Description

A new unused book.

About the book >.>.> The area that became East Bristol made up of the districts of Easton Stapleton and Mangotsfield has received less attention from historians than other areas of the city perhaps because the mercantile and literary associations of the historic city and county are lacking. This volume makes available some of the sources for the history of the area in the sixteenth century a period of great social and economic change when a new pattern of land use and ownership emerged. During the middle ages the royal manor of Barton Regis had dominated the area and continued to do so until it was sold under King Edward VI in 1553. A survey taken at that point reveals a rural landscape of open fields rough pasture and heathland interspersed with woodland. Settlement was sparse except on the eastern approaches to Bristol but the survey provides a wealth of detail on the buildings and agricultural resources available to the tenants of the manor. A rent roll from 1563 shows the rents that the new lord of the manor obtained from his investment while two further surveys of the manor of Ridgeway a small group of properties scattered across the area show the extent of change in a generation as rents rose and agricultural holdings were consolidated. Depositions by witnesses in a case heard in the Court of the Exchequer in 1569 provide insights into occupations and land use over the previous sixty years. They cover the management of woodland resources and the organisation of the community by lord of the manor’s agent as well as the rents derived from coal pits quarries and clay extraction. (LL)