Thrale history

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fallow or tilth. Also the Crofty Close, and the Pightle should for three years be left for pasture. Should this land be ploughed or cross-cropped, William Thrale could be liable to forty shillings for every acre broken up by ploughing. No substances such as straw, stover, soil, compost or dung should be carried away from the property. John Thrale accused his brother Thomas and nephew Richard Thrale of not only breaking these conditions but also of cutting up and ruining the hedges and fences. They had ploughed and sowed every year against all conditions.

A good deal later during the Napoleonic Wars similar conditions were still being included in agricultural leases. It has been commented that the restrictive rules such as strict cropping clauses by some of the larger estates in their leases to tenants could be onerous at times. One tenant had to use hedge timber solely for building repairs, to dress a third of the land with chalk in the first seven years, to carry out specific draining and to keep fallows. Thomas Greg criticised these clauses since the insistance on fallowing reduced the area available to grown crops and thus to support stock. The chalking and draining clauses were generally accepted as being beneficial whilst the Grimston estate clause levying a fine of £100 an acre for ploughing pasture must be seen as an attempt by the Earl of Verulam to collect his share of the corn profits in the war years'¹⁰ The reasons for Thomas and his son Richard in breaking the covenants can from this be more readily understood.

It might be of general interest to know of the labour involved in examining these Chancery proceedings, records which provide so much detail of immense value. Some may run from a single parchment membrane to a dozen or more, from a foot to some yards square, written in small close writing. To extract all details they have to be gone through line by line.

Two of the brothers who participated in this unpleasant family squabble (but which was fortunate for posterity however) both died in 1736. John, described of Cell Barnes, husbandman, left to his niece Anne Thrale, daughter of brother William Thrale deceased £20.¹¹ Anne received household goods which were at Cell Barnes Farmhouse. John Thrale then left the remainder of his estate to his niece, Anne Smith, daughter of brother Ralph Thrale deceased, and wife of Richard Smith of Kingsbury, St. Albans. The vital evidence of this bequest is most significant - Anne Smith, link between humble farmstead and opulent manor house and mansion, Cell Barnes, Kingsbury and Thrale Place.

Thomas also died in 1736, but it is with Thomas that exact records

Footnotes

10. E.J. Connell: Hertfordshire Past & Present No. 10. 1970.↩︎
11. Archd. St. Albans Reg. 1718-43 fo. 303.↩︎