MA24/1

Riseley: Survey and plan of the Lordship of Riseley in the C of B as divided and enclosed by an Act of Parliament. The original has been lost for many years. This copy taken from a tracing made about 1880. 13.3" to one mile.

1793, 1800. This copy made February 1930

From: 1793 To: 1930

The Act included a requirement that a ‘reduced plan’ be made of and from the survey undertaken prior to the Award ‘ upon vellum and annexed to the said copy’ [meaning the copy of the original Award which – assuming it was made (it has not survived) - was ‘to be entered in a Book of paper or parchment with an index of and reference to the principal matters’] which copy was to be examined by the Commissioners and attested by them and be admissible and allowable in all courts as legal evidence. There was therefore no requirement to annex a plan to the original Award and there is nothing in the Award recording that the Commissioners did annex a plan to the original. Both the original Award and the copy Award and its accompanying ‘reduced plan’ were to be ‘deposited or lodged in the Church Chest of Riseley’. The Award itself refers to the production of a ‘general and particular survey admeasurement and plan’ (the plan of which has not survived but see R1/67) made by Charles Bloodworth of Kimbolton, land surveyor, but does not in itself refer either to the copy Award or accompanying ‘reduced plan’ having been produced. Tracing copy made by F.G. Emmison, Clerk, from a tracing said – at the time of copying – to have been made circa 1880 for a Dr. Banks of Riseley but then (i.e. in 1930) in the possession of an S. W. Beall of Wilbarston (Northamptonshire) itself presumed – by Emmison [probably erroneously] to have been made from ‘the original Award map which has been lost for many years’ [rather it may have been made from MA24/3 [WG952] which is of sufficient similarity in size- i.e. ‘reduced copy’ size - to have been the basis of the Banks copy from which the Clerk of the Peace’s copy was made]. Includes an additional note, made 20 Oct 1932, of checking of this copy with MA24/3 [WG952] (then in the custody of Messrs. Wade-Gery and Brackenbury, St Neots) ‘apart from a few minor details (added as a result of the collation [i.e. of details from MA24/3 [WG952] including the addition of a strip of land on the extreme west side of the parish presumed to have been missing from the Banks tracing] this [i.e. MA24/1] tracing was found to be substantially accurate.’ [It is still possible that Emmison was in fact actually comparing his 1930 copy with the original source for the Banks copy which may itself have been both incomplete in area coverage and in effect a skeletal outline tracing which did not reproduce the full detail of the original which may therefore have been MA24/3 [WG952]].

watercolour on tracing linen

item

Banks,
Beall, S.W.,
Messrs. Wade-Gery and Brackenbury,
Emmison, Frederick George

RISELEY, maps, ENCLOSURE