DUNWORTH HUNDRED
Dunworth was a compact hundred in the Vale of Wardour in the south-west
corner of Wiltshire. In the Middle Ages more than half its land belonged to
the abbey of Shaftesbury (Dors.), but its components were united by geography and proximity to each other rather than by tenure. The hundred
would have been more regular and even more compact but for the omission from it of
Semley and Fonthill Bishop which intrude into it. Fonthill Bishop, which was part of
the hundred in 1084, belonged to the bishop of Winchester and became part of a
liberty of the bishop, (fn. 1) and Semley belonged to Wilton abbey and was part of the abbey's
private hundred of Chalke. (fn. 2) Chilmark, however, another estate of the abbey, remained
part of Dunworth hundred. Apart from Fonthill Bishop, in 1084 Dunworth hundred
included estates called Ansty, Chilmark, Donhead, Fonthill, Swallowcliffe, Teffont,
Tisbury, and probably Wardour. (fn. 3) The Donhead estate included detached land later
called Easton Bassett, and the Tisbury estate probably included what became the
parishes of Berwick St. Leonard, Chicklade, and Sedgehill. By the 13th century the
Donhead estate had been divided into the parishes of Donhead St. Andrew and
Donhead St. Mary, and Berwick St. Leonard and Chicklade had become parishes.
Sedgehill tithing, which was a detached chapelry of Berwick St. Leonard until the
19th century, relieved its own poor, and its history is recorded below under its own
rubric. In 1831 Dunworth hundred consisted of 11 parishes, Ansty, Berwick St.
Leonard, Chicklade, Chilmark, Donhead St. Andrew, Donhead St. Mary, Fonthill
Gifford, Sedgehill, Swallowcliffe, Teffont Evias, and Tisbury. Chilmark was divided
into the tithings of Chilmark and Ridge; Donhead St. Andrew and Donhead St. Mary
between them included the tithings of Charlton, Dognell, Haystone, and Winsford;
and Tisbury was divided into the tithings of Chicksgrove, Hatch, Staple, and
Tisbury.
Dunworth Hundred c. 1841
Most of the land of the hundred is in the Nadder valley. The chalk downlands of
Great Ridge and White Sheet Hill are to the north and south, east—west ridges of
greensand are respectively south and north of them, and in the east part of the hundred
Portland Beds outcrop. The parishes of the hundred have been almost exclusively
agricultural: to the north and south the chalk has favoured sheep-and-corn husbandry,
open fields, and common pastures; in the centre, where dairying was important in
some parishes in the early 13th century, farming has been more mixed and inclosure
was earlier. In the 19th century a railway increased the importance of dairy farming,
and in the later 20th century arable and dairy farming predominated in most of the
parishes. The greensand ridges have remained well wooded and commercial forestry
continues. The hundred was remarkable for the amount of it imparked: in Fonthill
Gifford, Tisbury, Donhead St. Andrew, and Donhead St. Mary the undulating
countryside of pastures broken by thickly wooded ridges has been used for sometimes
extensive parks from the 13th century to the 20th, and some of the houses in them,
Fonthill Abbey, a succession called Fonthill House, the medieval Wardour castle and
the new Wardour Castle, Pythouse, Donhead House, Donhead Hall, and Coombe
House, have been architecturally ambitious.
The main line of communication across the hundred, taken by the two main LondonExeter roads and a main London—Exeter railway line, is north-east and south-west.
Hill forts in Tisbury, Donhead St. Mary, and Easton Bassett, and settlement sites on
the downs in Swallowcliffe and Chicklade, suggest that the land may have been continuously settled from the Iron Age. Apart from Donhead St. Mary, where the church
is on high ground near the course of a Roman road, and Chicklade, which is in a valley
now dry, all the villages and nearly all the hamlets of the hundred are beside tributaries
of the Nadder which converge on Tisbury, the largest parish and most populous
village in the hundred. Besides their sites and their likely Saxon origins, a feature of
most of the villages is the use of good quality local stone in their buildings: Portland
stone was extensively quarried and mined in Chilmark, Teffont Evias, and Tisbury,
and in the south-west part of the hundred ashlared greensand was much used. Of the
non-agricultural trades in the villages a few expanded in Tisbury in the 19th century,
including shoemaking, brewing, and the making of machines for agriculture, but only
the last of those flourished in the later 20th century. Especially in the 19th century
many new farmsteads were built away from the village centres, and in 1985 most of
the villages were primarily residential.
Although Shaftesbury abbey owned most land in it in the Middle Ages, Dunworth
was, and remained in the 17th century, a royal hundred. (fn. 4) In 1651 it was sold by the
state to John Bradshaw, (fn. 5) the regicide, who held Fonthill Gifford manor from c. 1645
until his death in 1659. (fn. 6) Bradshaw was attainted posthumously in 1660, (fn. 7) and a devise
of Dunworth hundred to his brother Henry was ineffective. (fn. 8) From the Restoration the
hundred apparently descended with Fonthill Gifford manor. (fn. 9)
In 1255 the sheriff took £7 7s. for cert money and tithing penny at his half-yearly
tourns; (fn. 10) the hundred was said in 1275 and 1281 to be worth £5 yearly to the king; (fn. 11)
and the sheriff received a total of £6 at the Martinmas and Hocktide tourns in 1291–2. (fn. 12)
Dunworth hundred was leased for £7 yearly c. 1537, (fn. 13) and in 1635–6 the sheriff
accounted for £7 7s. 5d. from it. (fn. 14) Cert money of £5 and £2 14s., paid on 29 September
and 25 March respectively, and fines of £6 13s. 4d. were taken from the hundred
c. 1651. (fn. 15)
Most hundred courts possibly met in Tisbury parish. The earliest meeting place,
which bears the name of the hundred, was presumably on the west side of the TisburyAnsty road south of Tisbury village where Dunworth Cottage and Dunworth Copse
are so called. The name Spilsbury, in use c. 1333 and later applied to hamlets beside
the road from Place Farm in Tisbury to Ansty, possibly refers to the holding of such
courts. (fn. 16) The under-sheriff c. 1269 attempted to change the meeting place to Rockley
in Ogbourne St. Andrew and fined four or more jurors £1 each for not attending. (fn. 17) In
1439 the tourn held in Staple tithing was possibly at its customary place. (fn. 18) In the 17th
century courts were held in the church house at Tisbury, except in the period 1651–9,
during Bradshaw's ownership, when they were held at Fonthill House in Fonthill
Gifford. (fn. 19)
In 1255 the same bailiff served the hundred of Dunworth and the hundreds of
Branch and Dole (fn. 20) north-east of it. That practice had ceased before 1280, when the
king appointed a separate bailiff for Dunworth. (fn. 21) A later bailiff, William Holbeam,
may also have been an unofficial itinerant bailiff because he delivered writs outside the
hundred. The sheriff sued him in 1465 on a plea that he should render a reasonable
account for the hundred during his period of office. (fn. 22) In 1583 the bailiff was fined for
not attending quarter sessions regularly. The elections of the two constables of the
hundred were presented at quarter sessions from the later 16th century. (fn. 23) In the mid
17th century, besides the two constables, there were a steward, whose task was to
require tithingmen to summon hundred jurors, and two affeerors, who assessed
amercements and fines imposed by the hundred courts. (fn. 24)
From the early 12th century the abbess of Shaftesbury was free within Donhead
manor of pleas of shire and hundred, although not of fines for murdrum and the escape
of thieves. (fn. 25) She exercised her liberties in half-yearly views of frankpledge held in
Donhead St. Mary in 1287 and later. (fn. 26) In 1277 she was licensed to send attorneys as
suitors at the hundred for her other lands in it. (fn. 27) The master of the hospital of St.
John of Jerusalem in England had withdrawn the suit of his tenants in Ansty by 1268, (fn. 28)
probably in accordance with a general freedom from Crown pleas granted to the
Hospitallers in 1199. (fn. 29) The withdrawal of the suit of some of the men of Teffont Evias
by Thomas Kellaway c. 1262 was unauthorized (fn. 30) and the whole of Teffont Evias
tithing again followed the hundred in 1289. (fn. 31) In 1283 view of frankpledge for West
Hatch manor in Tisbury was committed during pleasure to Eustace of Hatch, (fn. 32) who
in 1289 also claimed assize of bread and of ale, infangthief, and gallows in the manor. (fn. 33)
The liberty and claims apparently lapsed and the men of West Hatch were presumably
again represented by the tithingmen of Hatch at later tourns. (fn. 34) Liberties in Swallowcliffe granted in 1339 to Thomas West were apparently never exercised. (fn. 35)
Although no record survives to illustrate the business of the three-weekly hundred
court, a description of its procedure c. 1651 shows it to have conformed to the normal
pattern. It tried actions under 40s., and at it tithingmen and officers of the hundred
were elected, the jurors presented public nuisances, and the tithingmen presented and
accounted for waifs, strays, and deodands. The sheriff's tourns and courts leet were
held half-yearly in spring and autumn. (fn. 36) Proceedings which survive for the Hocktide
tourns in 1439 and 1502 record the payment of cert money and show the most usual
presentments to have been of millers who overcharged and of roads and watercourses
which needed repair. An inhabitant of Staple tithing was presented in 1439 as a nightwalker and disturber of the peace, and in 1502 the tithingman of Teffont Evias was
himself presented for not carrying a staff as precedent required. (fn. 37)