Its owners and some historical connections - Lackham Countryside ...

The Manor of Alderton 3rd edition
Shortly after this the Manor was owned by another branch of the Poyntz family, the
Cliffords, who were certainly descended from the first English generation of the
Poyntz family and, according to Jackson, held Alderton
Aldrington was held of the Crown by the Mortimers at the
Domesday Survey, afterwards by the Cliffords of Clifford’s Castle.
Under these the principal estate belonged to William Hartham 30
It is known that Henry de Hertham held 31 in 1242-43 but details of others are rare.
However in March,1316, King Edward II sent to all the Sheriff’s of England asking
“what cities, boroughs and townships there were in each Hundred
or Wapentake, and who were the Lords thereof”
The return for Wiltshire shows the owners of Aldrynton as Johannes de Hertham
[John of Hartham], Hugo de Davereswell and Robert de Harlegh 32 . The Hartham
family held for some time, and as late as 1442 they were still remembered - some
lands in the Manor, then occupied by Ralph Ivy of another important northern
Wiltshire family, were
Charged from ancient time with providing one chaplain to celebrate
Divine Service in the Church of Aldrington for the souls of the
ancestors of Lord Hartham 33
In the 14 th century Alderton was a small farming community based around the Great
Field system of Mediaeval agriculture, with the land divided up into strips of about
half an acre and people holding strips spread around the fields to even out the
30 Jackson, Rev JE (1862), editing Aubrey’s Topographical Collections, I North Wiltshire in a
footnote to Aubrey’s text, p51
31 VCH Wiltshire vol II pp 111-112
32 Jones, Rev WH (1870) The Nomina Villarum for Wiltshire 9 th Edw II (1316) WAM vol XII
no XXXIV p 23
33 Jackson, Rev JE (1862), editing Aubrey’s Topographical Collections, I North Wiltshire in a
footnote to Aubrey’s text, p51
19