Catalogue description (Feoffment Workhouse)   Conveyance from Ant. Hunt. musician, and Ann, his wife, to Jonah...

(Feoffment Workhouse)

Conveyance from Ant. Hunt. musician, and Ann, his wife, to Jonah Crynes, linen draper, for £27, of part of a messuage containing a kitchen, a pantry, a shop, and entry with chambers over the same, and another chamber called "the plaster chamber," yard now occupied by Eliz. Sulby, in Well Street, purchased from Tho. Sargenson, for ever.

Sign. and seal of Ant. and Ann Hunt. With., Ric. Croft, Tho. Murcott, Jno. Burcott.

These deeds are contemporary with a period of lawsuits about Sir Thomas White's estate, from which the Corporation hardly emerged with credit, and certainly with much depleted purse. In 1709 no Mayor's feast was held, and there was great difficulty in securing the services of anyone who would act as chief magistrate of the city. In 1710 the usual formalities at the opening of the Summer Fair were laid aside, "the City's Revenue being reduced so low by the loss of Sir Tho. White's estate as not to be at any charge which they (i.e.. the Corporation) could avoid "an omission at which the inhospitable among the citizens could but rejoice, the procession being "thought by some," say the Mayor-lists, "a great Damage to the City in general by reason so many People come out of the Country that it put their friends here to a great charge to entertain them." In 1712 the Corporation sold their plate to pay their debts (what would we give for that plate now!), a piece of economy which did not prevent the seizure of the sword and mace, with St. Mary Hall, and all its contents by impatient-creditors. It was at this period, says Reader, that so many valuable muniments were lost from the Hall treasury, among others the famous Indenture Tripartite between Queen Isabella, the Prior and the Corporation.

There is little to note of importance among the deeds themselves, save the reference to the system of enclosure (DR429/273) which was to change the face of England and reverse previous methods of agriculture during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The lease for 1,000 years (DR429/276) is a common feature among mortgage deeds, which were drawn up in most respects like ordinary conveyances.