BURNT ROW COPSE: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION:

SITE SURVEY

In the summer of 2004 I took a party of Sixth Formers to Chichester and visited the Public Records Office to try and find evidence that might link the Burnt Row site to some previous owner or owners. The staffs at the Records Office were extremely kind and spent some time instructing the students in how to use the labyrinthine records kept there.

The clearest reference to our site came from the wonderful Tithe Map Register dating from 1841. This gave firm information regarding ownership and tenancy however when we tried to take these names forward we could only find a few vague references from wills and other legal documents that moved further away from our site rather than adding to our knowledge of it.

It was very clear in our discussions as we drove home that to continue this research would be an extremely painstaking and time consuming business. In an amazing stroke of luck weeks, months and probably years of hard work have been saved through being able to meet an extremely knowledgeable local Historian, John Hurd.

I was able to make contact with John through the medium of Patrick Perks and he very kindly volunteered to come to the Weald school and pass on any knowledge he had of the Burnt Row site to the students and I.

What followed was an incredibly interesting two hour lecture delivered off the cuff which not only filled in many of the gaps that our own research had yet to cover, but also represented a brilliant explanation of archaeological research methods. John clearly loves his work and is an accomplished researcher, his enthusiasm couldn’t help but to inspire his audience and it was an extremely enjoyable experience for all concerned!

John began by admitting that the historical record regarding the Burnt Row site is far from extensive but this, of course, makes every fragment that we do have all the more vital and significant.

John believes that the Burnt Row site and an extensive area around it has indeed been utilised, owned and dwelt upon since ancient times. Certainly the land boundaries of the area suggest that they pre-date the Norman Conquest. The parcelling up of the country by William to pay off his supporters was in this case done with existing land boundaries already established and therefore stretching back into the Saxon past if not long before!

In short, the Burnt Row site was a small hamlet to the west of Billingshurst but within the Parish. The site probably belonged to the Manor of Bassetts Fee and was part of a long narrow plot of land running to the north-east with Burnt Row at the south west tip. This plot was known as ‘Townland’ which is probably a reference to land ‘in the town’ or the ‘Demesne’ or ‘home farm’ of the Manor.

In the immediate post-conquest period the land was owned by the Abbot of Fecamp and subsequently by the Nunnery at Syon.

By the end of the reformation the land had passed into lay hands and Thomas Longhurst, the son of John Longhurst, is recorded to have inherited Bassets Fee around 1603 or 1604.

By the end of the 1620’s and early 1630’s there is a reference to Burnt Row, or ‘Burntrough’, being owned by John Heath and such is the poor state of the ditches on the site that he is ordered to repair them before the Feast of St John the Baptist ‘upon pain of 12d for every virgator who has not carried out the scouring’. (Court Record 1639).

After John died in 1665 the land seems to have been sold on to Peter Draper and when he died in 1683 the rents from the land were to be given to his wife Mary to bring up their children Joshua, Mary and Sarah until the youngest reached twenty-one.

Two years later, in 1685, Mary married Thomas Weedon. The records suggest that Mary Draper-Weedon held ‘Burntrow’ until either she died (1730) or her youngest daughter became independent. The land then passed to her son, Joshua Draper, who sold to Philip Greenfield.

In his will dated 1712 Philip left £4 per annum to be paid quarterly from the lands previously bought from Joshua Draper called ‘Burned Trowe’.

There is a gap between this date and the 1730’s. John Hurd has discovered various records between 1738 and 1775 when ‘Burnt troue’ or ‘Burnt Row’ is leased or rented by John Lane.

In 1789 the land seems to have shifted ownership again, this time to Maurice Ireland and certainly this person paid Land Tax of 18s and 4d between 1797 and 1800.

There also exist various other references in the records of Maurice Ireland and his connection with the Burnt Row site. By 1841 John Hurd notes that the land had now passed to John Ireland (Maurice’s son?)

This is the evidence that the students and I had stumbled upon during our own visit to the West Sussex records Office. The 1841 Tithe Register and its accompanying map is a fabulous record to see and if for no other reason worth a visit to the Records Office to witness. The map was painstakingly drawn up to establish ownership and, like the Doomsday Book before, it was constructed for the purpose of taxation!

On the map our small slice of Sussex is easy to spot and described as being 1 rod, 3 perch or .303 acres in size. When its given number (931) is looked up in the register the owner is named as Edward Ireland and the tenant as John Bridgewater. At this time the name of the dwelling is given as ‘Southern Cottage’ which might suggest the title ‘Weavers Cottage’ might not actually denote an industry taking place there or the name of an owner.

References to the Bridgewaters do appear in the 1841 Census but their dwelling appears to be described as Three Houses see fig 1.

An earlier mention of the Ireland family in reference to the site exists in a document regarding the payment of a King’s Tax from 1780 (see fig 2). Maurice Ireland is clearly mentioned, his address given as Burnt Row and he apparently had to pay 16 shillings and 4 pence in tax! A kings Tax was a not infrequent method used by reigning monarchs to raise funds when parliament was being especially stingy or a special crisis was in the offing.

In 1920 both Weaver’s Cottage and Burnt Row Cottage were part of the sale particulars of Tedfold Estate which brings us close to the last episode of this small parcel of land and the memories of the last inhabitants of the cottages that stood on it!