1220 AD - Ansel de Scheldon of Makinton

By this time the manor was usually called Scheldon, and I took my name from it. Having no wish to live in the Saxon village of Makinton, I made my tenants build me a manor house near the River Cole in the north. They dug out a wide oblong moat, and built a large timber house inside it, with outbuildings. A spring feeds the moat, and there is a well in the central yard.

The House is called Scheldon Hall or East Hall, because there is another one near the boundary of Yardley in the west called simply West Hall. This is the home of the Verdons, owners of the other half of the manor. Their home is like my house, with a wall and moat, and with a demesne farm round it.

Many of the Norman lords who came with King William have built Motte and Bailey castles whereby a defensible tower of wood was erected on a false hill called a motte. The early wooden fences and walls were replaced with stone eventually and deep moats were dug to further protect the walls. In some strategic places these castles were very large. At London the Kings castle was called the White Tower because of the light coloured stone he used and an old witch-man forecast it would last for more than a thousand years and later be called the Tower of London.

My cousin Stephen is a young page to the great Earl of Warwick in his castle beside the River Avon. My Lord is a big landowner and so wealthy he could afford to have a high stone curtain wall erected with many watch-towers to replace the first fortifications. The old tiny motte is at one corner of the new walls which enclose a large bailey where are built houses and huts for the staff and their workshops - smithy, bakery, pantry, etc.

As a page one of his chief jobs is to learn to look after the falcons and hawks which my Lord and his friends use when hunting in the great Forest of Arden. The birds are very dangerous but as Stephen always carries little pieces of meat in his pocket the birds are friendly because they know they will get extra tit-bits.

Cousin enjoys Warwick because he has seen many great lords and once even served King Henry by pulling off his muddy boots !! He was quite thrilled.

Most of my tenants live in Makinton and have never left the village except for markets at Yerdley or even Bremingehame. The peasants farm the strips in the open fields, for which they pay by working on my farm and strips. We pasture cattle in the meadows when they are dry enough, and the waste supports sheep and swine. Waste does not mean rubbish but is open unfenced land which anyone can use.

A few men have asked me to let each of them clear a patch of waste to make a small enclosure, which they can farm as they wish, and on which they can build a house. These assarts are a good thing because they add to the amount of land we have for growing crops, and I can get rent from the tenants.

My own farm land is called The Demesne. I also have 2 fields separate from my other demesne lands, but only a short distance away on quite good soil. I have called them Hardwick and Berwick ~ meaning on the edge of the manor.

Some men work for me all the time and I pay them wages by giving them shelter to sleep and food to eat (these peasants need nothing more).At busy times the rest of the villagers have to work for me for nothing before they do any work for themselves. It is all quite fair because I must have money to buy armour and live properly and to help my Lord if needed.

There are two large fields belonging to West Hall, called Cockshutt and Ashole, and we have a few small ones east of my demesne, but there isn't really enough land suitable for crops in the north of the manor, and I am sending more younger men to extend the new village to the south. They already have grazing grounds there, but in wet weather the journey between them and Makinton is impossible because of the boggy Platt Brook which cuts the manor in two. It would be better for some of our people to stay on the south side and make their own fields and a new village there.

They have decided to call their settlement Sheldon and have established a centre near a spring. They have been using the grazing along Kingshurst and Hatchford Brooks for many summers. The best land in the far south is at Great Sheldon, Greatock and Hatchford where they have started clearing forest. The poorer land along Platt Brook and Radley Moor will be left as common for anyone to use for swine pasture.

A few of the larger families have each got together and cleared small private fields for their individual use as well as working on land in the great fields along with the rest of the village.

All this will make the manor richer, and I shall become wealthy. I am always looking for ways to make money. I have had a water mill built on the River Cole below the Hall, and all the tenants have to pay me to have their corn ground at it. I also do well from the sale of fish and eels that are caught in traps set in the mill-weir.