter. 

The 21st meeting at the Nog Inn on 23rd June 2011

The Nog Inn hosted us for a very good chin wag over a pint! That pint was the undoing of me, I think!!!! Losing my notes and being rather muddled.

Bill informed us he is ready to carve the names of the WW1 soldiers, the lych gate is their memorial but does not carry any names, thanks to Bill this omission will be put right. David and Geoff have researched the names and, I hope Bill now has the list to enable him to start.

Graeme Smith has confirmed he will join us in The Nog for a talk on his metal detecting finds, he has chosen the 15^th Sept 2011 at 8:00pm.

We had discussions on local brick making, Miller and Lilley closed the Talewater yard in 1919, and the Ottery Brickworks tried to purchase it. M & L had depots at Feniton, Whimple and Ottery. There are some 20 fields in  the Ottery area known as Brickfields. Thanks to Chris for theses snippets.

Brenda told us about the duel between Murry and Stares in 1814, then illegal in this country. We wait to hear more as Brenda’s research progresses. The Murry family were school teachers in Thorn Cottage.

The history of Feniton House was a query in an email from John Lewis of New Zealand. I am working on this, along with Feniton Court. Will have more to tell when we next meet.

The origins of the name of Spence Cross, this was the name used before the cross road was named after Bishop Patteson and the monument erected. The land owner in area of the cross roads on the tithe map was W. Warren. So we have a task here to see if more can be gleaned. I had an email asking about the Spence and Patteson family, David is looking into this.

Jenny has written a book on the Prayer Book Rebellion, copies are on sale in the Church.

Pam has asked to see the tithe maps to look at the land owned by the parish. I will bring these along to the next meeting.

Alan had us all laughing with his dialect sayings, “dashels”, meaning thistles. A general discussion on dialects then followed.  It seems we may loose many of our regional accents as schools encourage proper pronunciation.

Talk given by Rohan Brown and Dr. Christina Welch 2nd Jun 2011

We were told that the name of our tomb should be a “Transi Tomb” and not a Memento Mori Tomb. This is because a depiction of a rotting cadaver in art is called a transias opposed to a skeleton tomb.

 Memento mori can be freely translated as “Remember you are Mortal” or “Remember your Death”

Rohan Brown, who has shown great interest in our figure has found, what she believes to be the complete list of these tombs and there are only approximately 37 known in the UK and not 150 as other authors describe, the others being shroud tombs, which is a very different style.

A large number were destroyed during the reformation and again in the Victorian times when tombs were moved as part of a “restoration” project.

The one in our church is amongst those recorded in the UK and also one of the finest.

The fashion for this type of memorial came from France and was popular from the middle of the C14 and into the C15, but mainly 1420 to 1480. Rohan believes ours could perhaps date from the 1480s to 90s, the time of the last two William Malherbes.

It was in circa 1493 that  "John Babingtone & William Malherbe / hathe a warraunt to the Custumers of the Custumes & subsides in the poorte of Excestre & Dertmouth to pay unto theim xi marc / which the king (Richard III) hath geven unto them towardes theire Ramison / late taken upone the see by brytaygnes". Somewhere else I have seen "fell into the hands of his countries foes and was taken on the sea by Brytagnes". Another report suggests the ransom was for 40 marks.

There is a difference of opinion as to whom this memorial is dedicated too, some say either Sir William Fry or Sir John Fry, whilst others say William Malherbe (d 1493) but I favour the last William Malherbe.

In Watson’s book “A Devonshire Village in the Olden Days” he suggests it to be William Malherbe and if you look closely above the tomb and above the window, in the centre is a crest which bears a strong relationship to that of the Malherbes. Ms Brown suggests that 90% of these tombs had coats of arms and identification, commonly lost in the Victorian restoration of medieval churches.

Who ever it was would have been a person of high position, firstly to be able to afford the memorial , which Dr. Welch considers it may have cost, even in those days £500, and secondly to be influential enough to warrant an allotted place inside the Altar rails. Again Dr. Welch believes it would have not been inside the altar rails at all but facing north / south in the main body of the church where it was looked at by those attending the services.

This casts in doubt that originally this memorial was on the south side of the sanctuary and was moved in 1877 when there was a major refurbishment of the Church. Previously it may have stood on an altar tomb.

Things to note about the emaciated figure in his winding sheet, are the tonsure haircut and if you feel his left shoulder you will find a large piece missing. It has been suggested that this was the result of a sword injury from a right-handed swordsman but on closer examination there is a round object inside this injury and of a different colour stone which could be a missile of some sort. The left leg also appears to be swollen and the left foot differs from the right.

Rohan informs us that that these effigies can bear the marks of injuries and ailments from life. Arundel Castle apparently has a figure of John Fitzalan with one leg missing after he was shot in the foot and had it amputated. 

The absence of the nose could be a result of syphilis or leprosy but it is also likely that damage was done the monument by a latter lord of the manor who also removed the name which could have been where the damage is to the plinth and also the removal of an orb like object which indicated a rank under the right hand. This was to indicate that the previous lord was no more and that times had moved on.

In the question time after the talk it was noted that the church was well funded by priests being paid to pray for the dead to ease them from purgatory to heaven, rather than hell. The church services were read out in Latin and the congregation were unable to understand this, so it is thought that these tombs were a source of learning about the body in death.      David Lanning.

The 20th meeting on 26th May 2011 at the Nog Inn

Yet another lively meeting!

We discussed our plans for the Cadaver Talk. There will be a room raffle, prizes please, proceeds to the Church. Tea, Coffee, and biscuits to be severed after the talk. I will put up the Malherbe display again as it relates to the era of cadaver tombs.

I asked for ideas for where we go next and metal detecting was discussed, and even asking Time Team to come was suggested!! I will ask the local detectors’ to see what they can come up with. The conversation moved on to the  Civil War and various sites though to have links with this time, Skinners Ash Farm was one. Clyst William Farm another.

Then Brenda told us all about her research into the school located in Thorne Cottage in the old village. The mistresses were the Murry sisters, and their pupils went on to be well known in various fields. Homeopathy being one. Look out for the full story in the Parish Magazine.  This was followed by a bit of social history and how it was though unnecessary to educate the working classes and women!

The old school in Feniton was also mentioned, This link tells you more:

http://www.feniton.devon.sch.uk/about/oldschool.html

Reading the second page of this mentions the Murrys and the school ask for more information!! Brenda you may want to help with this?

To access the “Times Newspaper” on line:

You need your Devon Library card and use this link:

http://infotrac.london.galegroup.com/itweb/dls_earl

Alan came back from a meeting in Honiton where the Saxon period after the Romans left was discussed, this may be something we could look at as regards Feniton.

Next meetings, Honiton Museum Tues. 7^th Jun 2011.

Nog Inn 8pm Thur. 23^rd June 2011 

"Arise Noble Weed"

Malherbe Talk 6^th May 2011

The Feniton History Group and Feniton Church hosted a talk on the Malherbe family. This family held the Manor of Feniton from 1146 until 1555. At one time the village was known as Finneton Malherbe.

Our speaker was Professor Gordon Reeves, who after retirement from a career in medicine, took up researching the Malherbes as a hobby.

The illustrated talk entitled  “Arise Noble Weed”   explained the families origins in France, the place names found in France and Britain which had taken the family name, the researching of very old Latin documents to find the details of the early family in Devon, not helped by three generations of William Malherbes each marrying a wife by the name of Joan!

The description of the family was followed by a compilation of the various coats of arms used by the bearers of the name. Feniton and Payhembury Churches both have  pillars on which have the coat of arms of nettles are carved.

Professor Reeves went on to tell us about the other uses of the name, Malherbes being “bad weeds” like the nettle and leadwort and club moss. Some malherbes were used as dyes like Mallow, Woad and Weld. Also he mentioned the word “malady”.  Today the name is used by a vine yard, there are poets, artists and a haulage company!

Professor Reeves, accompanied by his wife was thanked by David Lanning who presented a Honiton Lace paperweight to the couple.

It was a very interesting evening and to have a talk on a medieval family in a medieval church was perfect. The re-ordering of Feniton Church has provided the community with a versatile venue.   Thank you to all who helped make the evening such a success, the sum of £146 was raised for Feniton Church.