Читать книгу Sweet Hampstead and Its Associations онлайн

29 страница из 97

This Ranulph Peverel, a Norman high in the King’s favour, who held, as Camden tells us, estates in several counties of England, had married the discarded concubine of the Conqueror, the daughter of a Saxon noble, and one of the most lovely women of her time, and had given his own name to the King’s son by her—William Peverel,[18] subsequently Lord of Nottingham, and founder of the famous castle in the Peak—and if it had not been shown that such small portions of land were frequently held by noblemen in those times in different counties, probably as a nucleus to be added to as opportunities arose, one would have been inclined to doubt the identity of the owner of one hide of land at Hamstede with the Peverel whose descendants became so important in the history of England.

The original grant (or presumed grant) of Ethelred gives a certain spot of land, in the place called Hamstede, of five cassati—this word, we read, means hide—in perpetual inheritance, etc.

Very primitive must have been the Hamestead of those days, a group of clay-built or wattled huts, set down in a sheltered clearing, somewhere in the vicinity of the future Chapel of St. Mary, the site of the present parish church, in the district known as Frognal.