Reference
AN9/59
Title
Agreement
Date free text
23 March 1798
Production date
From: 1798 To: 1798
Scope and Content
Reciting:
- agreement by John Williamson of Baldock [Hertfordshire], gentleman to lease Lordship Farm, Stotfold to John Cornell, now of Stotfold, farmer from Michaelmas 1797;
- John Cornell entered on the fallow lands and sheep commons soon after Lady Day 1797 and ploughed the fallow lands, sowing them in part with turnips and in part with wheat and also ploughed the rest of the arable lands, sowing part with oats, beans and peas;
- John Cornell “committed great waste” by cutting down “divers timber trees and thriving young storers and also several pollard trees and large quantities of hedge and other wood contrary to law and against the consent” of John Williamson and sold some of the cut timber;
- John Williamson had commenced an action against John Cornell in King’s Bench to recover damages
Operative Part:
- John Williamson agreed to stay his action provided the conditions below were observed:
- John Cornell: removed all horses, cows, pigs and other cattle (except sheep) from the farm before 25 March;
- John Williamson to be permitted to enter the lands while John Cornell was allowed to occupy in the house with his family until 12 April in order to attend the sheep which were to remain on the farm in order to eat the turnips;
- John Cornell to remove his sheep from the farm once they had eaten the turnips by 12 April;
- John Cornell to deliver up possession of the whole farm, taking away all household furniture, cattle, implements and effects;
- John Cornell to leave behind for the use of John Williamson all straw, chaff and dung and all remaining timber;
- if appraisers reckoned John Cornell had sold the timber for a greater amount than his expense in cutting it down he was to pay surplus to John Williamson;
- John Cornell to pay John Williamson the benefit enjoyed from the turnips and common of grazing and such money as received from the inhabitants of Stotfold as “water hen money which is a small yearly Acknowledgment usually paid to the Owner or Occupier of the said Lordship Farm on Account of the Benefit the said Inhabitants derive from the Water which runs through the Village”;
- John Cornell to pay John Williamson’s attorney his costs in the bill in King’s Bench;
- John Williamson to pay John Cornell for dung-carting, ploughing and seed sown by him as valued by two independent persons, one chosen by John Williamson and one by John Cornell;
- the appraisers to appraise the benefit John Cornell had had from turnips, commons and pasture, valuation to be completed by 31 March;
- John Cornell to be allowed nothing for dung-carting on the Barley Land (unless the appraisers think to the contrary) because John Williamson thought it was “an improper Measure and injurious to the Farm inasmuch as the Dung was produced from the last Crop of Corn and should have been reserved for the Tilth Crop of the ensuing year”;
- John Williamson to allow John Cornell any Land Tax, parliamentary or parochial rates paid for the farm and John Cornell to be permitted to retire from the farm without paying rent;
- John Williamson to pay John Cornell anything owing to him on 12 April or before provided he committed no further waste or damage
Level of description
item