1086 AD - Alnith, son of Alnod of Machitone
| There is a lot of heath around the village still, but clearing
and rough ploughing have continued. Garretts Green Lane has appeared
as a rutted track which skirts the Elder Field on the west. Machitone
has been visited by the Conquerors surveyors. The village is still
inside the old defences, but the ditch is now full of rubbish and
the fence is falling down. The houses are larger, but little better.
Alnod (my father) has a house which is the usual Hall, but with outbuildings.
My father was lucky to keep his manor as his lord was Turchil who
was a Saxon Earl of Warwick. But as Turchil had not fought against
William he was allowed to keep his title and lands for the present.
Alnod owed military service to Turchil, and now he owes it to King William. The villeins of Machitone owed Turchil week-work on his strips and extra work at sowing and harvest. The Reeve is watching now on Rye Eddish Field where the women are harvesting, while the children are gleaning. There are 14 houses around the trampled green, homes to about 60 people. Four lanes lead from village (to Yardley, Coleshill, Odingsell Hall (Hobs Moat), and to the spring. Of the manor only about one quarter is cultivated, all in the north. But Machitone is prosperous and growing and it has doubled in value in 20 years, now it is worth twice the place called Bremingehame five miles away. There has been talk of sending me and the other younger sons who are landless to start another village in the south of the manor as all the usable land in the north is needed by the present tenants for pasture. Most villages have just three large fields but here at Machitone we have several smaller ones -it is all to do with where the best land is situated. The forest is very thick and clearing the land is a slow job, started hundreds of years ago by our ancestors and it is a job which will take our descendants many hundreds more to complete. The wood is mostly oak with very dense undergrowth, growing on Keuper Marl rock which retains surface water -this creates ideal conditions for oak. The more open spaces which we have cleared for farming are on boulder clay. Down beside the River Cole and along the three brooks are dank marshy bogs where willow and alder grow. These areas are called "moor" because in this district moor = swamp or bog. Place names include Radley Moor along the Platt Brook and Outmoor along the River Cole. Names of fields and clearings indicate vegetation : yew, holly, oak, ash, alder, elm and thorn. The woodland is still home to wolf and bear. To reach the south of the manor, the surveyors had to cross Platt Brook, easy now but not in winter, and then follow the south side of the peaty valley on the track above the flood level which will later be called the Radleys. Thence a woodland track leads south to the meadows of Kingshurst Brook, where there are a few herdsmens huts. The surveyors went west, through the woods to look at the new Ashole Field, not yet completely cleared. Ringed trees are dying, and undergrowth is being burnt off. Along the lane from Ashole Field is the new Cockshutt Field. Crossing places on these streams were important as the bogs were dangerous and obstacles to travel, particularly in winter. Only where there were deposits of boulder clay was it firm enough to allow fording of the streams. There must have been a crossing near Ford Road over the Cole in the north of the manor. Most paths do not have names yet, except those of the trees or hills they go near but close to Kents Moat is one named after a Saxon ancestor called Dagard. He must have been an early settler who moved on. The path is Dagardingweg = the path (weg) of the people (ing) of Dagard and had been established by AD 972.
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