HISTORY OF FRINTON TO c. 1880 ECONOMIC HISTORY Introduction. For most of its history, Frinton s economy was based on mixed farming, the relative importance of arable and pasture changing through time. By the early 19th century the Frinton Hall estate occupied the south-eastern half of the parish, including almost the whole of the sea shore; the Frinton Wick estate lay in the north-west quarter, and the glebe was concentrated to the north and east of the rectory house. Earlier the lands of the estates may have been intermixed. The five smaller estates, three of them in detached portions of the parish, were often farmed with land in neighbouring parishes, as was Crisps in 1676 and 1710 and Sandfords farm in 1760. 1 Fishing may have supplemented the profits from agriculture until the 18th century. The Middle Ages. The area of arable on the tenants land on both Frinton manors apparently decreased drastically in the mid 11th century, but the decrease was not balanced by any increase in demesne arable or livestock. 2 Between 1066 and 1086 both manors had experienced a reduction in the number of tenants ploughs, from two ploughs to half a plough each. On Geoffrey de Mandeville s manor the reduction had taken place over several years: there was one and a half plough on the tenants land when he received the manor, but only half in 1086. The number of demesne ploughs, however, was unchanged: two on Geoffrey s manor and one on Eustace of Boulogne s both in 1066 and in 1086. The fact that the manors of Walton, Holland, Clacton, and St. Osyth s had also suffered the loss of between a third and a half of their ploughs between 1066 and 1086, 3 suggests a local disaster. The area may, as has been suggested, have been devastated by raiders or in a scorched earth policy to deny supplies to the Danish force of 1085; 4 alternatively, it may have suffered severe flooding, perhaps with the loss of some land to the sea. Meadow was recorded at Frinton only on Geoffrey s manor, where there was 3½ a., presumably along the stream on the western boundary of the parish, but there was sheep pasture on both manors, probably on salt marshes: for 60 sheep on Eustace s manor and for 50 on Geoffrey s. The demesnes of both manors were apparently under-stocked, Eustace s with only 20 sheep in 1086, Geoffrey s with 49 in 1066 and 40 in 1086. Geoffrey s demesne also supported 2 draught animals and 4 swine, Eustace s 2 1 ERO, D/DHt T111/2 3; D/DU 271/50; D/DU 526. 2 VCH Essex, i. 470, 508. 3 Ibid. i. 439, 443, 470, 555. 4 R. Welldon Finn, The Norman Conquest and its effects on the Economy (1971), 14 16. 1
cattle and 7 swine. Despite the reduction in land under arable cultivation and the general fall in values of the coastal area of Tendring, Eustace s manor had risen in value from 3 to 4 10s.; Geoffrey s, however, had declined from 7 to 4. What little evidence survives for medieval agriculture in the parish suggests that it was predominantly arable. In 1343 the Burnham estate, in St. Osyth, Weeley, Ardleigh, Great Bromley, Great Clacton, Little Clacton, Kirby and Great Oakley as well as Frinton, comprised 450 a. of arable to 72 a. of wood, 70 a. of heathland, 18 a. of meadow and 8 a. of marsh. 5 In 1402 an estate in Tendring and Frinton, presumably mainly in Tendring, comprised 349 a. of arable, 5 a. of meadow, 4 a. of pasture, and 17 a. of wood. 6 It is unlikely that much of the wood on either estate lay in Frinton; in 1548 a 266-a. estate in Frinton and Walton contained only 6 a. of wood. Economic contraction, common in the late Middle Ages, may be reflected in the arrears of rents owed from holdings on Skirman s Fee in the 1520s or 1530s. 7 The Frinton men accused of murder in Mersea in 1285 8 may have been fishermen, but the only recorded exploitation of the sea in the Middle Ages was the butchering of stranded whales. In 1326 Ralph Crippes of Frinton was among the men who took a whale from the St. Paul s manor of Walton, presumably from the beach there. 9 In 1399 William Godmanston was fined for selling a whale from the sand in Tendring hundred. 10 The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By the 16th century there may have been a greater emphasis on animal husbandry than on arable farming, although the fact that many farmers held land in neighbouring parishes makes it difficult to assign particular stock to Frinton. In 1552 Frinton manor contained 500 a. of arable, 100 a. of meadow, 500 a. of pasture, 30 a. of wood, and 10 a. of salt marsh in Frinton and Kirby; 11 over half of the land must have been in Kirby. Most of the 16 a. of wood, called Whytton wood, almost certainly lay in Kirby; in 1839 the part of Whitton Wood in 5 Feet of F. Essex, iii. 68. 6 Ibid. iii. 239. 7 ERO, T/P 42 (Early Chancery Proc. 856/1). 8 PRO, JUST 1/242, rot. 106. 9 Cal. Pat. 1324 7, 283. 10 Ibid. 1396 9, 481. 11 Feet of F. Essex, v. 29; ERO, D/CT 146; The Place-Names of Essex, ed. Reaney, 341; above, Introduction for discussion of the area of Frinton. 2
Frinton, on the northern boundary of the parish, covered only 4½ a. 12 In 1683 Frinton Wick estate included 4 a. of woodland called Archland in Frinton. 13 John Thurston, lessee of Frinton Hall from 1552 or earlier, 14 held extensive lands in Great Clacton and other land in Thorpe, Kirby, and Holland. At his death in 1572 his stock included 20 cattle, 1 bull, 3 horses or mares, 40 ewes and 2 rams as well as the fat bullock he bequeathed to the poor on the day of his burial. He also had 6 hogs, 6 store pigs, and 2 two-year-old sows and some poultry. His equipment included a cart with its harness, a plough, and a pair of harrows. He grew wheat and barley, and had cheese and butter in his dairy. 15 Other Frinton testators probably leased land in the parish, although they owned land elsewhere. William Gardener in 1559 had two houses and lands in Great Clacton. 16 Humphrey Maptyd in 1594 owned land across the Stour in Brantham (Suff.). 17 William Seagrave, lessee of Frinton Wick, in 1659 devised an estate in Ramsey to his sons. 18 Barley was grown on Frinton Hall farm c. 1660. 19 At his death c. 1696 Thomas Warren had on the Frinton Hall estate 60 sheep, 13 cows, 21 younger cattle, and 4 calves, as well as 11 hogs; the meadows had produced 16 loads of hay. The 10 working horses with their 5 colts, 1 wagon, 8 harrows, 2 foot ploughs, and 1 whole plough were used on the arable, but only 1 field of wheat and 8 seams of wheat were recorded. 20 In 1703 the occupier of Frinton Wick owed tithe on c. 30 a. of oats and c. 10 a. of peas; he had 11 cows and 9 calves on the farm, and 20 sheep, some of them on his land in Kirby. The farm included 1½ a. of meadow, in 4 or 5 parcels. 21 The same year on the Hall farm there were c. 31 a. of wheat, 2 a. of peas and beans, 20 a. of white oats, 11 a. of barley, over 20 a. of black oats, and c. 20 a. of cole seed, and 60 loads of hay. Livestock included 9 or 10 cows, 7 or 8 horses or mares, and c. 50 sheep. Eighty loads of hay were produced from the 65 a. of grass. Some of the hay was sent to London, presumably by sea, in order to get a better price for it. 22 12 ERO, D/CT 146. 13 Ibid. D/DSx 119. 14 Feet of F. Essex, v. 29. 15 PRO, PROB 11/55, f. 188v. 16 ERO, D/ACR 5, f. 211v. 17 Ibid. D/ACW 3/101. 18 PRO, E 134/12Wm3/Mich10; ibid. PROB 11/299, f. 337. 19 Ibid. E 134/12Wm3/Mich10. 20 Ibid. PROB 4/16861. The inventory appears to be dated 1691, but Thomas Warren was alive in 1696, and probate of his estate was granted to his widow in April 1697: PRO, E 134/12Wm3/Trin3; ibid. PROB 6/73, f. 35v. 21 PRO, E 134/2Anne/Mich4. 22 Ibid. E 134/3&4Anne/Hil23. 3
A late 17th-century lessee of the Frinton Hall farm enjoyed the benefit of the shore. 23 In the 1690s Thomas Warren owned two compasses and other implements for the sea, and also a boat and two lobster nets. 24 Warren had been a mariner before he bought Frinton manor, 25 and he may have used his nautical instruments then, but the boat and nets were presumably for use at Frinton. The eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Leases of the glebe land in 1710 and 1716 contained the usual husbandry clauses. The tenant was to lay dung and muck on the premises; he was not to have more than half the land in tillage, and to take only two crops before a fallow. He was to plough an 8-a. field sown with rye grass, and at the end of the term to leave it sown with clover. Timber trees and all ash, oak, and elm, presumably in hedgerows, were excepted from the lease. 26 In 1839 the parish was almost entirely arable: of a total of 481 a., 413 a. was under crops, 41 a. was pasture, 2 a. permanent grass, and 4½ a. woodland. Three quarters of the pasture lay near the mouth of the stream on the western boundary of the parish. 27 Frinton farmers continued to own or rent land in adjoining parishes. In 1807 Richard Stone, the lessee of the Frinton Hall estate, leased 106 a. of land in Kirby from another landowner, and in 1840 his son of the same name farmed c. 176 a. in that parish, most of it held on lease from different owners. 28 In 1840 Stone also owned c. 82 a. in Great Clacton which he leased to tenants. 29 In 1839 the Frinton Hall estate, occupied by Richard Stone, comprised 219 a.; Wick farm, occupied by Eleanor Firmin, 134 a., and the glebe, leased to Richard Stone, 32 a. Stone thus farmed 251 a. in Frinton as well as c. 176 a. in Kirby. There were five very small estates in Frinton, whose owners had land in neighbouring parishes, although only one, T. D. Cooper s land in Great Holland, adjoined the Frinton land. Two of the tenants, Samuel Baker and John Dennis Daniels, also held land in the three neighbouring Soken parishes. Baker rented c. 830 a. in Kirby and c. 140 a. in Walton, some of it from Jackson Hunt his landlord in Frinton, and Daniels rented c. 50 a. in Kirby from Elizabeth Barnard, from whom he held his Frinton land, and c. 114 a. in the same parish from 23 Ibid. E 134/12Wm3/Mich10. 24 Ibid. PROB 4/16861. 25 ERO, D/P 195/8, no. 22. 26 Ibid. D/DMn 25, 37. 27 Ibid. D/CT 84A, B. 28 Ibid. D/DHt T151/3; ibid. D/CT 198A. 29 Ibid. D/CT 84A. 4
another landowner; he occupied 47 a. of his own land in Thorpe and 5 a. in Walton. 30 The pattern of land-holding was the same in 1781 and in 1865. 31 Working farms, however, were usually confined to Frinton. In 1851 Richard Stone farmed 250 a. (the Hall farm and the glebe), Charles Theedham at the Wick 153 a. 32 By 1861 Stone s farm had been reduced to 200 a. The Wick farm was 215 a. in 1871, but only 139 a. when it was sold in 1878. 33 By 1905 the remaining agricultural land in the parish, c. 160 a., was almost entirely permanent grass supporting a herd of 26 cows, some of them in milk, and a flock of 38 breeding ewes and 60 lambs. The only crops were barley (4½ a.), cabbages (4½ a.), and lucerne (3 a.). There was no woodland. 34 After Thomas Warren s death there is no evidence for fishing; perhaps erosion had destroyed any earlier haven in the parish. However, the sea shore was exploited for copperas, which was being collected from the beach by about the mid 17th century. 35 The right to gather it belonged to the manor in 1749. The lessee, John Rice, minted tokens to pay workers both at Frinton and at Minster, either Minster in Thanet or Minster in Sheppey, Kent. 36 The industry had ceased by 1835. 37 The only non-agricultural occupations recorded in the parish in the 19th century were railway workers: a tracker in 1871 and a plate-layer in 1881. 38 30 Ibid. D/CT 198A, 352A, 383A. 31 Ibid. D/CT 146A; ibid. Q/RPl 791; ibid. D/P 228/5/1. 32 PRO, HO 107/1779. 33 Ibid. RG 9/1093; RG 10/1678; sale particulars, inf. from Mrs. Jane E. Caddick, Glenthorn, 62 Fourth Avenue, Frinton-on-Sea. 34 PRO, MAF 68/2121. 35 ERO, T/P 195/8, no. 22. 36 Ibid. D/DB T1594; VCH Essex, ii. 412; Notes & Queries, 12th series, vii (1920), 38. 37 Wright, Hist. Essex, ii. 795. 38 PRO, RG 10/1678; RG 11/1779. 5