Elstow Moot Hall
| Elstow Moot Hall | |
|
Bedfordshire | |
|---|---|
 Elstow Moot Hall | |
| Type: | Moot hall |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TL04934752 |
| Location: | 52°6’58"N, 0°28’8"W |
| Village: | Elstow |
| History | |
| Built 15th century | |
| Moot hall | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | Bedford Borough Council |
Elstow Moot Hall (also known as "The Green House") stands in the village of Elstow in Bedfordshire, just south of the swelling townscape of Bedford. The hall stands in isolation on the village green.
The hall is a remarkable survival – an early Tudor-style timber-framed building, built in the 15th century, possibly by the carpenter to Elstow Abbey, William Arnold. It was built to provide both a courtroom and a market house.
Contents
Form
When first built, the timber frame would have been in-filled with wattle and daub, rather than brick. The original building was jettied on all four sides and had only four bays on the ground floor, the three westernmost each containing two small shops. Each shop had a separate door with a broad window, with a four-centred arch above. These windows may have had a hinged wooden panel that could be let down into the window opening and used as a serving counter. Parts of the partitions between the shops remain; slots in the ceiling and floor beams showing where the other vertical timbers once stood.
The fourth bay contained a separate room, with an east–west ladder stairway to the upper storey, which consisted of one large hall. The external door to the fourth bay was probably at the southern end of the east wall.
At some time after the original construction, a fifth bay was added to the east end, including a large chimney breast. This contains fireplaces on both storeys, suggesting that it was designed as accommodation for high-status visitors to the wealthy nunnery. Probably at the same time, the window in western wall was moved to a higher position; a cellar was excavated under the fourth bay; a north–south staircase was erected; an Elizabethan doorway (now removed) was inserted into the north wall where the easternmost shop stood; and the external wattle and daub in-fill was replaced with bricks.
During renovations in 1950, the building was restored to its original Mediæval form and the window in the western wall moved back down, but the external walls’ brick in-fill was retained. The timbers of the Mediæval roof were also left intact, with new rafters being laid over the originals.
Similar late-mediæval market houses, with a long chamber on the upper floor, are rare. Two others survive in Buckinghamshire, at Long Crendon and West Wycombe and a similar, but later, example is to be found in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire. However, Moot Hall is thought be unique, being the only known example of a market house, built by a nunnery, combining a courtroom and shopping hall.
For many years, it was thought that the downstairs shop bays were only used for storing stalls and other equipment in connection with the Abbey's bi-annual fairs. However, investigations carried out in the 1990s into the building's method of construction indicated that the six shop bays were probably permanent shops, used throughout the whole year.
History
The Abbesses of Elstow held the title of lord of the manor and acted as local magistrates, hence their need for the courtroom which, in the case of Moot Hall, was located in the main upper room. As well as being used as a manorial court, it would have been used as a Court of Piepowder for the settling of disputes arising during the Abbey's (and, after 1539, Elstow village's) large, four-day, May fairs.
This upper room was probably also used through most of its history as a village meeting place, hence its present name 'Moot Hall'. Some early records refer to it as "The Green House". Whether it was also known in early times as "Moot Hall" is not known – the earliest known recorded instance of it being referred to as such is in Reverend John Brown's biography of John Bunyan, in which he refers to it as 'what we may call Moot Hall'.
In 1541, two years after the final Dissolution of the Monasteries, Elstow Green and the Abbey lands were leased to Edmund Harvey, whose daughter, Isabel, subsequently married Sir Humphrey Radcliffe. In 1553, Edward VI gave the former Abbey's estate with all its manorial rights to Sir Humphrey. Radcliffe died 13 years later.
In 1616, Radcliffe's son Edward sold the Elstow estate to Sir Thomas Hillersden, who left £100 in his will so that his wife could convert part of the cloister building into a grand manor house, which was subsequently named Elstow Place. This magnificent building, its porch possibly designed by Inigo Jones, would have been seen every time the young John Bunyan walked into Elstow village: local people insist that it as the original inspiration for his 'House Beautiful' portrayed in The Pilgrim's Progress.
Fairs continued to be held at Elstow throughout this period, though on a smaller scale, and Moot Hall continued to be used for court hearings. In 1554, Thomas Bonyon (John Bunyan's great-great-grandfather) was a member of the "homage" (the Manor Court’s presiding jury) when his wife was fined 1 penny for 'breaking the assize of ale'. (Mrs Bonyon also appears on subsequent manor court rolls for committing further offences involving the sale of ale or bread!) Moot Hall continued to be used for court hearings until proper the establishment of the magistrates' court system in the 19th century, when a courthouse was built in Bedford.
By 1773, the Hillersden family consisted of just two sisters who, with their finances dwindling, let Moot Hall, its equipment and fair tolls to Thomas Coleman. During the 1790s, the Hillersden sisters moved out of Elstow Place into the smaller Elstow Lodge, leaving the mansion to fall into ruin, and then gradually they sold, piece by piece, the rest of their Elstow estate to Samuel Whitbread.
The 1800 Enclosure Act allotted Elstow Green to Whitbread and, with it, the ancient right to hold fairs and exact tolls and rents on stallholders. Whitbread subsequently purchased further properties in Elstow, until he owned most of the village. (Hence the present-day numbers that appear on some houses in Elstow’s High Street, Wilstead Road and West End are Whitbread (Southill) Estate, not street, numbers.)
In 1812, the Whitbread Estate leased Moot Hall to the Elstow Congregation of the Bunyan Meeting Free Church and, for most of the rest of the 19th century, Moot Hall was used as a National and a Night school, with the Bunyan congregation holding Sunday evening services of worship in the former courtroom.[1] They regularly attracted larger congregations than the nearby Abbey Church.
Schooling for children continued in Moot Hall until 1873 when, anticipating the Elementary Education Act 1880, a purpose-built, school was constructed at the northern end of Elstow High Street. The Bunyan congregation continued to hold their services in Moot Hall until 1910, when they too moved to the High Street, into a newly constructed chapel, next to the new school.
Fairs continued to be held on Elstow green until the 20th century. Sales of cattle ceased during the First World War and, from then on, only a small pleasure fair continued, until that too ceased during the Second World War.
May Festivals have, however, continued to be held on Elstow green. The stump of the original Mediæval market cross – which denoted the Elstow Abbey Fair's Royal Charter status – still stands on Elstow Green, some 50 yards west of Moot Hall.
In 1950, Major Simon Whitbread gave Moot Hall and Elstow green to Bedfordshire County Council, which restored the building to its original mediæval form, as their contribution to the Festival of Britain. A year later, Moot Hall opened as a permanent museum. It is now owned and cared for by Bedford Borough Council, which continues to operate it as a museum illustrating 17th-century life, with exhibitions of antique furniture and information relating to John Bunyan.[2]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Elstow Moot Hall) |
