BARLICHWAY HUNDRED
The present Hundred of Barlichway comprises the earlier Hundreds
of 'Fernecumbe' and 'Patelau', together with the parishes of Tanworth, Packwood, and Lapworth which, until 1833, (fn. 1) formed a
detached part of Kington Hundred. Its boundaries on the west and
south are the same as those of the county, on the north is the Hundred of
Hemlingford, and on the east are the Hundreds of Knightlow and Kington.
The earliest known reference to the hundred under the name of Barlichway
is in the year 1175. (fn. 2) At that time it appears to have been identical with the
earlier Hundred of 'Fernecumbe', and the Hundred of 'Patelau' or Pathlow was
still independent of it. Its name is derived from Barlichway Greve, where the
hundred court held its meetings. This was described by Sir Simon Archer in
1640 (fn. 3) as 'a place about eight yards square inclosed with a hedge and ditch
uppon the topp of a hill about the midway betweene Haselor and Binton beinge
about a mile from eche of these townes, and about halfe a mile from Temple
Grafton, and is (as it is said) in the very place where these three parishes point'.
On earlier maps of the county Barlichway, as the name of a place, does not
appear, and Archer wrote with regard to it 'there is noe such place now knowne
as Barlichway', but on the 1-in. Ordnance Survey map published in 1831 it is
shown near Temple Grafton, and the name exists in a corrupted form in
'Barley Leys Farm'. (fn. 4)
The jurisdiction of the court held at Barlichway Greve was over the eastern
and central parts of the hundred; for the rest of the hundred, and particularly
for that part of it which lay between the Arrow and the county boundary,
another court was held at Bredon Cross. This cross is said by Archer to have
been 'in the parish of Ipsley at the very confines thereof neere to Redditch
in the parish of Terdebigg in the countie of Worcester', and the only part
of it remaining in his time was 'a great stone which was the bottome thereof
with a square hole in it where the shaft stood'. The exact situation of this
cross is not known, but it was probably near Bredon Pool, shown on Henry
Beighton's Map of Warwickshire Surveyed in the Years 1722, 1723, 1724, 1725. (fn. 5)
As far as is known Barlichway Hundred never passed out of the possession
of the Crown, but in course of time the administrative duties performed by its
court were taken over by other agencies. The court lived on, however, and in
Archer's time, although no one attended it except its officers and it was, as he
expressed it, 'almost lost', it still met at Barlichway Greve on the Wednesdays
after Easter and Michaelmas, and at Bredon Cross three days later. The date
when it finally ceased to meet has not been recorded.
In addition to these two courts for that part of Barlichway Hundred which
corresponded to the Domesday Hundred of 'Fernecumbe' there was another
court for the part of it corresponding to the Domesday Hundred of 'Patelau',
where, at the time of the Domesday Survey, the largest landowner in this
Hundred of 'Patelau' was the Bishop of Worcester, and the lordship of Pathlow Hundred was claimed by his successors. (fn. 6) In 1285 this claim of the bishops
was contested by the Crown, (fn. 7) but it was then proved that the hundred had been
held by them for time out of mind, and it remained in their possession until
1549. In that year it was granted by Nicholas Heath, the then bishop, to John
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, in exchange for certain estates in Worcestershire,
and on his attainder in 1554 it escheated to the Crown. It was next granted
in 1561 by Queen Elizabeth to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, on whose
death without heirs in 1590 it again returned to the Crown and was granted
by James I to Sir Francis Smyth of Wootton Wawen, in whose family it afterwards remained. (fn. 8)
Possibly because this hundred was almost continuously in private hands it
retained a certain measure of independence long after it had become a part of
Barlichway Hundred, and, as the Liberty of Pathlow, it had its own court as
late as the middle of the 17th century. The townships which owed suit to this
court were Alveston, Clopton, Fulbrook, Hatton, Luddington, Shottery,
Ullenhall, Bishopton, Ruin Clifford, Henley-in-Arden, Loxley, Tiddington,
Wilmcote parva, Bridgetown, Drayton, Hampton Lucy, Ingon, Old Stratford,
Wootton Wawen, and Welcombe; and the boundaries of the liberty are shown
on the map of Barlichway Hundred in the 1656 edition of Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, and on the map of Warwickshire in Richard Blome's
Britannia published in 1673.
The meeting-place of the liberty was probably the same as the meetingplace of the hundred in Domesday times. Archer describes it as being
'in a lanes end, uppon the topp of a hill neere a gate entringe into grounds in the parish of Snitterfield,
without which gate in the lane's end three townshipps point, viz. Snitterfield, Aston Cantloe, and
Bishopton in the parish of Ould Stratford. And by all probability the place where the Court hath ben
usually kept is neere that very point (if it cann be certainly knowne). Butt now the very place is
uncertaine, and noe constant place kept, for the lane is a broade lane with quicksett hedges on ech side,
and a quicksett hedge crossinge the upper end through which the gate goeth. And the Court is kept
alwayes within lesse than a stone's cast of the gate, sometime under one hedge and sometime under
another, according as the wind and the weather falleth outt, there beinge a little pitt on the one side
of the lane which is good shelter sometimes, but noe banck like a wyndmill banck, butt the ground by
nature riseth suddenly about that place, the highway beinge a litle hollowe and greene bancks on both
sides.'
From this detailed description it is possible to identify the meeting-place of the
liberty as being near Gospel Oak (fn. 9) in the lane leading to Snitterfield from the
Stratford-Henley road.
When Archer wrote in 1640 a court was still held at Pathlow, at the place
he describes, at Easter and at Michaelmas, but many of the townships within
the liberty no longer sent representatives to it. The lord of the liberty at that
time was Sir Charles Smyth of Wootton Wawen, who derived little benefit from
its possession, for, as Archer remarks, 'the tennements are almost all lost for want
of dilligent looking after, houlding in soccage by suit of Court only, and soe
yeeld noe profitt to the Lord'; at assizes and sessions the liberty was no longer
represented by its own bailiff but by the bailiff of Barlichway Hundred; and
as an independent liberty within the Hundred of Barlichway, Pathlow not long
afterwards ceased to exist.