THE HUNDRED OF WYMERSLEY

containing the parishes of Blisworth; Brafield-On-The-Green; Castle Ashby; Cogenhoe; Collingtree; Courteenhall; Denton; Grendon; Hardingstone; Horton; Great Houghton; Little Houghton; Milton Malzor; Piddington with Hackleton; Preston Deanery; Quinton; Rothersthorpe; Whiston; Wootton; Yardley Hastings

Map of the Hundred

In the Northamptonshire geld-roll of c. 1074 Wymersley figures as a hundred and a half; (fn. 1) but in the Domesday Survey the western portion (including the parishes of Blisworth, Collingtree, Courteenhall, Hardingstone, Milton, and Rothersthorpe, and probably Wootton) constituted the hundred of 'Colentreu' or 'Coltrewestan'. (fn. 2) This subordinate hundred is not mentioned in the 12th-century Survey, in which all the parishes are entered under Wymersley; (fn. 3) but as late as 1329 'the hundred of Colyngtreston within the hundred of Wymersley' was said to have been formerly leased at 40s., which sum had been raised 20 years before to 10 marks, (fn. 4) and complaint was also made that the inhabitants of the hundred were compelled to attend the three-weekly court of Wymersley; the jurors alleged that this practice first began in the time of Henry III under Henry de Hastings. (fn. 5)

Wymersley Hundred, of which the original meeting-place was probably at a field called Wymersley Bush in Little Houghton, (fn. 6) apparently belonged in 1086 to the Countess Judith and was certainly held by her representatives, the family of Hastings and their successors, with the manor of Yardley Hastings. (fn. 7) The lordship of the hundred seems to have become divided, possibly when Richard Earl of Kent disposed of his estates, as Richard Fermor owned the hundreds of Towcester and Wymersley when he was attainted in 1540 and recovered them in 1551, (fn. 8) and they descended to his heirs, the Earls of Pomfret, (fn. 9) whose present representative is Lord Hesketh; but Sir William Compton died seised of the hundreds of Hamfordshoe and Wymersley in 1528, (fn. 10) as did his grandson Sir Henry, first Lord Compton in 1591. (fn. 11)

Footnotes