EYFORD
Eyford was a small parish of 1,241 a. lying three
miles west of Stow-on-the-Wold and three miles
north-west of Bourton-on-the-Water. In shape it
formed a rough square a mile across with projections
from the south-east and south-west corners. The
boundary between Eyford and Upper Slaughter ran
partly along the Ey (or Slaughter) brook on the east
and along the main road from Stow to Gloucester
(making a detour to the south along the Ride plantation) on the south. (fn. 1) Eyford, which was depopulated
in the 14th century and despite a rise in the number
of inhabitants in the late 18th remained without a
village centre, (fn. 2) was merged in 1935 with the parish
of Upper Slaughter. (fn. 3)
The land lies mainly between the Ey brook on the
east and the River Windrush, which is touched by
the south-western extremity of the parish. (fn. 4) The
Ey brook was widened in two places in the late 19th
century to form ornamental stretches of water. (fn. 5)
Running across the middle of the parish to meet the
valley of the brook is a dry, steep-sided valley, above
which the land rises to over 700 ft. on each side,
forming a wide plateau between the dry valley and
the Ey brook. In the valleys the land falls to 500 ft. (fn. 6)
Most of Eyford lies on the Great Oolite, with
Stonesfield Slate and Fuller's Earth Clay in the
north-west, and Inferior Oolite and Cotswold Sand
along the Ey brook. (fn. 7) In the north-east and on the
western boundary long and round barrows were
visible in 1959, (fn. 8) and others down the eastern
boundary and in the south-west corner were marked
on a map of 1760. (fn. 9) Stone and slate have been quarried since the 16th century. The soil is thin and
stony and for the greater part of its recorded history
most of Eyford has been rough grazing land, being
ploughed only when the demand for arable has been
at its height. (fn. 10) In the south-east, the park made on
the west side of the Ey brook c. 1770 (fn. 11) and woodland
planted apparently as game or hunting covert at
about the same time (fn. 12) occupy much of the land.
The Stow-Gloucester road, a turnpike from 1755
to 1877, (fn. 13) crossed the Ey brook by a ford until 1760 (fn. 14)
or later; the other public road through the parish is
Buckle Street, (fn. 15) which crosses the western boundary
at Salter's Pool, a name indicating, perhaps, the
antiquity of this route. Salter's Pool is one of many
springs in the parish, which include Seven Springs
or Charcoal Springs on the northern boundary, (fn. 16)
Roaring Wells in the middle of the eastern boundary, (fn. 17) and Milton's Well (discussed below) just
above the crossing of the Ey brook. These springs
supply all the water for the parish.
In 1086 21 inhabitants were enumerated (fn. 18) and it
may be presumed that in the early Middle Ages
Eyford had a village. (fn. 19) Its most likely site was by the
ford, from which it apparently took its name, and
certainly the church was there, on the east bank of
the brook: in 1545 the churchyard close marked the
eastern limit of the Eyford sheep-pastures, (fn. 20) and in
1760 an orchard on the east bank, upstream of the
ford, was called Church Orchard. (fn. 21) In the mid-14th
century there were open fields east of the village,
lying on both sides of the road to Stow. (fn. 22) The village
appears to have been largely depopulated between
c. 1300 (fn. 23) and 1327, when there was only one taxpayer, (fn. 24) and the reason was probably that it was no
longer worth cultivating the comparatively barren
uplands. The small value of agricultural produce in
1341 (fn. 25) makes it unlikely that the Black Death or
intentional depopulation after Evesham Abbey
acquired Eyford (fn. 26) was responsible for the decline
of the community.
In 1381 no assessment for poll tax was made for
Eyford, (fn. 27) and from 1376 no tithingman represented
the vill at the hundred court. Although Eyford began
again after 1528 to be represented at the hundred
court (fn. 28) it is unlikely that anyone other than shepherds
lived there. The terms of the appropriation of
Eyford church to Evesham Abbey in 1462 indicate
that there was no need for any spiritual provision in
the parish, (fn. 29) and by 1540 two large sheep-houses
were evidently the only buildings there. (fn. 30)
By 1650 there were two families living in Eyford, (fn. 31)
one in a farm-house near the ford, and one in a millhouse further upstream. (fn. 32) The mill-house may have
been the building described as a ruinous cottage in
1784, when in addition to the farm-house there was
a larger house nearby, (fn. 33) and c. 1775 the population
still comprised two families. (fn. 34)
In the next 25 years, with the conversion of much
of the land from grazing to arable, (fn. 35) and perhaps with
the need for more labour in the ornamental grounds
of Eyford Park and in the quarries, nine new houses
were built, (fn. 36) including Swiss Farm and the six
Eyford Cottages. (fn. 37) The population in the 19th
century fluctuated between 44 and 83 and more
cottages and isolated houses were built, but not to
form any sort of village or hamlet. (fn. 38)
The owners of Eyford appear to have lived there
in the mid-17th century, (fn. 39) at the farm-house mentioned above. The larger house may have been built
for Charles Talbot, Duke of Shrewsbury, who,
though he appears to have owned no land in the
parish, used Eyford as a retreat from his political
activities at the end of the 17th century, and entertained William III there. (fn. 40) The house, described as
a villa in the 19th century, (fn. 41) stood near the ford,
north of the road and west of the stream. The farmhouse was a little west of it, (fn. 42) and around the big
house the grounds were laid out before 1710 as water
gardens and pleasure gardens. (fn. 43) These included a
summer-house over a waterfall, which was ruinous
(whether by design or neglect is uncertain) c. 1775
when the legend was current that Milton wrote part
of Paradise Lost there. Milton's name has been
appropriated to the well nearby, perhaps the
medieval village well, which was restored and embellished in 1866. No evidence or reason for the
Milton legend has been found. (fn. 44) From the later 18th
century the estate was exploited more for its sporting
than for its picturesque characteristics. North-west
of the house was the warren (Warren Beds in the
20th century); in 1760 there was a dog kennel paddock south of the house, (fn. 45) and c. 1800 the owner
kept a pack of hounds and was noted for his
hospitality. (fn. 46)
Soon after 1870 the house by the road, built of
stone with two stories and attics, was replaced by a
new house near the centre of the park, known as
Eyford Park. This house in turn was replaced in
1910 by another on the same site, designed in the
'Queen Anne' style by Sir Guy Dawber, who also
designed (as a farm-house) the house called Eyford
Knoll. In the 1870's the old farm-house was also
removed from the site beside the road, where afterwards only the 19th-century lodge-cottage stood. At
about the same time the house called Rockcliff was
built as a dower house. (fn. 47)
Manor.
Whether or not it is true that Eyford is the
same as the 'Æeoport' confirmed to Gloucester Abbey
in 872, (fn. 48) it was held immediately before the Conquest by Ernesi and in 1086 by Hasculf Musard. (fn. 49)
The manor of EYFORD passed with other of
Hasculf's Gloucestershire land to his great-greatgrandson Robert Musard, (fn. 50) who held one knight's
fee in Eyford in 1235. (fn. 51) By 1264, on the death of
Ralph Musard, brother and heir of Robert, Eyford
may have been separated from the other Musard
estates in Gloucestershire. (fn. 52) In 1273 the patronage of
Eyford church, which later went with the manor,
was exercised by the guardian of Thomas Delamare, (fn. 53)
and in 1303 Eyford was held in chief as 1/5 knight's
fee by Roger Delamare, who was returned as lord of
Eyford in 1316 and who presented to the living in
1321. (fn. 54) By 1327 the estate had probably passed to
Geoffrey Aston, who was the only taxpayer in Eyford
then (fn. 55) and whose sons John and Walter in 1346 held
¼ fee once Roger Delamare's. (fn. 56) The sons, who retained connexions with Aston Somerville, one of the
Musard estates (fn. 57) and the place from which they
apparently took their name, enlarged their inheritance in Eyford, (fn. 58) and in 1370 Walter, who was
Rector of Dumbleton, granted all his family's estates
in Eyford to chaplains acting as agents for Evesham
Abbey, (fn. 59) which was licensed to receive the manor of
Eyford from the chaplains in 1375. (fn. 60) What may have
been either an under-tenancy of this estate or a
sub-division of the original Musard fee was granted
as the manor and advowson of Eyford, by Walter
Beysyn, Kt., to his son John in 1344. (fn. 61) John Beysyn
died in 1360, having granted a life interest in the
manor, which was said to be held of Reynold
Delamare, and leaving as heir a daughter aged five. (fn. 62)
In 1369 an estate described as the manor, apparently
the Beysyns', was conveyed to Roger Charlton, (fn. 63) from
whom Abbot John Ombresley acquired the manor
and advowson for Evesham Abbey before 1380. (fn. 64)
By the time of the Dissolution the abbey owned
apparently all the land in Eyford, which mostly
consisted of c. 1,100 a. of sheep-pasture, and was
kept in hand by the abbot for the support of his
household. (fn. 65) In 1541 Eyford, with other possessions
of the abbey, was leased to Sir Philip Hoby, who
received a grant of the estate in fee in 1545. (fn. 66) Sir
Philip's brother Thomas (d. 1567) (fn. 67) was licensed in
1558 to settle Eyford in trust for his wife Elizabeth, (fn. 68)
who married John Russell, Lord Russell, in 1574
and died in 1609. The manor was settled in 1592 on
Anne, only surviving child of the second marriage,
who in 1600 married Henry Somerset, Lord Herbert
and later Earl and Marquess of Worcester (d. 1646).
The estates of their son and heir Edward were
finally sequestrated in 1649, (fn. 69) but Eyford had been
mortgaged in 1642 to Andrew Wanley, who got
possession in 1651 (fn. 70) and a freehold title in 1654. In
1656 the estate was partitioned between Andrew
Wanley, Valentine Wanley, and Michael Nowell,
but soon afterwards it all reverted to Andrew
Wanley. (fn. 71) He was a London merchant who came
from Basle in Switzerland; he died in 1679 and was
succeeded by his son, another Andrew (d. 1688), who
was in turn succeeded by his son William (d. 1747).
William's son William died in 1762 and in 1766
Eyford was sold to John Dolphin of Shenstone
(Staffs.) (fn. 72) John Dolphin died c. 1770, and Eyford
was owned and occupied successively by his widow, (fn. 73)
his son Thomas Vernon Dolphin, who was sheriff of
Gloucestershire in 1798 (fn. 74) and died in 1803, and his
grandson Vernon Dolphin. (fn. 75)
In 1840, when Vernon Dolphin tried to sell his
interest, (fn. 76) and apparently until 1861, the estate was
involved in suits in Chancery; by 1856 a Frenchman,
General Davesies de Pontes, had acquired it by
marriage with Vernon Dolphin's divorced wife, (fn. 77)
and he devised it before 1870 to Mrs. D'Arcy Irvine.
She sold it in that year to Sir Thomas Bazley, Bt.,
who built the house on the new site and had sold
the estate by 1885 to Joshua Milne Cheetham, (fn. 78)
M.P. (d. 1902). Cheetham was succeeded at Eyford
by his youngest son John Crompton Cheetham, who
sold the land in the western half of the parish and
died at Eyford Park in 1959. His widow died there
in 1961, and was succeeded by J. C. Cheetham's
nephew Nicholas John Cheetham. (fn. 79)
Economic History.
In 1086 Eyford supported seven ploughs, (fn. 80) a fair number for a place of
its size and situation, and by 1220 there were nine
plough-teams. (fn. 81) In 1227 some of the land within the
manor was held freely, (fn. 82) and the number of ordinands from Eyford in the early 14th century (fn. 83) suggests that there was a small group of reasonably
prosperous free tenants. There was also, c. 1300, a
certain amount of bond-land in Eyford. (fn. 84) Presumably the fall in population mentioned above was
responsible for the small value of agricultural produce
in 1341, (fn. 85) but at about the same time land was still
held in comparatively small pieces scattered about
the open fields. These fields may have been confined
to a relatively small area east of the village, the road
to Stow dividing them into two, with most of the
parish used as pasture. (fn. 86) In 1361, when ploughing
animals were still kept there, it seems that tillage in
Eyford had not been entirely abandoned, (fn. 87) but by
1540, and perhaps much earlier, the parish was one
large sheep-pasture. Belonging to the estate were
two pieces of meadow in other parishes which had
presumably been a necessary part of it when it
included arable. (fn. 88)
Eyford appears to have continued to be used
largely as a sheep-pasture up to the 17th century, (fn. 89)
and in 1760, when the southern two-thirds of the
parish had been divided into medium-sized fields,
apparently for ploughing, the names of the fields
suggest that most of them had until recently been
uninclosed land, either pasture or park-land and
warren. Brockhill Barn in the south-west corner of
the parish, which existed in 1760, (fn. 90) may mark the
site of the western sheep-house of 1545, (fn. 91) but it may
also or alternatively be the first of two outlying barns
(the other was New Barn, built by 1824) (fn. 92) that
marked the change from grazing to tillage. By the
mid-19th century about two-thirds of the farm-land,
and over half the parish, was arable, (fn. 93) but the general
movement of the late 19th century and early 20th
away from arable was so marked in Eyford that in
the thirties there was almost no ploughed land
there. (fn. 94) In 1962 permanent and temporary grassland still predominated over plough, although, in
addition to the raising of beef cattle and some sheep,
barley, wheat, and Brussels sprouts were being
grown.
From the end of the Middle Ages until the mid19th century Eyford was not only a single estate but
also, it seems, a single farming unit. (fn. 95) By 1863
Eyford Hill farm, centred on a house described then
as new and built near the New Barn, was a separate
farming unit, as was Brockhill farm which lay partly
in Naunton. (fn. 96) By 1870 Park farm had also been
separated from the home farm, (fn. 97) and in 1961
the land was mainly divided between three large
farms. (fn. 98)
While the thin soil of Eyford did not, until the use
of modern fertilizers, yield much agricultural produce the stone beneath it has long been valued. In
1542 a slate 'foss' and a stone quarry (described in
1545 as two quarries called slate-pits), which
apparently lay in the north-west corner of Eyford,
were held by a tenant as copyhold of Bourton
manor. (fn. 99) Quarries in the north-west corner were
being used in 1760, (fn. 100) and either these or others near
Brockhill Barn were in use in 1822. (fn. 101) In the late 19th
century many quarries were open, (fn. 102) extensive slatepits were in use until the Second World War, (fn. 103) and
in 1962 the active workings of Huntsman's Stone
Quarries, which were mainly in Naunton, extended
into Eyford.
Mill.
Although there was apparently no mill in
the parish in 1540, (fn. 104) there was a woad-mill on the Ey
brook, upstream of the ford, by 1656. (fn. 105) No later record
of this mill has been found.
Local Government.
Because there was no
church, Eyford was often described in the 18th
century as extra-parochial, (fn. 106) though in fact it not only
was a parish but had a rudimentary organization for
parish government. In 1727 and 1737 the lord of the
manor and the occupant of the farm-house were
acting as overseers; in 1748 the lord of the manor
acknowledged that as sole landowner he was liable
to maintain the poor of the parish, and on his
instructions his tenant at the farm-house did relieve
paupers having settlement in Eyford until c. 1770.
From then until 1782 there was no one qualified to
serve as overseer, the only two householders in the
parish being women, (fn. 107) but in 1784 Quarter Sessions
decided that Eyford was a vill by repute and must
find overseers. (fn. 108) No rates were levied in 1776 or
1783–5, but in 1803 there was a rate nearly up to the
average for the area and the £62 it produced were
spent entirely on the poor. (fn. 109) The amount spent on
the poor was as high in 1814 and 1815, (fn. 110) but was
much lower in the twenties and early thirties. (fn. 111) In
the mid-17th century there was apparently no
constable, (fn. 112) but a hundred years later militia returns
were submitted by a man who signed them as
constable. (fn. 113)
Eyford was included in the Stow-on-the-Wold
Poor Law Union under the Act of 1834, (fn. 114) the Stowon-the-Wold highway district in 1863, (fn. 115) and the
Stow-on-the-Wold Rural Sanitary District under the
Local Government Act of 1872. (fn. 116) By its amalgamation with the civil parish of Upper Slaughter in 1935
Eyford came under the control of a parish council
for the first time.
Church.
There was a church at Eyford by 1273
when the first of a series of nine recorded rectors
was presented. (fn. 117) The patronage passed with the
manor to Evesham Abbey (fn. 118) which in 1462, when
the rectory was vacant and the last known presentation had been made in 1432, (fn. 119) appropriated the
church. The endowments, which did not produce
an annual income large enough to be assessed for
tax in 1291 or 1341, (fn. 120) were to be used to maintain
a grammar-master at Evesham Abbey. Pensions of
1s., 8d., and 8d. were reserved to the bishop, the
prior and convent of Worcester, and the archdeacon,
but no mention was made of providing for a parish
priest. (fn. 121) The benefice became merged in the manorial
estate, the church was allowed to decay, and the
churchyard was used as a close in the 16th century; (fn. 122)
it was afterwards believed that Eyford church had
been a chapel of ease of Upper Slaughter that had
been demolished. (fn. 123)
Nonconformity.
'Old Nelly', reputed to have
walked regularly from her home in Eyford to
Winchcombe to hear Methodist preachers, is
credited with having persuaded them to visit Stowon-the-Woid (fn. 124) and found a community there in the
early 19th century. (fn. 125)
School.
None known.
Charities.
None known.