Barstable was a

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

in the English County of

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

. Both the hundred and the manor with the same name are mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086. A number of parishes in the western part of the Barstable hundred are now in

Thurrock Thurrock () is a unitary authority area with borough status and unparished area in the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is part of the London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames Gateway redevelopment zone. The l ...

Location

Barstable is bordered on the east by Rochford hundred; on the north by Chelmsford hundred; on the north-west by the Ongar hundred; on the west by

Chafford hundred Chafford Hundred is an area in the Borough of Thurrock in the ceremonial county of Essex. Chafford Hundred is north-west of Grays. Its railway station serves the area and Lakeside Shopping Centre. Lakeside Shopping Centre is in West Thurrock ...

(with the boundary in part following the

Mardyke The Mardyke ( ga, An Mhuirdíog) is an area in Cork city, on the northern half of the long western part of the island formed by the two channels of the River Lee near the city centre. It was historically left as open space because the land along ...

) and on the south by the

river Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

. The parish boundary between

Grays Thurrock Grays or Greys may refer to: Places * Grays Bay, Nunavut, Canada * Grays, Essex, a town in Essex, England ** Grays railway station ** Grays School * Grays, Kent, a hamlet in Kent, England * Rotherfield Greys or Greys, a village in Oxfordshire, En ...

and

Little Thurrock Little Thurrock () is an area, ward, former civil parish and Church of England parish in the town of Grays, in the unitary authority of Thurrock, Essex. In 1931 the parish had a population of 4428. Location Little Thurrock is on the north bank ...

is also the hundred boundary between Barstable and Chafford. The interlocking boundary between these parishes suggests the existence of a common pasture originally shared, prior to the establishment of the hundred boundary.

Name

The name of the hundred was normally that of its meeting-place. Barstaple hundred takes its name from a location or settlement that is now in

Basildon Basildon ( ) is the largest town in the borough of Basildon, within the county of Essex, England. It has a population of 107,123. In 1931 the parish had a population of 1159. It lies east of Central London, south of the city of Chelmsford and ...

new town. This is mentioned as the manor of Barstable Hall, as Little Barstable Hall and as Barstable Hall, alias Basildon Hall. Ernest Godman, writing in Home Counties magazine quotes Morant, as saying the name "appears to have been taken from the place now called Barstable Hall, in Langdon and Basildon ... which being near the centre of the Hundred, was then the most convenient place for holding Courts, and transacting all affairs of a public nature." The name of the hundred is frequently written as Barnstable in older documents. The name appears as Berdestapla in

Domesday Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

. Reaney suggests that the first element of the place-name may be a person, or a descriptive adjective. However, more recent work suggests it comes from berde – a battle axe. The second element means a post or pillar. The post would have marked the meeting place for the hundred.

Meeting point

During the Saxon period, the men of the hundred met to discuss local issues and to conduct judicial trials. The

moot Moot may refer to: * Mootness, in American law: a point where further proceedings have lost practical significance; whereas in British law: the issue remains debatable * Moot court, an activity in many law schools where participants take part in s ...

site for the Barstable hundred was said to be close to the former Barstable Hall. Reaney says, "The old hall was near the junction of the boundaries of the parishes of Laindon, Corringham, Vange and Basildon", but there is no common boundary involving Corringham,

Laindon Laindon is a commuter town in Essex, between Basildon and West Horndon. It was an ancient parish in Essex, England, that was abolished for civil purposes in 1937. It was based on the (probably smaller) manor of the same name and now lies mostly ...

and

Vange Vange is a former village and civil parish now subsumed within the urban area of the Basildon borough of Essex. As it is much smaller than Basildon, Laindon and Pitsea, it does not have its own town centre or railway station. The London Road (B14 ...

. A Laindon court roll, dated 1573, mentions a motehill. If the location of the meeting place was close to the site of the now demolished Basildon Hall, it would have been in Basildon parish, about from the boundary with the parish of Vange. According to Godman, "the manor-house had disappeared before Morant's time, a farmhouse being built in a lower situation. This has been in its turn deserted, and the buildings now remaining are of a fragmentary nature." Anderson says "the original hall stood further south", "at the highest point in parish". According to another source, this was destroyed by an explosion in 1834. and may now be under the railway line. The original location would have been close to the geographic centre of the hundred. The modern district of Barstable in Basildon new town is largely in the traditional parish of Vange. However, David Roffe notes that the

Hundred Rolls The Hundred Rolls are a census of England and parts of what is now Wales taken in the late thirteenth century. Often considered an attempt to produce a second Domesday Book, they are named after the hundreds by which most returns were recorded. Th ...

for the Barstaple hundred were the verdicts of a hundred court held at

Horndon-on-the-Hill Horndon on the Hill is a village, former civil parish and Church of England parish in the unitary authority of Thurrock, in the county of Essex, England. It is located close to the A13, around one mile northwest of Stanford-le-Hope and around tw ...

Parishes

Canvey Island, which was also in the Barstable hundred, was divided among a number of nearby parishes. Wheatley was recorded in Barstable hundred in Domesday, but later records put it in the Rochford hundred.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Barstable (Hundred) Hundreds of Essex History of Thurrock