CHURSTON FERRERS

A long series of rates survives for this parish located between Torbay and the river Dart, lying some four miles south of Paignton. Galmpton and Greenway are noted throughout and the former is sometimes listed as a distinct part of the parish. At this time the Yarde family lived at Churston Court while the Gilberts were at Greenway. Two volumes of Poor Rates are in the parish collection and cover the years from 1599 to 1607 and 1628 to 1661. The first manuscript has had minor water damage and tearing to its final pages. The latter volume has more substantial damage. Only a portion of the rates have been edited: those not in this volume includes those for 1600, 1601, 1603, 1604, 1605 and 1606. There are also two Church Rates; one is located in the diocesan records while the second is part of the parish collection. In total ten rates have been edited for this volume. It appears as though a number of scribes were employed to write the rates. Some 8 per cent of the population contributed to the poor and church rates. The tithe apportionment of 1844 has been used to supply alternative spellings to archaic spellings of places in these rates.

3. Churston Ferrers, Poor Rate, 1599

DHC, 1235A-2/PO1

Note: This rate is part of a damaged volume made up of sheets of paper stitched together to provide unnumbered pages which are approximately 6 inches in width and 15½ in length. The numerals are Roman with the exception of the year. The subsidy of 1581 indicates the Yard family was then the greatest landowner. Of much less consequence was Nicholas Lewes, a mariner who was rated in 1595 for two shillings through his annual property rental of 21 shillings. His details were recorded in a lease for the Westerhouse, a tenement which had a rent of 15s 4d. This included ‘all buildings, stables & bakehouses’, one orchard or ‘apple garden’, a herbgarden, a parcel of land called the hemphay which comprised one acre, a second close of land called the South Down which comprised three acres, a third close of land called the Foordon which was one acre, a fourth close of land called the rewe which comprised three acres and finally four closes of land called the leases which were twelve acres in extent.