Tithe dispute with Roydon Hall (1630-1747)

Post date: Sep 25, 2012 12:42:49 PM

The following information is summarised from W.A. Bolt's booklet "Wateringbury in the Past " published by Wateringbury Local History Society. From 1630 until 1747 there was a dispute between various vicars of Wateringbury and the owners of Roydon Hall as to whether tithes should be paid on wood cut on their lands in Wateringbury. Tithes were not payable on wood in the Weald of Kent so at issue was the question of whether Wateringbury was in the Weald or not.

In 1630 Roger Twysden entered in his Memorandum Book the following [spellings modernised]:

In the year of God 1630 at the felling of Ovyings Wood, otherwise Offham Wood at Westburies, Mr. Worrall, Vicar of Wateringbury, demanded tithe of it as being out of the weald, which I affirmed to be in the weald, and therefore affirmed it ought to pay no tithe, the conclusion was, I and my lady, whose the wood was, told him we would never give him ought in the way of a duty of Tithe, but out of Gratuity (it being a poor Vicarage not worth £20 per annum as he said) she was content to give him a piece of gold of 20 shillings and so he took it of her in the presence of me and one Mr. Scotte that then served her, upon the 2nd day of December 1630 and said he took it so.

In 1656 Thomas Becket and Richard Molt bought Ovyings Wood for the purpose of felling it. They asked Roger Twysden whether they should pay tithe to the then vicar Benjamin Cutter:

Roger Twysden told them it ought not to pay any, but they might give him for quietness sake, as his mother had done, 20 shillings for a gratuity, and not as a Duty of Tithes, that Mr. Cutter after exacted of them 30 shillings, which when Roger Twysden understood, he was greatly offended at it, and spoke with Mr. Cutter, and chidd Thomas Beckett with it, and said he should never have the wood more."

In 1668 Cutter decided to take legal action over tithes due on wood from 4 acres of Ovyings or Offham or even Ovens Wood. The property is described as follows:

The place in question is a wood called Ovens Wood also Offhams Wood and is in Wateringbury, belonging to a farm called Westburies in the weald of Kent, and lies under the Top of Wateringbury hill on the side of it.

The trial took place at Maidstone Assizes (8th July 1668) and Cutter lost. See also vicar fined three times.

Several succeeding vicars at Wateringbury (James Hunter, George Charlton and Walter Hodges) did not take up the issue but John Butler who became vicar in 1736 (or 1737)wrote (3 October 1739) to Sir William Twysden requesting tithe from about 160 acres of land held in Wateringbury. After increasingly acrimonious correspondence Butler entered a Bill of Complaint in 1744 at the Court of Exchequer in London. Sir William had good support in a 1585 statute of Queen Elizabeth which defines the extent of the Weald in a way that seems to include Wateringbury. The case dragged on into 1747 when John Butler died.