Ansel de Sheldon - 800 years ago.

My family were fighting men who came from Normandy with Duke William, and helped him to become king of England. In his time, when he had the Domesday Book written to tell him about every manor in his kingdom, MACHITONE still had a Saxon lord, Alnod, but most manors had been given to the Normans. Later the great Clintons owned many estates in Warwickshire and I, as their faithful follower, was given half of Machitone in return for knight service to my lord at Coleshill. By this time the manor was more usually called Scheldon, and I took my name from it.

Having no wish to live in the Saxon village, I made the tenants build me a manor house near the River Cole. 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 Sheldon Hall or East Hall, because there is another one near the boundary of Yardley, called West Hall. This is the home of the Verdons, owners of the other half of the manor : it is like my house, with a wall and moat, and with a demesne farm round it.

Most of my tenants live in Machiton and have 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. 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 take rent from the tenants.

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 encouraging younger men to start a new village to the south.

They already have grazing grounds there, but in wet weather the journey between them and Machitone is impossible because of the boggy Platt Brook which cuts the manor in two, and it will be better for some of our people to settle on the south side and make their own fields.
All this will make the manor richer, and I shall become wealthy : always looking for ways to make money, I have had a water mill built on the river below the Hall, and all the tenants have to pay to have their corn ground in it. I also do well from the sale of fish and eels that are caught in traps set in the mill-weir.