Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    QSR1842/4/5/50
  • Title
    Depositions and examination - Thomas Bodsworth
  • Date free text
    9 September 1842
  • Production date
    From: 1842 To: 1842
  • Scope and Content
    James Hedges - he is a woodman employed by Chandos Lord Leigh in Bedfordshire. Last June he cut a quantity of ling or heath in Bakers Wood in Heath and Reach. He faggoted it and stacked ten faggots in a stack in the wood. One morning in July Thomas Morgan, another woodman of Lord Leigh's told him he had caught Thomas Bodsworth with a quantity of ling. He went to look at his stacks and found two of them pulled down and the best of the ling taken out of the faggots. Morgan told him where he had put the heath he said he had taken from Bodsworth. He looked at it and it corresponded with what had been taken from his stacks. The value was about 6d. He has no doubt it was part of what was taken from Bakers Wood. All the ling thereabouts belongs to Lord Leigh. Thomas Morgan - he is a woodman employed by Lord Leigh. On 25 July between 1 and 2am he was going along the bottom of Bakers Wood and saw somebody coming down a path in the wood - a private road where no one should have been. He waited until the man came within 10 yards of him. The man called out twice to him as if he knew who he was. He did not answer. The man then turned into another path. He went after him, caught him and asked what he had got. He saw the man had a quantity of ling. The man said he had picked up some ling. He then saw it was Thomas Bodsworth and called him by his name. He made Bodsworth lay it down. He refused at first, but then did so and took from it a string with which it was tied and a stick. He took Bodsworth out of the wood. He then put the ling under some oak boughs near where he left it. John Flint, land agent for Chandos Baron Leigh in Bedfordshire - Bakers Wood is Lord Leigh's property. He has never given permission to Bodsworth to take any ling fromt he wood or from any part of the estate. Thomas Bodsworth - he hopes Mr Flint will forgive him. He couldn't buy any ling and he wanted some to make besoms. He has nothing else to live upon.
  • Reference
  • Level of description
    item
Hierarchy browser