Introduction
Following his conquest of England in 1066, William I commanded that a survey of the whole of his new domain be carried out in order to establish how much land he had, who occupied it and how much it was worth. The Domesday Book was the result of that survey and was completed in 1086. This is the first known documentary reference to the village.
The Latin entry (in abbreviated form in the original) reads as follows:
Ipse Radulfus tenet Bedeslei. Cheping tenuit de rege. Tunc
et modo se defendebat pro 2 hidis, Terra est 4 carructae.
Ibi sunt 4 villani et 7 bordarii cum 2 carrucatis et 7 servi.
Ibi aecclesia et silva de 10 porcis; et pro herbagio 10 solidi.
T.R.E. valebat 10 libras, et postea 100 solidos; modo 60 solidos.
The English translation:
Here, Ralph (de Mortimer) holds Baddesley. Cheping held it from the king. Then
and now it was assessed as 2 hides. There are 4 ploughlands.
There are 4 villeins and 7 borderers with 2 ploughlands and 7 servants.
Here there is a church and woods for 10 pigs and herbage worth 10 shillings.
Its value in the time of King Edward was £10, afterwars 100 shillings; now 60 shillings.
The Anglo-Saxon, Cheping, was the holder of the land before the conquest. He was quite a large landholder under Edward and at least 12 of his land holdings ended up in the tenure of Ralph de Mortimer. Both before and after the conquest Baddesley was assesed as 2 hides, which is approximately 240 acres.
Villeins were superior to borderers and serfs. They gradually strengthened their tenure on their estates and became what are now called "copyholders". The four villeins referred to in the entry probably equate to the four major farms in the village. Borderers were cottagers with land attached to the cottage. They were required to supply the lord of the manor's table, do his domestic work or any other service which might be required. So Baddesley had 7 of these minor small holdings, with a total of 2 ploughlands between them. The 7 servants would be serfs, with no land holding.
The church would not be the stone edifice known to us today, although some evidence of anglo-saxon (and hence pre conquest) stonework exists in the present building. The woods were large enough for 10 pigs to be supported and there was herbage such as meadows and grassland.
Sadly it looks as though the village was already in decline, being valued at £10 (200 shillings) before the conquest, 100 shillings afterwards and 20 years later only 60 shillings.
Note: North Baddesley has a total area of 2570 acres
© Sandra J Smith MBE 2003