HYDES PASTURES
This small tract of land, containing 426 acres, on
the Warwickshire side of the Watling Street is part
of the Leicestershire parish of Hinckley and is now
included in that county. There was originally a chapel
and a small settlement here, (fn. 1) but Dugdale writes of it
as depopulated, and Dr. Thomas (c. 1730) records that
there was only one house, 'near which are yet to be
seen the Vestigia of this depopulated village'. (fn. 2) In 1271
a half-fee in Hyde, Nuneaton, and Sapcote was held
of the honor of Winchester by Thomas le Mareschal. (fn. 3)
On the partition of that honor after the death of Roger
de Quincy, Earl of Winchester, this half-fee passed to
his eldest daughter Margaret, wife of Sir William
Ferrers of Groby, of whose grandson Henry it was held
in 1344 by William le Mareschal. (fn. 4) The overlordship
of the half-fee, henceforth said to be in Hyde and
Nuneaton (only), descended with the Lords Ferrers of
Groby, (fn. 5) coming to the Marquess of Dorset by 1513 (fn. 6)
and being held of the king as of the honor of Winchester
in 1609. (fn. 7)
The Mareschal interest appears to go back to the
12th century, as in 1202 William Mareschal and Ralph
Mallore and Liecia his wife conveyed 2 virgates in
Hyde to Richard son of Robert. (fn. 8) Thomas, as already
mentioned, held the half-fee in 1271, as did William
le Mareschal in 1344, (fn. 9) and the heirs of Thomas in
1371. (fn. 10) The heirs, or at least successors, of the
Mareschals were presumably the Bassets of Sapcote,
as the tenants of the half-fee in 1388 were said to be
Richard Grey of Codnor and Sir Laurence Dutton, (fn. 11)
who had married respectively Elizabeth and Alice, the
daughters and coheirs of the last Lord Basset of Sapcote. (fn. 12) Alice had previously been married to Sir Robert
Moton of Peckleton, (fn. 13) and his son Sir William Moton
held land in Hyde when he died in 1392. (fn. 14)
In 1457 John Mareschal, probably a member of a
branch of the family who had held the half-fee, granted
to John Brome the reversion after his death of 5 virgates,
80 acres of meadow, and 20 acres of pasture in Hyde. (fn. 15)
In 1505 John Brome conveyed the manor of Hyde to
John Leek, Richard Astell, and Richard Wightman. (fn. 16)
The shares of Leek and Astell were bought by Henry
Smyth, who died in 1514, and two-thirds of the manor
descended with Sherford in Burton Hastings (q.v.) to
his son Sir Walter and grandson Richard, and then to
the Littletons and Heles. Early in the 18th century
this estate seems to have become divided between three
coheiresses. (fn. 17) The Wightman share advanced no claims
to be manorial and appears simply as tenements in
Hyde at the death of Thomas Wightman in 1550. (fn. 18)
A later Thomas married Dorothy Crofts, one coheir
of the Moton and Basset interest, (fn. 19) and was apparently
farming the land of the two-thirds manor when
Nicholas Hele died in 1641. (fn. 20)
William Boteler and William Babington had licence
in 1413 to alienate to Arbury Priory lands in various
places including Hyde. (fn. 21) That priory had 13s. 4d.
from rents of pasture in Hyde in 1535. (fn. 22)