I was looking at the snow picture of our house and it struck me once again how it sits low down, almost snuggled into the landscape.
Why 1000 years ago when the first Manor House of Espreiwa – the original name for our farm was built did they choose this exact spot? Of course we shall never really know but the longer I live here and the more I observe and get a real feel for the landscape and our use of it, the more I begin to understand.
The slight hill in front, on which I was standing to take the picture, obscures the most fabulous view so that if we want to see it we have to leave the house, climb to the point where I was standing and turn round.
We initially thought this was a shame and a real missed opportunity on the part of the person building the house but now we know better. In the recent snow and in past winter storms, the worst of the wind blows right over the top of the house, deflected as it is by the surrounding contours of the land. Our ancient stable block, which dates back to about 1700 we think, is also built in the same alignment. Even the now demolished second farmhouse which was back to back and slightly to the left of our house, where the line of trees is now, was crowded together with ours when in all that vast farm it could have been anywhere!
Mid Devon is characterised by scattered, isolated farmsteads, not allied closely to village settlements. It is hilly and the original ground here was deeply forested in the valleys with acid, marshy areas on the higher ground interspersed with dry patches of culm grassland. Not ideal for growing abundant arable crops but excellent for grazing animals.
Our farm is absolutely typical of this and the areas of drier, “good” ground are well known to us even today. The house is sitting on one of them. It is also on a contour line which, when you follow it along the valley. leads more or less on the level, to the nearest other medieval Manor. Both manors were owned by one man in the Middle Ages, and his descendents still own large amounts of land and property in the village nearby. That trackway would have been used regularly as it also led to the local mill for grinding corn. If this house had been built on any other area of dry land on the farm it would have meant a steep climb up or down with a cart to reach the other manor, three miles away. There is a gradient on the old track but it is gentle – easier on horse and man!
I do also wonder if there was a defensive element in siting this farm. Lawlessness was rife in country districts well into Victorian times. What law would there have been in places such as this in the Middle Ages? If someone decided to steal your cattle what on earth could you do about it? The first line of defence is surely to keep hidden. Our house is visible only from one point on the other side of the valley. Reaching it from that point is almost impossible because of thick oak woodland and marshy ground in the valley bottom – all of which would have been just as abundant in Medieval times.
Living here in during the snow of the past few days, we have had a taste of the isolation and sheer self-reliance of those people who have lived here for the last 1000years. How much of their lives must have been lived in real fear either of the elements or of the dangers they encountered in every day existence. Before the Romantic poets, (Wordsworth etc) made the rural landscape “safe” and pleasant, the countryside was regarded as a place of terrors, full of nameless horrors and ignorant peasants! I think in this post Modern age it’s time we shifted the balance back to somewhere between the two. Perhaps then we would have a proper respect for and appreciation of the land and those who look after it.
In Orkney there are many lovely cottages situated on the shore with no windows overlooking the sea. Inconvenient in these days of central heating (and holiday cottages!) but obviously sensible not to have windows facing the prevailing wind when there was only one fire to cook on and secondarily warm the house. Lots of houses have their steading between the sea and the house too.
By: Joanna on February 4, 2009
at 12:24 pm
Interesting observations about where your house is sited. We live about 100 yards from a farmhouse built in 1700s. Only after we lived here a year or two did we realise that all the worst of the winds, storms and frosts roll over us. Not sure exactly why, probably several different reasons, but whoever built the farmhouse certainly understood the land and the local conditions. Just a bit further along the road either direction and the effect is gone.
By: Dorothy on February 4, 2009
at 2:06 pm
Another point which strikes me is that previous generations would have spent far less time indoors than we do. Houses were for sleeping and eating and not much else. All day every day you were outside doing the work of the farm. Views were all around you as you worked.
Our windows are small too Joanna – keeps out the cold and the heat in summer and of course, costs less to glaze.
By: devonfinefibres on February 4, 2009
at 3:51 pm
It’s fun and comforting to think about how we used to live and think how, if/when society implodes, we can do it again!
I had practical experience of this sort of thing in the Army, when we did field duty, picking a place to pitch your tent; a lot of the young males wouldn’t even bother. They would roll up in their sleeping bags on top of their vehicles or sling a hammock in the trees.
All you need is shelter when you sleep, and you don’t even need that in some climates. (*I*I do. I never completely lost my urban sensibilities! I can’t sleep in the open!)
Also, it’s easier to get up early in the morning if your sleeping area is minimal. And it doesn’t matter if your neighbors are far away if you spin or knit or gather as you walk.
But most importantly, the original name of the manor, “Espreiwa”; what does it mean? What language or dialect is it?
By: jayne on February 4, 2009
at 5:15 pm
Hi Jayne,
Espreweia (as I should have written it) is Anglo Saxon for West Spurway. Until 1839 our house was called West Spurway. A new house was built on a neighbouring property then and for reasons lost in history the name was transferred to that new build, breaking at least 900 years of tradition.
The name has the same root as the English/Saxon word “spoor” or track, so it means, west trackway and was the Manor on the track westwards from the main Manor of the village which was called simply Spreweia or Spurway. Incidentally, this is the surname of the current Lords of the Manor but they took their name from the place, not the other way round.
By the time of the Norman conquest in 1066, Espreweia was already old and had been owned by a saxon called Algar. In the domesday Book of 1086 Espreweia had 9 villeins, 1 serf, 6 cattle, 17 sheep and a total acreage of 858. The villeins would have worked this in subdivided holdings and would have had their own livestock. They would have paid rent to the lord of Espreweia and also done work as payment in kind.
There is much I don’t understand about the Domesday Book terminology but I think that’s the gist of it!!! Interestingly, of all the 7 Manors or large farms which make up the parish of Oakford, in the Domesday Book there were only two which had goats. Unfortunately this was not one of them!That would have been so amazing!
By: devonfinefibres on February 4, 2009
at 7:46 pm
It *is* amazing, as it stands! Especially to an American!
By: jayne on February 6, 2009
at 5:21 pm