Volume I - Little Baddow History Centre

doubt it was included in the entry fine. George Odeyn transferred the tenement in
1636 to John Levitt from whom it was inherited by John Bastwick. He obtained a
licence to mortgage it for 21 years to Edmund Butler (the occupier being William
Westgate), but the mortgage was annulled the following year. He left it, with his
other properties, to his daughter, Sarah, an infant, whose tenant was John Bowles.
Sarah’s daughter and heiress, Elizabeth Lepper, also inherited as an infant and her
father, William Lepper, was appointed her guardian for both Langores and Heards.
She married John Pettit and in 1738 they transferred Langores to Samuel Brown, who
sold it in 1761 to Elias Pledger for £136.17.0. John Nicholson, steward of the manor,
presented Pledger with a bill for £3.4.0., being legal charges for the transaction. A
condition of the sale was that Brown was to be permitted to live in one of the houses
on the land, rent free for life, the house containing two chambers, one pantry, one
small cellar and a kitchen. There was also a stable, shop and orchard and a woodhouse
(which Brown was to have liberty to take down). On the death of Elias Pledger his
two daughters inherited the property (still at the rent of 8d.) but transferred it to
Jeremiah Pledger of Holybreds, eldest son of Jeremiah Pledger of Mowden Hall and
grandson of Elias.
In 1489 Alice, wife of Philip Eliot of Danbury, previously wife of John Hierde, died
in possession of the messuage and 5 acres of land called Hierdes alias Badewes,
recently occupied by John Westwode and before that by Richard Badewe. Alice and
John Hierde had been admitted in 1442, their heirs to be their daughter Joan and her
husband, John Coker of Woodham Mortimer, whose heir was their son, John. He
attended the 1490 court to claim his inheritance, paid a fine of 6s.8d. and was
admitted. In 1497, when his sub-tenant was John Felsted, the court ordered him to
repair the roof which was “ruinous”. The following year he transferred the property
to Thomas Rede alias Carter. The next record of “certeyn landes called Herdes” is in
1620 when John Porter held the customary lands with the messuage at a rent of
6s.11d. At the 1632 court he surrendered the cottage and 12 acres of arable land,
meadow and pasture to John Levitt, whose heir, John Bastwick, paid a fine of £6 for
them at the 1672 court. John Bastwick’s daughter and then his grand daughter were
his heiresses. Heards and its 12 acres was surrendered by Elizabeth Lepper in 1735 to
Elizabeth Bruce, widow, who paid a fine of £4.10.0. She lived in the house, but
eleven years later mortgaged it for the sum of £20 and then in 1758 surrendered it to
Thomas Hales, who paid a fine of £3.15.0. for admission. When his son John
inherited it in 1781 he had to find £12.1.6. as fine. On his death the fine paid by his
two nephews had risen to £15.15.0., but the rent was still 6s.11d. Thomas Hales had
added to the building, converting it into three tenements, and it was not until the midnineteenth
century that it became a wheelwright’s shop and forge.
Sketch
From at least the seventeenth century the Hall manor held Eastmans, a customary
messuage with three crofts of land, almost surrounded by lands of Bassetts manor,
and approached by Eastmans lane. It was unusual in the Hall manor in being
“herriotable”, but no heriot seems to have been claimed. When Thomas Wright
obtained it in 1612 in right of his wife, Anne, the daughter and heiress of the former
tenant, Thomas Thrustell, he paid a fine of £4. It consisted of a messuage, three crofts
containing 17 acres and 1 acre of meadow, for a rent of 4s. When Anne died her son,
Edward, aged 13 years, was admitted, with his father acting as guardian. Edward died
in 1638, leaving Eastmans to his sister who surrendered it to Richard Vessey. From
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