THE HUNDRED OF WESTMINSTER (Upper Division)
The hundred of Westminster originated as the estates of Westminster Abbey
within Deerhurst hundred. Deerhurst hundred in 1086 comprised 119 hides
lying partly in a coherent area on either side of the river near Deerhurst and
partly as isolated estates in the north-east part of the county, and presumably
constituted the possessions of the former monastery at Deerhurst. When Edward the
Confessor divided those possessions between the abbeys of St. Denis in Paris and St.
Peter in Westminster, (fn. 1) Westminster Abbey got the whole of Bourton-on-the-Hill,
Corse, (fn. 2) Elmstone, Hardwicke, (fn. 3) Hasfield, Moreton-in-Marsh, Sutton-under-Brailes, and
Todenham, and part of Boddington, Deerhurst, Kemerton, Leigh, and Tirley. (fn. 4) The
remainder of Boddington, and a second part of Kemerton, had become attached to
Tewkesbury manor; (fn. 5) a third part of Kemerton, and the remaining parts of Deerhurst,
Leigh, and Tirley, belonged to St. Denis. (fn. 6)
The 119 hides listed in Domesday as making up Deerhurst hundred together with the
3 hides in Boddington and the 8 hides in Kemerton that had become attached to Tewkesbury manor make a total of 130 hides, while the 4 hides in Ashton under Hill and 2¾ in
Stoke Orchard that were similarly attached to Tewkesbury manor make with the 64
hides listed as Tibblestone hundred (in which the rest of Ashton under Hill and Stoke
Orchard lay) (fn. 7) a total of 70¾. This suggests that Tibblestone hundred, later to be split
into the hundreds of Tibblestone and Cleeve, was what remained of a double hundred of
fractionally over 200 hides after the possessions of the monastery at Deerhurst had been
subtracted.
Westminster Abbey's part of Deerhurst hundred, which may have been separately
administered from the mid-11th century, was not named as a separate hundred in the
12th-century Pipe Rolls, (fn. 8) and in 1276, though distinguished as a liberty, was not explicitly called a hundred. (fn. 9) Westminster hundred occurs by that name in 1303. (fn. 10)
While the hundred was a fragment of a larger one, some of its constituent parts were
fragments of townships and may have originated in the division of single estates. Westminster Abbey's parts of the places named in Domesday as divided between the abbey
and other tenants in chief can be identified in later sources: Hayden and Withy Bridge in
Boddington; (fn. 11) Wightfield and Apperley and part of Deerhurst Walton in Deerhurst; (fn. 12)
in Leigh, Evington; and in Tirley, Tirley Rye. (fn. 13) Between 1086 and 1327 Kemerton came
wholly within Tewkesbury hundred, (fn. 14) and part of Bourton-on-the-Hill was transferred
to Tewkesbury hundred apparently in the late 11th century. (fn. 15) After 1327 there was no
change in the make-up of Westminster hundred until 1844, when Sutton-under-Brailes
was transferred to Warwickshire. (fn. 16)
The hundred of Westminster (upper division), 1845
The hundred continued to belong to Westminster Abbey, which held a twice-yearly
court leet at Plaistow in Deerhurst, of which rolls survive, with large gaps, for the period
c. 1386–1786. (fn. 17) The abbey's tenants in Moreton-in-Marsh, Bourton-on-the-Hill,
Todenham, and Sutton-under-Brailes did not attend this court; view of frankpledge for
them was at Moreton-in-Marsh. (fn. 18)
This separation was reflected, by the early 18th century, in the partition of the hundred
between upper and lower divisions: in 1716 there was a separate high constable for each, (fn. 19)
and the divisions were also separate fiscal (fn. 20) and censal units. (fn. 21) The histories of the
parishes in the lower division are not included in the present volume. Of the parishes in
the upper division, the history of Sutton-under-Brailes is contained in a volume on
Warwickshire, (fn. 22) and that of Bourton-on-the-Hill in the present volume (fn. 23) as part of
Tewkesbury hundred.