John de Petto - 600 years ago.

I live in West Hall and lease half of the manor of Sheldon, including the village of that name. The Sheldons of East Hall have the other half. My wealth has enabled me to rebuild my house, as well as to add a chapel to the church of St. Giles in the village. The new hall is the finest for miles around. It has two floors, with dormer windows in the steep-pitched roof : this is covered with red clay tiles, like the separate kitchen, to lessen the risk of fire. The hall has separate rooms for my family, and actually has a great stone chimney at one end while at the other is an outside staircase.

Our family chapel is lit by a stained-glass window, and the floor is of patterned tiles. The central courtyard round the well is now very small because of the size and number of the buildings : the herb-garden and chicken-run have had to be moved across the moat, where some of my retainers are now living in new huts. Within the wall, which is of stone and timber, like the hall, there are now the kitchen buildings, dairy, smithy, barn, dovecote, stables, news, and kennels : and I have put up a fine gatehouse.

I own two postmills, one near the hall and the other beyond the village, both on high ground, as well as a watermill on Hatchford Brook. All these are needed, because the fields near the village - Sheldon, Greatock, Hatchford - besides Ashole and Cockshutt, are all growing crops two years out of three.
They are still largely worked in strips, and all strips of one field grow the same crop, or lie fallow for a year, according to the custom of the manor : the waste has shrunk, as timber has been cut and new farms made, but there is still plenty of woodland to give us timber, fuel and pannage. The meadows are stripped too, for every man needs the hay crop to keep his best animals alive during the winter. Matters concerning the tillage and husbandry of the manor are dealt with at my court.

A few years ago, after some good harvests, Sheldon could afford to rebuild its small timber church : everybody gave money, materials, or labour, and a larger building of sandstone brought from outside the manor was erected. I have now built a chapel beside it. The priest's house is inside a moat nearby.