Henry Neville, John Bromley, and the Wokingham–Sonning bridge charge, 1610

The document

Royal Berkshire Archives D/EN/O12/53, headed “The Charge,” records £60 received by Sir Henry Neville for bridge works at Wokingham and elsewhere within the manor of Sonning. The warrant was dated 1 September 1610; the charge entry itself was made on 6 September.

Public catalogue: Royal Berkshire Archives, D/EN/O12/53.

The controlled Latin reads:

Henricus Nevill miles p[er] denar[ios] p[er] ipsum rec[eptos] anno

comp[ut]i de fabrica diu[er]s[orum] pontium apud Wokingham et alibi

infra maner[ium] de Sonninge …

and continues:

virtute warr[anti] dat[i] pri[mo] die Septembris anno d[omi]ni 1610

p[ro] quibus est computand[um]

The right margin gives the amount:

lx li

The final note reads:

fact[um] sexto die Septembris

In English:

Henry Neville, knight, [is charged] for money received by him in the

accounting year for the works of various bridges at Wokingham and elsewhere

within the manor of Sonning, by virtue of a warrant dated 1 September 1610,

for which an account is to be rendered: £60. Done 6 September.

The compressed phrase rendered de fabrica diu[er]s[orum] pontium remains bracketed at contraction level, but the document's operative facts do not depend on supplying every hidden letter: Neville, Wokingham, Sonning, the warrant date, accounting obligation and £60 are all visible, and the archive independently describes the item as his receipt of £60 for repairing bridges.

The accounting formula

p[er] denar[ios] p[er] ipsum rec[eptos]

—money received by him.

Neville's stewardship is independently established elsewhere in the Sonning papers and is explicitly supplied by the catalogue description of the related account. D/EN/O12/53 itself documents Neville personally answerable for a defined public-works sum.

The date also has two stages. The authorization was dated 1 September; the charge was made 6 September. Treating both as one 6 September date obscured the administrative sequence from warrant to receipt and reckoning.

The later account: £60 6s. 8d.

The archive explicitly links D/EN/O12/53 to D/EN/O12/54. The latter is catalogued as a November 1625 account of £60 6s. 8d. received by Sir Henry Neville in 1610:

• for rebuilding decayed bridges and pounds;
• in Wokingham and elsewhere in the manor of Sonning;
• while Neville was steward of the manor.

The two records must remain distinct. The September slip charges £60. The 1625 account has £60 6s. 8d. and a fuller description, including pounds. The extra 6s. 8d. may represent a fee, supplement, adjustment or item outside the round sum, but the catalogue alone does not resolve the arithmetic. Imaging D/EN/O12/54 is now a high-value retrieval because it may name individual bridges, pounds, workmen, materials, warrants and payments.

The 1625 date is itself revealing. Neville died in 1615, as the archive notes, yet the account was still being stated or copied ten years later. The surviving pair therefore connects a current 1610 charge with a later effort to settle or preserve the financial record.

Infrastructure inside manorial government

This packet broadens the meaning of Neville's Sonning stewardship. Other papers show him handling:

• copyhold disputes and attempted surrenders;
• timber warrants for royal parks;
• surveys of Sonning and Bray;
• copyhold fines and Crown profit;
• possible sale, mortgage and entail problems;
• small Crown leases and gatehouse property.

D/EN/O12/53 adds physical infrastructure. Neville was not merely consulted on legal title or valuation. Money passed through his hands for works at Wokingham and elsewhere across the manor, under a dated warrant and subject to an account.

The phrase et alibi infra manerium de Sonninge is especially useful. It makes the works a distributed programme rather than a single unnamed Wokingham bridge. The later account's reference to both bridges and pounds suggests maintenance of the manor's transport and animal-control infrastructure.

Public bridges and a manor-specific account

The national statutory background should be kept alongside, but not confused with, this manorial payment. The Bridges Act of 1530, 22 Henry VIII c.5, provided machinery for repairing decayed public bridges and charging the relevant county, riding, city or corporate town where no other responsible party could be identified. A public text is available as the Bridges Act 1530.

The Sonning slip is narrower and more local. It names a royal-manor officer, a specific warrant, a round sum and bridges at Wokingham and elsewhere within the manor. It should not automatically be called a county assessment under the 1530 statute. Instead, it opens a research problem: were these bridges a customary manorial liability, Crown-estate works, works financed from manor revenues, or a local execution of a wider statutory obligation?

That question can be answered by locating the 1 September warrant and the 1625 account, then comparing them with Berkshire quarter-session bridge orders and Sonning manor accounts.

Position in the 1607–10 Sonning sequence

The charge falls at the end of an unusually coherent run:

This chronology suggests continuity through a change in the manor's royal destination. The 1607–08 papers concern Crown sale, mortgage, survey and profit. By September 1610, after the manor's grant to Prince Henry, Neville is still operating inside its financial machinery. The source does not itself state whether the warrant ran in the King's name, the prince's name or through another accounting office, which makes recovery of the warrant important.

Prince Henry had been formally created Prince of Wales on 4 June 1610, independently recorded by the Royal Family's titles chronology. The bridge charge followed three months later.

Research programme opened by this packet

1. Obtain D/EN/O12/54 and transcribe every named work, place, person and sum.
2. Search the remaining D/EN/O12 sequence for the warrant dated 1 September

1610.

3. Search Berkshire quarter sessions for Wokingham and Sonning bridge orders,

presentments, assessments and contractor payments around 1609–12.

4. Search Sonning court rolls and accounts for pounds, bridge timber, carriage,

stone, labour and customary repair duties.

5. Compare Prince Henry's estate and receiver accounts after the 1610 grant.
6. Map candidate bridges within the historical manor rather than assuming the

item concerns only the major Thames crossing at Sonning.

Public sources

• Royal Berkshire Archives, D/EN/O12/53
• Royal Berkshire Archives, D/EN/O12/54
• Victoria County History of Berkshire, vol. 3, “Sonning”
• The National Archives, “Manors and manorial records”
• Bridges Act 1530, 22 Henry VIII c.5
• The Royal Family, “Titles and Heraldry”