Little change in Bole during last 500 years
RECORDS of the reign of Henry VIII tell of a number of interesting changes and events. In 1533 it was found that a holder of Crown property, Joan Mawer, aged 24, had been an idiot for seventeen years with no lucid intervals. A jury reported that the property was worth 52s. 8d. per annum and instructions for the preservation of the royal interest were desired. Five years later Sir John Hercy of Grove bestirred himself in another way to protect the king’s government. He was “a maker of mischief,” who upon plausible but perhaps not very convincing reasons had excused himself from coming to Henry’s assistance in 1536 when his throne was imperilled by the Pilgrimage of Grace. Anxious now to ingratiate himself he reported that a chaplain was teaching seditious songs against Thomas, Lord Cromwell, who conducted the suppression of the monasteries, and that boys and others were going about the parish singing them. He sought instructions, with unknown result.
Old Fashioned Tenure.
The absence of monastic interests in Bole reduced local significance of the Reformation in its early stages, but under Edward VI the chantry properties were dispersed. The Nevills had been tenants of such possessions here, and in 1550 William Nevill, esquire, had grants of chantry lands including Thurston’s Meadow, which had been given for an obit in the church : it was valued at 3s. 4d. yearly, but half was earmarked for the poor “and so remayneth clere vnto the seide parishe church xxd.” Neville also had grants of messuages and land: here pertaining to a chantry at Sturton.
It would seem that this was one of the parishes in which the newly established Church of England made slow progress, as in 1559, when enquiry was made in the various archdeaconries as to the observance of the Act of Uniformity its vicar failed to appear. He was pronounced contumacious, but probably like others of his kind he later made outward profession of conformity.
An example of old-fashioned tenure occurs in the inquisition post mortem of Wm. Rotherwode, who died in 1524. He occupied two messuages, two tofts, 20a. of land and 6a. of meadow in socage from the prebendary of Bole by the mixed rental of 2s. 1d. in money, six hens and one cock, a cart for carrying hay during one day, six reapers daily in autumn and one man making hay for one day, with suit of service every three weeks at the prebendal court, for all services.
In 1588—the year after Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded—when the Pilgrim Father Movement was in the making, Henry Bromehead, a yeoman of N. Wheatley, included in his bequests to his son Hugh all his “messuages, buildings, lands, meadows, tofts, crofts, enclosures, pastures, with their appurtenances” at Bole. The legatee was then curate at N. Wheatley but he threw in his lot with the early Puritans, became one of their leaders and escaped with Brewster to Amsterdam in 1612. It is curious to find that in 1607 he and his wife were “presented” before the Notts. Justices as “popish recusants.”
Population Decay.
In the just-issued volume (xlvi) of the Transactions of the Thoroton Society Dr. A. C. Wood demonstrates the surprising fact that the number of village inhabitants diminished during the 17th century. Bole does not figure among the 138 parishes whose, returns were analysed for this deduction, but its annals would have supported the argument, for the decay which set in with the enclosures about 1500 long continued. In 1544 the parish contained 26 taxable householders, but a century later there were only 23 such heads of households and only in three instances, do the surnames of the former date survive in the latter. The virulence of recurrent plagues may account for some of this mortality: in 1631-2 the inhabitants of Bole, which apparently had escaped the plague, had to pay a weekly levy of 2s. towards the relief of inhabitants of neighbouring villages which had been less favoured in this respect.
Yet in 1743, after the passage of another progressive century, there were but 35 families here. Under Queen Mary the tax of a 10th and a 15th upon the parish yielded £4 3s. 5d., in 1592 the amount had risen to £4 18s. 4d. and seven years later it dropped to £3 10s., but even then it produced a larger sum than Gringley. By 1628 the same tax product decreased to £1 16s., but in 1640 when King Charles imposed a double-assessment upon his unwilling subjects it rose to £6 16s., a rise out of all proportion to other North Notts. villages. It is difficult to assign a reason for this sudden increase, but it is clear that Bole was not developing.
The parish appears to have escaped the ravages of the Civil War though warlike traffic moved upon the Trent, but it took its part in the religious troubles of the later Stuart era. The Presbyterian Josiah Rock, ejected from the rectory of Saundby, here found a home and taught privately. Under the illegal Indulgence of 1671 he was allowed to preach in his own house, but the privilege was soon cancelled and the sect died out, there being only one family of that persuasion left in 1743.
The vicar at this later time was an absentee minor canon at Chester and his curate, John Mottershaw, who was also curate at North Wheatley, where he dwelt, ministered faithfully and well.
Old Charities.
Bole has fared better than many parishes of larger size in the number of its charities, but they have had a chequered existence. In 1671 an unknown donor left a rent-charge of 5s. a year for the poor, but in 1745 “George Mower, esquire” (?Mawer) paid £17 as arrears of this annuity during the previous 68 years, and until 1762 the annual dole was increased to 17s. In that year John Wilkson’s bequest of £3 increased the distribution to £1.
There must have been some lax administration for in 1766 the trustees of the Mower estate paid in £6 of arrears covering 24 years, and about this time the parish spent £13 upon the purchase of a dilapidated messuage with a patch of ground attached to it, and twice that amount upon making it habitable. This enterprise left a deficit of £13 which the parish extinguished by a public-spirited subscription, but again irregularities occurred. The little property with its right of pasture on the common for one beast from Old May Day to Lammas was let for life on a repairing lease at 30s. a year and in 1827 when the Charity Commissioners were investigating the state of Notts. charities they found that the lessee’s son was tenant on the old terms. They reported that the true value was £4, and thenceforward that sum was paid and distributed in half-yearly doles.
In 1781 Wm. Nettleship bequeathed 40s. a year for the teaching, of poor children to read the Bible and repeat the Church catechism by heart. In 1807 John Nettleship left £30 in trust for the education of poor children of the parish. The former benefaction was duly used, but in 1808 the overseers lent the £30 at 5 per cent, to a Sturton man whom they permitted to sell the security deposit and the money was lost.'
1795 Flood.
The five years ending with 1793 witnessed 24 births and 18 burials in the parish and left it with 148 inhabitants—six more than in 1901. 1795 saw the record flood, which wrought considerable damage locally and affrighted the villagers. The commonable lands were yet unenclosed though that development soon afterwards took place. Throsby, who was here in 1795, noted that “boys and booby young men” were allowed to play marbles in the churchyard on Sundays, and he reasonably suggested that the practice should be stopped.
Bole church c.1920.
The church (St. Martin’s) has a tower largely of the style common in this part of the county in the 15th century, but its doorway, like much of the nave and chancel, are of 14th century date. The original font of a Norman church is its most ancient survival and it has a small brass of 1400 commemorating John Danby. Its handsomely carved pulpit of old Flemish work illustrative of the story of Haman was presented in 1866 by Sir C. H. J. Anderson of Gainsborough. In that year the fabric underwent careful restoration and a new porch was built, but seven years ago it was “enlarged and beautified”; the iron Victorian altar-rails were replaced by others of Georgian oak, formerly in use at Newstead Abbey, presented by Mr. Nevil Truman, and needful repairs were made to the interior of the building.