Bosbury Chantry Valuations, 1547

BOSBURY CHANTRY VALUATIONS, 1547

This is a short extract from the Chantry Valuations for Herefordshire undertaken on behalf of the See of Hereford in 1547. A ‘Chantry’ (also known as an ‘Obiit’) was a monetary trust fund set up to employ a priest to say a number of masses for the benefit of the departed soul of a deceased person to help speed it to Heaven.

Chantries were commonly established in England before the Reformation and were endowed with lands, rents and other assets, the income from which maintained the chantry priest. Sometimes a chantry chapel was built where the masses would be said. The information collector for Bosbury was John Jauncey and the surveyor he worked for was William Crouch.

Radlow Bosbury.

The Rent roll of the Lands belonging to the Parish Church of Bosbury


Landowners	Rent- charge

Imprimis John Hope for a tenement	6s.	8d.
Item of Thomas Farley for a certain land	4s.	10d.
Item of Morris Dowding for a mene [?messuage/dwelling] with a close	4s.
Item of John Alcott for 2 acres of arable land		8d.
Item of Roland Butcher for a cottage	2s.
~~Item for a parcel of land now void~~	~~nothing~~
Item Richard Blackway for a meadow	6s.	8d.
Item William Wooding for a cottage	6s.	8d.
Item of him for another cottage	6s.	8d.
Item Humphrey Powell for a cottage	6s.	8d.
Item of John Knight for a close	11s.
Item of Richard Nash for a rent going out of his freehold		13d. ob.
Item of John Harford, gent for one acre of pasture		8d.
Item of the same John for 3 acres of arable land		18d.
Item of Richard Bacon for 1 acre of arable land		5d.
Item of John Woore for a yearly rent of the freehold of Thomas Kent		3d.
Item of Richard Broye for a chief rent		2d.
Item of Richard ap Powell for a rent		2d.
Item a yearly rent out of the lands of John Taylor		1d.
Item of James Brydge for a rent of his lands		1d
Item a yearly rent out of the lands of Richard Wooding		1d.
[Total]	58s.	4d. ob.p.
Reprises
Imprimis paid yearly to the Bishop of Hereford	8s.
Item to John Chamberlain for a chief rent		7d.
[Total Reprises]	8s.	7d.
And so remains clear	49s.	9d. ob.

Note: In 16thC documents, ob. stands for a halfpenny (from the Latin ‘obulus’ which came from the Greek ‘obolos’, a small silver coin of ancient Greece worth one sixth of a drachma).

Source: This is based on the transcriptions in ‘The Herefordshire chantry valuations of 1547: the working book of William Crowche, surveyor of augmentations’ written by Michael A.Faraday and published in 2012 by Lulu.com. The new book is available in paperback from Amazon and elsewhere online with ref. ISBN-10 1291156402. The original valuation documents with records from 1546 to 1552 are held in The National Archives, Kew, ref. E301/26.

With special thanks to Celia Kellett, a Ledbury VCH volunteer, for discovering this information.

This page typeface: Garamond, 1528.

Page updated: December 2023. Barry Sharples.