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Lundwood: Neville's 1595 Lease, Woodland Economy, and Beaumont's Mineral Sample, 1595-1609

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Topic: Lundwood — Lease, Woodland Economy, and a Mineral Sample, 1595-1609

Source-Control Summary

A newly controlled Royal Berkshire Archives letter and an independent Yorkshire deed catalogue make it possible to reconstruct a distinct history for the wood called Lundwood. This history must be kept separate from the sale of Lund's tenements and manor because Neville had already leased the woods before the better-known 1596–1601 sale sequence.

The documentary sequence is:

  1. On 20 November 1595, Henry Neville leased the woods called `Lundwoode in

    2. the Lordship of Lund` to Francis Clifford for fifteen years at 100 marks a year.

  2. On 25 July 1596, Neville offered Lund tenements and cottages to their

    3. tenants for £1,600, but the controlled letter does not present Lundwood as part of that tenant offer.

  3. Neville's 20 July 1601 estate statement says that he sold part of Lund on

    4. his first going to France for £2,400 and the remainder after his return for £1,000. Those sales did not necessarily extinguish the earlier term in the separately leased woods.

  4. On 4 May 1608, Francis Earl of Cumberland assigned the remainder of the

    5. fifteen-year Lundwood term to Sir Ralph Coningsby and Sir John Boteler in trust for Griselda Countess of Cumberland.

  5. On 9 March 1608 Old Style, or 9 March 1609 in modern reckoning, Richard

    6. Beaumont wrote from Whitley to Sir Henry Neville. He reported the depleted state and low valuation of Lundwood, said buyers doubted that it could be freed from Lord Eure, and sent Neville a stone or rather a mynerall gotten att Lund.

The letter therefore documents Neville receiving technical estate intelligence about a former northern property eight years after his statement that Lund had been sold. The 1595 lease and 1608 assignment explain how a surviving wood term could outlast the manor sale. Lord Eure's separate interest is not yet explained.

I. Archival Placement and Date

The letter is physically numbered D/EN/F6/5/7. The Royal Berkshire Archives public catalogue exposes only the parent file, D/EN/F6/5, described as seven papers about the Lund estate and dated 1598–1606. The child letter's address leaf bears /7, and its contemporary date is later than the catalogue range.

Beaumont wrote:

“Whittley this 9 of march 1608.”

Under the English Old Style calendar, the year changed on 25 March. The date is therefore 9 March 1608 O.S. [9 March 1609 modern]. This matters because it places the letter ten months after the 4 May 1608 assignment of the Cumberland lease interest, not two months before it.

The address and docket control both parties:

“To the right worshipfull / my worthie frend and / kinsman Sir Henry / Nevill

Knight”

and

“from S^r Richard Beaumont / to S^r H Nevill 1608”

The British Museum biographical authority identifies Richard Beaumont of Whitley, Yorkshire (1574–1631). The letter itself supplies the strongest immediate identity controls: Whitley in the dateline, Ric: Beaumont in the subscription, the address to Neville, and the docket naming Sir Richard Beaumont.

II. The 1595 Lease and the 1608 Assignment

The University of Leeds catalogue of Yorkshire Archaeological Society deeds is the crucial independent control. Item MD239/M206, in the public MD239 catalogue scan, recites:

“by Indenture of 20 Nov. 1595 Henry Nevill late of Pillingbeare co. Berk. Esq.

demised and to farm let to [Francis Clifford] ... woods etc. called Lundwoode

in the Lordship of Lund for a term of 15 years and a rent of 100 marks p.a.”

The same item records Francis Earl of Cumberland's 4 May 1608 disposition:

“Now [the Earl] demises and to farm lets the woods etc. to [Sir Ralph

Conyngesbie and Sir John Boteler] to hold ... for the remainder of the 15 year

term upon trust for [Lady Griselda Countess of Cumberland].”

The annual rent of 100 marks equals £66 13s. 4d. The original term would run, subject to its exact commencement clause, toward 1610. Its remainder was thus still a current asset in 1608. The deed catalogue establishes that Lundwoode was not a vague description of woods somewhere on the manor: it was the name of the leased property.

This makes Beaumont's spelling Lundwod independently intelligible and explains why the wood could remain subject to layered interests after Neville's sales. The 1608 assignment concerns the Cumberland interest. Beaumont's 1609 reference to Lord Eure shows another claimed or required interest, but the letter does not state whether that was a lease, licence, security, possession, consent, or other encumbrance.

III. Beaumont's Valuation of a Depleted Wood

Beaumont opens with dissatisfaction:

“Sir this busines of Lund wood sorts not to my mynde”

He had sent a servant to inspect it:

“I sent my man thither and he hath taken a full / viewe of itt, and hath

endevored to knowe the uttermost / valew of itt”

The offers were only:

“not above foure or hardlie five hundreth pounds, when / it is freed from my

lo: Eure”

Even that freedom was not trusted:

“which now it is almost / an impossibilitie to make them beleve itt shalbe”

The physical condition of the wood explains the low price:

“there is not a tree worth a shillinge left / in itt, and the ground nothing

worth for pasture”

Beaumont distinguishes standing timber, underwood, and pasture. The valuable timber was gone. The land itself had little pasture value. The remaining income depended on small firewood bundles made from coppice or brush:

“the benefitt that must be made of itt, is this, / by kids or fagotts of the

underwood”

and the underwood required time:

“itt will / yeild fewe of them unles itt be spared this / thre yeares”

Beaumont contrasted the depleted present with reports of former extraction:

“there hath a good deale / of money bene made of the timber of itt by / reporte

somtymes 2 or 3 hundreth pounds by yeare / but now itt is gone”

No neighbour would offer more than £30 a year. That figure is less than half the 100-mark rent reserved in Neville's 1595 lease. The comparison does not prove that both sums valued identical rights, but it shows how dramatically the current assessment had changed after timber removal.

“Kids or faggots”

Kids here does not mean young goats. G. S. Cole's *Glossary of Words Used in South-West Lincolnshire* defines KID as a faggot or bundle of sticks tied for firewood and gives the verb as making underwood into kids or fagots. Although published much later, this regional glossary precisely explains the woodland operation Beaumont describes.

A reproducible EarlyPrint check was also made. The exact lemmatized sequence [lemma="kid"][lemma="or"][lemma="faggot"] returned no hits in the public BlackLab corpus, and exact phrase checks in the EarlyPrint/EEBO FTS likewise returned none. The manuscript expression should therefore be documented as Beaumont's wording; the zero result is not evidence that the nouns were unknown.

IV. The Mineral Sample

After the disappointing wood valuation, Beaumont introduces a separate physical object:

“I have sent you a token / of a stone or rather a mynerall gotten att / Lund”

He then locates more of it:

“and I thinke there is of itt in the / ground in Lundwod”

IMG_0286 directly controls ground in Lundwod, connecting the specimen to the named wood. A conflicting earlier location is retained only in the private verification ledger.

Beaumont continues:

“if you have skill in allayinge [you may] / iudge of itt for I have none”

Allayinge is the visible manuscript word. In a mineral context it points toward judging composition or metal content by working with an alloy or test mixture. The small words represented as [you may] are crowded at the right edge and remain uncertain. The secure point is that Beaumont deferred technical judgment to Neville or to expertise available to him; he openly stated that he himself had none.

The letter does not identify the material. It should not presently be called a specific ore. A useful next phase is to compare the local geology of Lund and the Yorkshire Wolds, early modern mining licences, Cumberland/Eure estate papers, and the technical networks around Neville's known contacts. The physical sample may have been enclosed separately and is not visible in the photographed letter.

V. Neville's Continuing Connection to Lund

The letter is addressed to Billingbear and concerns a property Neville said he had sold years earlier. Beaumont nevertheless treats Neville as the person who could authorize further action:

“what more / you will have done in itt shalbe”

He suggests Neville inspect the wood and obtain Lord Eure's permission:

“if / you can tak a vewe thereof, & gett the leave of my Lo: / they will give

more”

This does not by itself prove Neville still owned the freehold. It documents a continuing practical role—possibly arising from warranties, residual rights, lease obligations, agency, or a proposed release—whose legal basis must be found in the conveyances. The 1595 lease recital shows why a simple “Neville sold Lund in 1601 and had nothing more to do with it” account is inadequate.

The personal close also deserves preservation. Beaumont calls Neville his friend and kinsman, sends service to the good ladie att Billingbeare and the gentlewomen, and subscribes himself Neville's ever assured loving frend / and kinsman. The exact genealogical path behind kinsman remains a research question rather than a settled identification.

VI. Research Programme Opened by the Letter

Lord Eure

Mineral and assay networks

Woodland accounting

Local Working Sources Checked