THE HUNDRED OF CRONDALL
containing the parishes of
Aldershot; Crondall, with the Tithings of Ewshott,
Dippenhall, Crondall, Swanthorpe, and
Crookham;
Farnborough; Long Sutton; Yateley, with the Tithings of Cove and
Hawley (fn. 1)
Under Crondall Hundred, in Domesday Book, are entries relating to
Crondall, Itchel (in Crondall), Cove (in Yateley), Badley (now Clare Park),
Long Sutton, and Farnborough; (fn. 2) and as the whole of Aldershot and the
greater part of Yateley were then included in Crondall, it appears that the
extent of the hundred was practically the same in 1086 as in 1831. Minley
in Yateley, however, was in Holdshot Hundred, (fn. 3) and continued to form part
of it for many centuries. (fn. 3a)
The Bishop of Winchester in
1086 held the whole hundred, and it
is stated to have always belonged to
the Church. (fn. 4)
Index Map to the Hundred of Crondall
There were 50 hides in the
time of Edward the Confessor, but
from that period until 1086 the
Church only paid geld for 40 hides. (fn. 5)
The descent of the hundred is
identical with that of the manor of
Crondall (q.v.).
Although the Bishop of Winchester's rights over Crondall had
been defined in 1283–4, (fn. 6) the struggle
between the bishop and the prior
and convent as to the court to which
the Hampshire tithings owed suit—to Blackheathfield in Farnham or to
Crondall—only came to an end in 1398, when it was decreed that all the
free tenants of Crondall, with all the tithing-men of the towns, villages,
and hamlets of the entire manor and lordship of Crondall, together with
four men of each tithing, were bound to pay two suits yearly at the
bishop's court at Blackheathfield. (fn. 7)
This shows that the men of Crondall were subjected to the hardship of
paying suit at two hundred courts, for they not only presented at the tourn of
Farnham Blackheath, but also at the Crondall Hundred tourn. (fn. 8) Since 1831
the following parishes have been formed:—Cove, in 1838, from the parish of
Yateley; Crookham, in 1842, from Crondall parish; Ewshott, in 1886,
from the parishes of Crondall and Crookham; Fleet, in 1863, from the
parishes of Crondall, Elvetham, and Yateley; Hawley, in 1838, from Yateley;
and Minley, in 1871, from Yateley.