THE MARKET TRADERS OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY ATHERSTONE

Atherstone’s position on Watling Street gave it a natural advantage as a market town. While in the medieval period the town was primarily an agricultural settlement, there were attempts from time to time to encourage various trades through making burgage plots, a special kind of land tenure which gave special privileges for merchants and traders. A manuscript reference to nine new burgesses being created from land belonging to seven tenants in Atherstone discovered by Marjorie Morgan among Cambridge Kings College muniments (Ms.C9) provides a clear example of this.

By late Tudor times the town had become a thriving centre for leatherworking, clothmaking, metalworking and ale-brewing. Local sheepfarmers and cattle graziers supplied raw materials in the form of wool and leather from local graziers to local tanners and shoemakers, while the metalworkers, locksmiths and nailers fired their furnaces with local coal and the alemakers supplied thirsty palates, especially on market days.

Marion Alexander’s survey of sixteenth century Mancetter probate wills and inventories (below) gives a fascinating and informative coverage of these local trades and occupations. Among the 40 Atherstone inventories she lists those belonging to John Drayton (1556), described as a butcher, but also styled ‘yeoman’, William Drayton (1557), a tanner, and Hugh Drayton also a tanner and possibly related to the alehouse keeper of the same name mentioned in the 1597 Leicestershire archdeaconry court case already recorded. Marion points out that tanners and butchers were commonly engaged in farming and that many of these occupations were complimentary, farmers slaughtering their own cattle to provide tanned hides for shoemakers and saddlers.

Weaving was also well established in the town. Marion suggests that the area marked “Tenter Flatt” on the eighteenth century map may have been used for stretching and drying cloth. Significantly, perhaps, William Reppington, a forebear of the family that later bought the manor of Atherstone, was a weaver. Hugh Middleton was a prosperous draper and Henry Blew a haberdasher, dealing with finished cloths and felt hats.

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As for alemaking, the manor court rolls provide clear evidence that from late medieval times some of the ladies of the parish sold their home brewed ale in Atherstone alehouses, and that two ale tasters were employed to supervise the trade. William Bartlett, the 18th century antiquary who wrote a History of Manceter observed that the town was “walled with ale and paved with marble”. Francis Goddard’s reference to 32 alehouses in 1720 also suggests a thriving and bustling atmosphere as local villagers from the surrounding area crowded into the alehouses for refreshment on market days.

The inventories show that the sixteenth century houses in Atherstone were not large. Even though many were double storied they rarely had more than four living rooms, but many had ‘shops’ and there were numerous baking, dairy, malt, kiln candle and tanning houses attached to the premises. The larger residences, like John Abel’s “Mansion house” which had eleven rooms and Nicholas Lawrence’s Oldbury manor, which had sixteen rooms, were on the outskirts of the town. The number of gentlemen’s inventories suggest that the town may have become popular for retired gentry.

Although there is only one inventory belonging to a miller, that of John Rampton described both as a yeoman and a miller in 1557, there were probably more millers established in the town since two mills are recorded in 1573, one a windmill the other a watermill, grinding corn for bakers like Richard Knight and others. According to the antiquary John Nichols as far back as 1388 several inhabitants of the town were fined for not baking at the public bakehouse in Bakehouse Lane off the market square. As late as 1780 copyholders were still being obliged to grind their malt at a horse mill in Bakehouse Lane.

The inventories from 16th century Mancetter provide a unique insight into Atherstone’s prosperous period, before it was overshadowed by places like Coventry. They show Atherstone as a typical midland market town, taking full advantage of its agricultural setting and its strategic position on Watling Street.

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Webmaster's message: Sincere thanks from the Atherstone Project Group to Alan Roberts and d'Arcy White for their contribution!

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