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This article is from "Aspects of the Early History of Hungerford" by Norman Hidden, 2009.


Among its many ancient records of Berkshire towns, the Berkshire Record Office holds a collection of documents relating to Hungerford which are particularly notable both in their scope and in their antiquity. These documents were deposited with the Record Office by the Constable and Feoffees of the borough and by Messrs. Charles Lucas and Marshall, stewards of the Borough, in December 1949. They were promptly and comprehensively catalogued by the then assistant archivist, Mr.P.Walne (later Archivist of the Hertfordshire C.R.O.). The documents were arranged into various subject groupings as seemed appropriate; and one such grouping was that classified as H/RTa, a collection of 41 medieval charters. These date from c.1275 - 1465 and relate to various properties in Hungerford and neighbourhood. Mr.Walne considered that, since only one of these documents had the Constable or burgesses as a party to it, they could not in any case be considered ‘official’. In this he was correct. Nevertheless, as this article will try to show, the collection H/RTa is by no means ‘miscellaneous’ but has a significant unity, and by their safekeeping of these documents, the burgesses of the time were preserving records concerning properties of importance to themselves collectively.

Of the 41 documents the most significant is probably H/RTa 25, dated 19th June 1465. This was a quit claim of 2 tenements in Northbrook Street, Newbury, by Richard Abberbury of Newbury gent to John Norris esq., John Toghull, Thomas Toghull, Robert Toghull, John Wernewell, and all the other burgesses of Hungerford including Sir Thomas Clydesdale, priest of Hungerford chantry, and the stewards (‘procurates’) of the chantry. Although no official title, such as Constable, Portreeve or Bailiff is given to the persons named, it is implicit both that they are burgesses and that they have some special status vis-à-vis ‘all the other burgesses’. As it is, we know that John Toghull was a former Constable [1] and that the two other Toghulls and Wernewell were each described in their appropriate year as ‘prepositus’ in Ministers’ Accounts of the period [2].

As there were two chantries in Hungerford at this date, it would be as well to make clear that the chantry referred to is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, records of which contain various references to the property in Northbrook Street [3]. This chantry had a close and virtually semi-official connection with the burgesses of Hungerford, for in 1457 a licence was gr anted, by royal letters patent [4], to John Norris esq, Cecily late wife of Thomas Dyne, John Tukhull and William Horshill, ‘burgesses of Hungerford’, to found in honour of the Virgin Mary a chantry in the parish church ‘for the good estate of the king and Queen Margaret and the founders and the burgesses of Hungerford’. Bearing in mind the peculiar and unincorporated status of the borough, this was probably as near as the burgesses could get at this time to the establishment of a gild or, as we might term it, ‘municipal’ chantry. Indeed, John Toghull is described as Constable of the borough in 1458 when he witnessed deeds H/RTa 28 and H/RTa 29, both of which relate explicitly to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, being grants of land to the Sir John Phillipps named in the patent roll of the previous year as the first chantry priest and to his successors in the chantry. An accompanying quit claim H/RTa 30 completes the transaction. Here, then, we already have at least 4 documents which clearly have to do with the affairs of the chantry of the burgesses and involving or attested by leading burgesses in their official capacity. What of the remaining documents? Could they also have been preserved among the borough Mss because they too have some connection with the burgesses and their ‘municipal’ chantry?

In the letters patent of 1457 licence to found the new chantry was granted to (among others) ‘Cecily late wife of Thomas Dyne’. The reference undoubtedly suggests the existence of a particular benefactor now deceased, and we know that Thomas Dyne died in 1454. Unfortunately, the printed Calendar of Patent Rolls has mistranscribed the name as Dyve, and this mistranscription has been followed by the Victoria County History of Berkshire (vol iv, p.198), but it is clear from a study of the variant spellings given in documents throughout the H/RTa class as well as documents elsewhere that the name is Dyne, and I have so transcribed it wherever it has occurred (Duyne, Dynne, Dynghe, in H/RTa, as well as, most frequently, Dyne).

The significance of this reference to Dyne in relation to the H/RTa documents will be even more clearly revealed by a study of a rental of the Duchy of Lancaster now at the Public Record Office in London [5]. The Public Record Office Calendar gives the date of the rental as ‘temp. Hen. VI’, clearly an error for ‘temp. Edward IV’. For external reasons alone the rental must be dated between 1460 and 1483; internal evidence leads to the narrower range of 1465 -1475. I would suggest c.1470 and if I refer to it as the 1470 rental, this is for the purpose of abbreviation only. In this rental, no less than 5 properties are listed as belonging to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary ‘nuper Thomas Dyne’. These then are the benefactions which led to the inclusion of the names of Cecily and Thomas Dyne in the foundation licence of the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Hungerford. Do these properties have any connection with the transactions of Thomas Dyne recorded in H/RTa documents?

The following are the documents or groups of documents which involve Thomas Dyne: H/RTa 1-4, 5-9, 10-15, 18-24, 26-27, 39-40, 41. Of these H/RTa 5-9, 10-15, 39-40 describe the location of messuages in Hungerford, H/RTa 1-4 include lands in Hungerford and neighbourhood, but no dwellings.

The town of Hungerford at that date consisted almost entirely of one street which ran from the river on the north in a direct southerly direction; the only exception to this were a few houses between the church, about 1/4 mile to the west, and the centre of this main street. The rental of 1470, like subsequent surveys in 1552 and 1573, followed an orderly pattern, commencing at the northernmost end of the town and proceeding along the east side of the street (latter-day Bridge St. and High St). When it reached the southern extremity of the town, the rental or survey reversed and made its return along the west side until the river was reached once more.

There is some confusion about the situation in this pattern of certain buildings in mid-street in the market cross area and also of houses in the neighbourhood of the church. Otherwise, the rental of 1470 and the surveys of 1552 and 1573 parallel one another with great exactitude and sometimes provide additional information helpful in tracing individual dwellings from one survey to the next.

Since the 1470 rental runs from one property to the next along the High street, the site of each dwelling is revealed by its relation to its neighbours north and south, and provides implicitly the same information which the H/RTa deeds give more explicitly. Thus H/RTa 5-9 describe a tenement in Hungerford in 1413 as lying  between the tenement of William Golding to the south and that of the Holy Trinity to the north. The 1470 rental shows that the only property to match this description is one belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry ‘late Thomas Dyne’, despite ownership of the tenement to the south being ascribed to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, lately Walter Hungerford’s, previously John Golding’s. A similar change of ownership of a neighbouring property is to be found elsewhere. Thus, H/RTa 10-15 describe two messuages which in 1420 lie between the tenement of Walter Horshill on the south and that of William Golding on the north. In 1423 the two messuages are now said to be bounded on the north by a tenement of Sir Walter Hungerford kt. This is correct, for in 1423 Sir Walter Hungerford had acquired from Golding all his lands and property in Hungerford and Sandon [6]. The process of change both of ownership and of the structure of the buildings needs constantly to be taken into account when comparing records of different dates. An entry in the 1470 rental describes ‘certain parts of a burgage, late Thomas Dyne’ belonging to the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry, with an unusual quit rent of 10¾d. 

A quit rent of 8d. was standard for a full burgage and most properties fall into a scale based on this, viz: ¼ burgage =2d.; ½ burgage =4d; ¾ burgage =6d; 1¼ burgage =10d. and so on. On this scale a quit rent of 10¾ d. would be difficult to fractionalise as a burgage, but it must have represented something in excess of a single entity, e.g. two messuages adjacent or in some way interconnected. This property was bounded on the south by a tenement ‘late William Horshill’, and on the north by a tenement of the manorial lord (Richard, Duke of Gloucester), ‘formerly Sir Walter Hungerford’s’. A later document dated 1548 detailing the property of the chantry [7] describes it as lying between the tenements of Thomas Horshill on the south and Edward Hungerford on the north (i.e. the descendants respectively of William Horshill and Sir Walter
Hungerford mentioned in the 1423 deeds). In addition, the unusual quit rent of 1470 is explained by the description of the property in 1548 as ‘a burgage with a cottage adjoining.’

H/RTa 39 is a quit claim in 1422 from Thomas Pynnock to Thomas Dyne of ½ burgage in Hungerford lying between the tenements of William King and of the chantry of the Blessed Mary ‘stretching from Hawkhill field to the King’s highway lengthwise’, together with one acre of land, one end at the Inkpen road and the other in Conage croft. This may be identified with the holding of the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry in the 1470 rental of ‘½ burg. late Thomas Dyne’, formerly William Pinnock. We can work out from the position of this tenement in the 1470 rental that it must lie on the east side of the High street and in the upper portion of the street, beyond the ‘cross’, towards the town’s southern end. A description of the town boundaries in 1573 [8], makes it clear that immediately behind these houses with their gardens and ‘backsides’ lay the common field known as the Breach, which towards the southern end became . The Blessed Virgin Mary tenement in the position determined by the 1470 rental would therefore be correctly described (as in H/RTa 39) as ‘stretching from Hawk hill field to the King’s highway’.

Fortified by these three correspondences between the 1470 rental and the ‘Dyne’ documents in Class H/RTa, we may now look at the lands referred to in H/RTa 1-4, more difficult to identify with the same precision as the street houses, since neither the acreage nor more than a general location of these lands are given. In H/RTa 1 (1392) Batte grants to Denman lands, rents, rights of common in towns and fields of Hungerford and Sandon, Inkpen and Le Hulle. In H/RTa 2 (1421) Denman grants various lands and tenements some of which are in Newbury, Speen, Greenham and East Garston; but also included are lands in Hungerford, Sandon, Inkpen and Le Hulle. In H/RTa 3 and 4 (1433) Denman grants the latter lands to Dyne. It is probable that these are the lands which in the 1470 rental are held by the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry, ‘late Thomas
Dyne’s’ in Sandon Fee, quit rent 12d.

An important set of documents forms the sub group H/RTa 18-25. These take us outside the town of Hungerford to 2 tenements in Newbury and so outside the scope of the 1470 rental. We have already seen in H/RTa 25 that these documents resulted in a quit claim by Richard Abberbury of his residual rights in the property to the burgesses of Hungerford as stewards of the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, H/RTa 23 and 24 having already granted the property to Thomas Dyne. These documents H/RTa 18-25 are self explanatory and are verified as relating to Blessed Virgin Mary chantry property by the inclusion of this property in the 1548 draft particulars; and there are further confirmatory references, as has already been mentioned.

In addition to Dyne’s substantial contribution to the funding of the chantry revealed by these documents which the burgesses of Hungerford preserved so tenaciously, there are other documents in the same class which reveal more of the history of the chantry. Thus H/RTa 32, H/RTa 33 and H/RTa 40 each explicitly refer to a previously existing chantry of St. Mary. H/RTa 32 and 33 are very early although they bear no date; internal evidence leads to a suggested date of c.1300 for each. In H/RTa 32 John Barefot grants in frankalmoign to the chantry of St. Mary one ½ burgage in Hungerford for celebration of Mass in the chapel of St. Mary’s; and in H/RTa 33 Ralph de Waleton grants to Sir Peter perpetual curate of St. Mary’s in Hungerford and to his successors one croft of land in Stocken Street. H/RTa 40 shows the same chantry still in existence
in 1438, when Thomas Dyne, William Horshill, Richard Boucher, stewards of the rents of the Blessed Mary in Hungerford and John Farthyngale, priest, ‘called  t.Marypriest’, grant a lease of chantry property to John Wernewell. The property leased included 1 tenement which may be identified with a Blessed Virgin Mary chantry entry in the 1470 rental by its position between a tenement of the rector of Hungerford on the south and another tenement of the grantee himself on the north; together with one acre of land in
Ryehull, one toft with curtilage called Dasevilles, one acre in Middlefield, ½ acre in Pidden field and an area by the watercourse described as a stewe’ or fishpond.

In the 1548 particulars a meadow called Daseville is included with other Blessed Virgin Mary property (such as Hill field or Hulle field) leased en bloc to William Lovelake. Daseville is later corrupted to Daysfield or even Dayfield, but it took its name from the prominent local family of d’Aseville (one of whom witnessed deeds H/RTa 31 and 32). The connection this gives between the old and the new chantry is important, for it suggests that the new chantry is in reality a re -foundation of the older one. As this refoundation took place in 1457 and document H/RTa 40 was drawn up only 19 years earlier, it is unlikely that the old chantry had fallen into disuse or desuetude. Indeed, the stewards of its rents in 1438 - Dyne, Horshill and Bocher - were all to be associated with the later foundation of 1457. The one factor which seems new in the re-foundation is the place given to the burgesses of Hungerford in their capacity as burgesses. And it is this factor which gives special significance to documents H/RTa as a whole, and doubtless led to their preservation.

If further evidence is needed of the situation of these properties and of their official status in relation to the burgesses, this may be provided by two law suits in the court of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1578 and 1588 [9]. In the earlier of these two suits we learn that Thomas Oxnell, late chaplain of the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, together with seven others described as feoffees of one burgage with a cottage adjoining in Hungerford and 51 acres of land in Hungerford, Sandon, and the Hill field, also 1 meadow called Dayfield, and 1 close called Preyes Barn, by indenture dated 4 Feb 1519 let to farm to William Lovelake the burgage, cottage and 31 acres of land (i.e. part only of the 51 acres) together with Dayfield and Preyes Barn. The seven feoffees in this transaction in 1519 were Richard Washington, William Fowler, John Hedache, Richard Batesforde, Janiver Kirton, John Clydesdale and Rafe Harrold.

In the 1548 particulars of Blessed Virgin Mary chantry lands the details of this lease are verified, with the additional information that the burgage with the cottage adjoining lay between the tenement of Edmond Hungerford kt. on the north and that of Thomas Horshill on the south, thus identifying this section of the leased property with that in H/RTa 10-15 (as already described).

The bill of complaint in the lawsuit of 1588 also details the location of the burgage and cottage and confirms all the other details. Furthermore, the official nature of the indenture made by the feoffees to William Lovelake is stressed - ‘the said persons, above said parties to the said indenture, being burgesses of the borough of Hungerford, by the said indenture under their seals did ratify and confirm the same’. It had been stipulated that the rent of 55s.10d. p.a. should be paid to the chaplain Thomas Oxnell or his successors.

Thus far it appears that the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry properties consisted of at least two elements (a) those which were the benefaction of Thomas Dyne (b) those which had belonged to an earlier foundation. To these we may add a third group of 3 documents, H/RTa 28-30, which relate to a grant in 1458 to the new or re-founded chantry. The grant was made by John Wernewell senior to Sir John Philipps, perpetual priest of the chantry of the Blessed Mary in the parish church of St. Lawrence, Hungerford and
to his successors in the chapel of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This transfer in H/RTa 28 was of sufficient importance for it to be witnessed by John Tukhull as Constable, Richard Lange bailiff, as well as such familiar and prominent burgesses as William Bocher, William Horshill, and Thomas Mayow. H/RTa 29 has as witnesses not only the above named Constable and Bailiff but also John Haywood, reeve.

Of the remaining H/RTa documents, the property in H/RTa 38, viz., ½ tenement, next to the water on the north side, seems to have been wrongly calendared when it is said to be ‘held of the reeve of the chaplain of St. John the Baptist’. The free chapel of St. John the Baptist (also known as the hospital or priory) was located between two arms of the river Dun, the northernmost arm of which river is described in the 1573 survey of Hungerford [10] as ‘compassing in the free chapel, late priory of St. John’s’. The phrase in H/RTa 38 which describes the ½ tenement was read as ‘ex ppoito capell’ and translated as ‘held of the reeve (‘prepositus’) of the chaplain’. There is however no abbreviation symbol attached to the first ‘p’ to enable it to be rendered ‘pre’, but there is just discernible a smudge preceding it. If this may be taken as a smeared ‘o’ we have a much more intelligible reading, ‘ex oppoito capell’, that is, facing upon the chapel of St. John. Moreover, the phrase cannot refer to the chaplain (capellanus, abbreviation capellan’) but only to the chapel (capella, abbreviation capell’).

The distinction is important, for in 1591 the Chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary is known to have held a tenement in just such a situation. This was the tenement ‘appertaining to the chantry lying on the south side’ of the river Dun [11], tenanted by John Underwood ‘who hath encroached in and upon the said river to the narrowing thereof by the space of 5 foot or thereabouts’, apparently by building an overhanging privy! In 1609 the same essential details are repeated, but the tenement is described as being on the north side.

If we may recapitulate, at this point it has been possible to identify Blessed Virgin Mary chantry properties in the case of 31 H/RTa documents out of a total of 41. Of the remaining 10 documents, nos. 26-27 and no.41 simply record a transfer of feoffees. In H/RTa 26 the grantor (i.e. ‘retiring’) feoffees in 1453/4 are Thomas Dyne, Richard Bocher and William Horshill, who were the three stewards of the old chantry of St. Mary and who were closely associated with the foundation or refoundation of the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry. The grantees or new set of feoffees contain names, some of which are also known to be associated with the same chantry, viz. John Tukhull, Thomas Mayhew, Walter Mayhew, Henry Weynemouth, William Bocher, Thomas Tukhull, Thomas Rolff and Henry Barbour.

In H/RTa 41 in 1461/2 William Horshill and Henry Capper grant the trusteeship of property ‘of the gift of Thomas Dyne’ to a very nearly similar set of persons, in fact to all of those nominated in 1453/4 except Thomas Mayhew and Thomas Rolff, the latter of whom is certainly dead. The description of the distribution of the lands and tenements of Thomas Dyne, ‘in the towns and fields of Hungerford, Newbury, Sandon, le Hulle, Ingelode and elsewhere in Berkshire’ makes it virtually certain that these were the chantry properties which we have already discussed in connection with H/RTa 1-4, 5-9, 10-15, 18-24.

We are thus left with seven documents H/RTa 16-17, 31,34,35,36 and 37 which are nearly all of considerable antiquity and which cannot be ascribed as positively to the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry as the previous thirty four documents.

H/RTa 16 and 17 (1420) deal with the grant by Thomas Webbe to John Kember of a tenement in Stocken Street, lying between the tenement of the vicar of Hungerford (presumably the vicarage, since all other church property in Hungerford belonged to the rector) on the one side and that of John Brown on the other. The first two witnesses were William Horshill and Thomas Dyne. Stocken Street (sometimes known as West Street) was the street or lane leading from the market westward to the church (modern Church Street). It is known from the 1470 rental and subsequent surveys that the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry held a ‘part burg’ there. In 1573 a tenement in Church Lane was leased from the former Blessed Virgin Mary chantry to John Parker [12], and this entry recurs in the 1591 survey [13]. It will be remembered that c.1300 H/RTa 33 details 1 croft of land in Stocken Street, granted to the chaplain of St. Mary’s chantry and his successors.

H/RTa 31 (c.1275) is witnessed by no less than five (out of seven) of those who also witnessed, and therefore may be presumed to have had an interest in, H/RTa 32 (c.1300) which, it will be remembered, was a grant to the old chantry of St. Mary. It seems likely therefore, that H/RTa 31 also relates to the old chantry. H/RTa 34 (dated 1340) records the grant of a tenement to Elias Haynes, together with arable land in Charlton Stondescumbe (or Stutescumbe). As we have seen, a tenement at one time in the
possession of William Haynes (H/RTa 12) passed ultimately to Thomas Dyne (H/RTa 14) and so to the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry. As to the land in Charleton Stutescumbe which accompanied the tenement in this grant, there is no reference in H/RTa 10-14 of such land, except for a reference in H/RTa 10 to ‘lands, tenements, rents and services in Wiltshire’, in which county, of course Charleton then lay. Charlton Stutescumbe was an area in which land was held by several tenants, one of them the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as we know from H/RTa 28 where 6 acres of arable land in Charlton field had been granted to the chantry chaplain. This land is recorded both in the 1573 and 1591 surveys where it is called Chantry Mead and there are various references in a Hungerford rectory terrier of 1513 to land in Charnham Field belonging to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary [14].

Finally, to add one more straw in the wind, H/RTa 34 has as witnesses a Robert Hopgrass and an Alan de Hanville (not de Haukvill, as calendared), a family association with Haynes and/or the property being perhaps indicated, since we find the same names prominent in H/RTa 10-14.

H/RTa 35 (1365) deals only with 1 acre of land ‘one end being at the king’s highway towards Inkpen, the other in Conage croft’ - a phrase identical to that used of a similar (or the same?) acre in H/RTa 39 (1422) which has become attached to property ‘late Dyne’ and the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry. This surmise involves the supposition that there is an intervening document, or documents, missing. H/RTa 37 (1390) also involves William King and William Haynes, the former as grantor, the latter as witness.

As regards the remaining document in this group, viz. H/RTa 36, the distribution of the lands with which it deals - in Hungerford, Sandon, Inkpen and le Hulle - is strikingly identical with that in H/RTa 1. Evidence in support of the common identity of the properties in these two documents, is provided by Mss known as the Hastings Mss. nos. 1184 and 1190 - 1193 [15]. In a series of complicated transactions these reveal that Margaret Bat (Batte), daughter of John Bat, and widow, in 1335, of Nicholas le Tanner of Newbury, inherited from her father a messuage in Hungerford and various lands in Hungerford and Sandon, which she leased to Walter de Hyndone (ms.1184). Hyndone released his rights to John de Pewelle, who was acting on behalf of Robert de Hungerford. In ms.1190 John le Deyghere surrendered to Margaret all his purparty in lands in Hungerford, Sandon, Inkpen, and le Hulle. In ms.1191a Nicholas le Spenser in 1337 released rents due to him from Walter de Hyndone to John de Pewelle, and the editor of the Historical Manuscripts Commission Report on the Hastings Mss specifically links this transaction with that of ms.1184. In 1192 Margaret similarly releases her rights. We may now add to these transactions the one contained in H/RTa 36 in which Nicholas le Spenser and his wife Margaret in 1369 grant to John le Tanner, son of Nicholas le Tanner, lands in ‘Hungerford, Sandon, Inkpen, and le Hulle’. One of the witnesses to this deed, incidentally, was John Deyer, possibly the same man as John le Deyghere in ms.1190, or possibly a descendant. The complete chain of transactions involving Margaret Bat links the Hastings deeds with H/RTa 36, and H/RTa 36 with H/RTa 1. In the latter John Batte of Newbury granted in 1392 lands etc. in ‘Hungerford, Sandon, Inkpen, and le Hulle’ which once belonged to Margaret Batte, mother of John Batte, and which John Batte had inherited at her death’. Two of the witnesses of H/RTa 1 were survivors from the five witnesses of deed H/RTa 36 more than twenty two years previously. It seems clear that if H/RTa 1 relates to property which later was granted by Thomas Dyne to the Blessed Virgin Mary chantry, then H/RTa 36 does so also.

To sum up, all the documents have a connection with the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was peculiarly a chantry re-founded by and for the burgesses of Hungerford, the properties of its predecessor chantry of St. Mary being substantially added to by Thomas Dyne, and stewarded by the most prominent traderburgesses
of the day.

Documents detailing properties which have a clear link with the chantry, and were almost certainly part of the benefaction of Thomas Dyne, are: H/RTa 1-4, 5-9, 10-15, 18-24, 26-27, 39-40, and 41.

Documents which relate explicitly to properties of the pre -existent chantry of St. Mary are H/RTa 32-33 and H/RTa 40.

Documents which relate explicitly to the new chantry are H/RTa 25, 28-30.

Documents which relate to property for which there is reasonable or strong evidence of its belonging to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary are H/RTa 16-17, 36, 38.

Documents for which only circumstantial evidence exists of the property belonging to the chantry are H/RTa 31, 34, 35, 37.

In spite of the good fortune which has preserved 41 documents thus relating, or suspected to be relating, to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Hungerford, it is clear that some links in the documentary chain recording the transactions are missing, and this is particularly so of transactions which took place in the 14th rather than the 15th century. Thus there seems to be no document which specifically records a grant to or by Thomas Dyne of the property recorded in the 1470 rental as belonging to the chantry of the Blessed Virgin Mary, ‘late Thomas Dyne’s, previous possessor unknown, quit rent 8d’. There are also three other properties belonging to the chantry in the same rental which I cannot positively identify with H/RTa documents, including a ½ burgage ‘late Henry Bryton’, and these three may have been possessions of the chantry prior to its re-foundation. At this point my attention was drawn to an earlier numbering written onto the H/RTa documents (possibly 19th century?). This sequence reveals that the present collection lacked 10 documents thus previously numbered, but also contained 3 documents not included in the previous numbering.

What is remarkable is that it has been possible to identify such a high proportion of correspondence between the c.1470 rental and the documents in H/RTa 1-41, so that even the less positive indications in the few remaining may be considered significant in the context of the whole. In short it would seem that the class H/RTa into which Mr. Walne classified these particular records shortly after their having been deposited in the Berkshire Record Office was an even more unified and less miscellaneous collection than it was possible to be aware of at the time.

References:

1 Berks. R.O.: H/RTa 28
2 P.R.O.: DL 29/684 - 6
3 P.R.O.: DL 14/6/42; E36/258 f.148; DL1/66
4 Cal. Pat. Rolls Hen.VI 1452-61 p 191
5 P.R.O.: DL 43/1/4
6 Somerset R.O.: Hungerford Cartulary ff. 197-8
7 P.R.O.: DL 14/6/42
8 Berks. R.O.: HM 1/5
9 P.R.O.: DL 1/106/C14; DL 1/147
10 Berks. R.O.: HM 5/1
11 P.R.O.: DL 42/117
12 Berks. R.O.: HM 5/1
13 P.R.O.: DL 42/117
14 St. George’s Chapel, Windsor XV.31.62: Berks. R.O.: H/TQ1 (3)
15 Appendix to the 20th Report of the Historical MSS Commission 1928 vol.1 pp. 261-2

See also:

- Aspects of the Early History of Hungerford