Parson Drove, originally a township and chapelry of Leverington, became a separate ecclesiastical district under the Leverington Rectory Act (1870).....The parish consists in effect of the fen end of Leverington; it has no separate manorial history [...] The scattered village is situated about 6½ miles west of Wisbech and 4½ miles south-west of Leverington. [...] Fendyke Bank, the great bank stretching from Cloughs Cross on the Lincolnshire border southwards to Guyhirn, is one of the most important in the district. For many hundreds of years it was the bastion of defence against the fresh waters coming down from the upland counties, and the landward counterpart to the old sea bank on the east side of Leverington. Fendyke protected the whole district on the north side of Wisbech which includes Tydd St. Giles, Newton, Leverington, Guyhirn, and Wisbech St. Mary. Its importance cannot therefore be exaggerated, and the most stringent measures were taken to ensure its safety. The obligation to maintain the bank was imposed on the landowners in the protected parishes.
A great breach was made in the bank in 1437, when 13,400 acres were flooded through the default of one Thomas Flower, the owner of 24 acres in Wisbech High Fen. (fn. 5) Further breaches occurred in 1570 (fn. 6) and in 1770. At the latter date a gap 130 yards wide was made, probably at Abel's Gull. Parts of the country-side were flooded to a depth of 6 feet, and were not brought back into cultivation for three years. So sudden was the disaster that some fled for their lives to Thorney Abbey and the higher lands around. (fn. 7)
The Fendyke may be said to mark the boundary between the 'peat' and 'silt' portions of the parish. The former, comprising Parson Drove Fen, has always been less highly valued and was formerly used mainly as sheep pasturage; it is sparsely populated. The latter, which is the area of ancient settlement, forms part of the Wisbech fruit-growing and market-gardening district.
The 2-mile road called Parson Drove or Parson Drove Gate, along which the nucleus of the village is built, was formerly a green drove and wider than it is now. The inclosure of pieces of common land beside the road has brought it down to its present width; a small strip of common remains at the western end, and the former extent of the rest of the commons is still clearly visible. A fence used to stretch across the eastern end at Gates End Bridge, to prevent cattle straying upon Overdyke Bank.
Pepys, who visited Parson Drove on 17 and 18 September 1663, described it as a 'heathen place' where he had to sleep in a 'sad, cold, stony chamber in a miserable inn'. His visit was made in connexion with the affairs of his deceased aunt Beatrice, relict of John Day of Wisbech, (fn. 8) who held much property in Leverington, especially in Outnewlands Field and Fen Croft. (fn. 9) 'Uncle Perkins', mentioned by the diarist as then living in Parson Drove in a poor way, was the husband of Jane Pepys, the diarist's aunt. (fn. 10) The inn in which the diarist lodged was the Swan which in 1834 belonged to Charles Boucher, a brewer, who altered it drastically. Pepys, who was very susceptible to environment, reacted unfavourably to the Fens. The roads, houses, living conditions, even the gnats from undrained swamps, come in for severe criticism.
From: 'Wisbech Hundred: Chapeiry of Parson Drove', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4: City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (2002), pp. 197-200. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 17 September 2006.
caution (n.) 1297, "bail, guarantee, pledge," from O.Fr., "security, surety," from L. cautionem (nom. cautio), from cautus pp. of cavere "to be on one's guard" (see caveat). The Latin sense re-emerged in Eng. 16c.-17c. The verb sense of "to warn" is from 1641; cautious is from 1640. http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…
hang·er n. 1. One who hangs something: a house painter who also works as a paperhanger. 2. A contrivance to which something hangs or by which something is hung, as: a. A device around which a garment is draped for hanging from a hook or rod. b. A loop or strap by which something is hung. 3. A bracket on the spring shackle of a motor vehicle, designed to hold it to the chassis. 4. A decorative strip of cloth hung on a garment or wall. 5. A short sword that may be hung from a belt. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/…
the doorkeeper/housekeeper to the Navy Office is William Griffith; but if he did not also tend resident quarters may explain the lack of an immediate hue and cry. http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
Good for Pepys that he lives in lax times - no fine for church non-attendance (for the second Sunday in a row).
Last Sunday Robert's loverly scenario played out in his mind...6 September "(Lord’s day). My pill I took last night worked very well, and I lay long in bed and sweat to get away the itching all about my body from head to foot, which is beginning again as it did the last winter, and I find after I am up that it is abated. I staid at home all day and my wife also, whom, God forgive me, I staid along with me for fear of her seeing of Pembleton." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Joseph Hill (1625-1707), biblical scholar; Magdelene Fellow from Oct. 1649-ca. Dec 1660, when he was extruded for Nonconformity. A don Pepys came to know well, and it was in Hill’s chamber on Fri 21 October 1653,in the presence of all the fellows then resident,that Pepys and a companion, Hind,had been solemnly admonished by Wood and Hill for having been scandalously overseen in drink the night before " Adapted from an annotation by gerry quoting from an L&M note to the 25 February 1659/60 diary entry. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
Still...I fear the figures of 8 September shed no light at all on the letter of Carteret and Mennes.
It seemed to me that what was under discussion in the morning and at day's end are the accounts for the past half year of 8 September. AND there is a strong indication from Sir Philip Warwick that the like account will be paid going forward; but the *figures* don't compute (sure).
8 September - "At the office all the morning making up our last half year’s account to my Lord Treasurer, which comes to 160,000l. or there abouts, the proper expense of this half year, only with an addition of 13,000l. for the third due of the last account to the Treasurer for his disbursements, and 1100l. for this half year’s; so that in three years and a half his thirds come to 14,100l." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
L&M say the record shows the invoice came to £167,215. The "third" is the Sir G. Carteret’s allowance.
watch (n.) O.E. wæcce "a watching," from wæccan (see watch (v.)). Sense of "sentinel" is recorded from c.1300; that of "person or group officially patroling a town (esp. at night) to keep order, etc." is first recorded 1539. Meaning "period of time in which a division of a ship's crew remains on deck" is from 1585. Sense of "period into which a night was divided in ancient times" translates L. vigilia, Gk. phylake, Heb. ashmoreth. "The Hebrews divided the night into three watches, the Greeks usually into four (sometimes five), the Romans (followed by the Jews in New Testament times) into four." [OED] The meaning "small timepiece" is from 1588, developing from that of "a clock to wake up sleepers" (1440). Watchmaker is recorded from 1630; watchtower is attested from 1544. http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…
17 August - "Mr. Moore...tells me...of my lord’s being debauched...by this woman at Chelsey"
19 August - "Mr. Moore...a-talking about my Lord’s folly at Chelsey"
24 August - "Mr. Moore [told me] of strange dotages of his upon the slut at Chelsea"
7 September - "Mr. Pickering...tells me how he is sorry for my Lord at his being at Chelsey
9 September - "I met with Ned Pickering, with whom I walked 3 or 4 hours till evening, he telling me the whole business of my Lord’s folly with this Mrs. Becke, at Chelsey, of all which I am ashamed to see my Lord so grossly play the beast and fool, to the flinging off of all honour, friends, servants, and every thing and person that is good, and only will have his private lust undisturbed with this common [whore], his sitting up night after night alone, suffering nobody to come to them, and all the day too, casting off Pickering, basely reproaching him with his small estate, which yet is a good one, and other poor courses to obtain privacy beneath his honour, and with his carrying her abroad and playing on his lute under her window, and forty other poor sordid things, which I am grieved to hear; but believe it to no purpose for me to meddle with it, but let him go on till God Almighty and his own conscience and thoughts of his lady and family do it."
Shall Pepys, whose position at the Navy Office has become increaslingly secure, be able to resist intervening/ appealing to Sandwich, since the latter is endangering not only his own Cromwellian self, his dear Lady and daughter, and his retainers, esp. Moore, et al. (for he does owe Pepys considerable money).
"Lignum vitae is the heartwood of species of the genus Guaiacum, the trees of which are usually called guayacan. The name is Latin for "wood of life", and derives from its medicinal uses. Other names are palo santo, holy wood, and of course ironwood (one of many). The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, both slow growing trees that do not become large. "This wood has a specific gravity between 1.28 and 1.37, so it will sink in water. It is a hard, dense and durable wood, one of the densest woods in the trade. The wood was important for uses requiring strength, weight and hardness. Master clockmaker John Harrison [who designed and built the world's first successful maritime clock, one whose accuracy was great enough to allow the determination of longitude over long distances.] used lignum vitae as the basis for his nearly all-wood clocks, since the wood provides natural lubricating oils which do not dry out." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lign…
It's a mild spoiler to look ahead to John Harrison and his abysmal treatment by the Royal Society later on over the longitude problem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John…
Comments
First Reading
About Thursday 17 September 1663
TerryF • Link
CHAPELRY OF PARSON DROVE
Parson Drove, originally a township and chapelry of Leverington, became a separate ecclesiastical district under the Leverington Rectory Act (1870).....The parish consists in effect of the fen end of Leverington; it has no separate manorial history
[...]
The scattered village is situated about 6½ miles west of Wisbech and 4½ miles south-west of Leverington.
[...]
Fendyke Bank, the great bank stretching from Cloughs Cross on the Lincolnshire border southwards to Guyhirn, is one of the most important in the district. For many hundreds of years it was the bastion of defence against the fresh waters coming down from the upland counties, and the landward counterpart to the old sea bank on the east side of Leverington. Fendyke protected the whole district on the north side of Wisbech which includes Tydd St. Giles, Newton, Leverington, Guyhirn, and Wisbech St. Mary. Its importance cannot therefore be exaggerated, and the most stringent measures were taken to ensure its safety. The obligation to maintain the bank was imposed on the landowners in the protected parishes.
A great breach was made in the bank in 1437, when 13,400 acres were flooded through the default of one Thomas Flower, the owner of 24 acres in Wisbech High Fen. (fn. 5) Further breaches occurred in 1570 (fn. 6) and in 1770. At the latter date a gap 130 yards wide was made, probably at Abel's Gull. Parts of the country-side were flooded to a depth of 6 feet, and were not brought back into cultivation for three years. So sudden was the disaster that some fled for their lives to Thorney Abbey and the higher lands around. (fn. 7)
The Fendyke may be said to mark the boundary between the 'peat' and 'silt' portions of the parish. The former, comprising Parson Drove Fen, has always been less highly valued and was formerly used mainly as sheep pasturage; it is sparsely populated. The latter, which is the area of ancient settlement, forms part of the Wisbech fruit-growing and market-gardening district.
The 2-mile road called Parson Drove or Parson Drove Gate, along which the nucleus of the village is built, was formerly a green drove and wider than it is now. The inclosure of pieces of common land beside the road has brought it down to its present width; a small strip of common remains at the western end, and the former extent of the rest of the commons is still clearly visible. A fence used to stretch across the eastern end at Gates End Bridge, to prevent cattle straying upon Overdyke Bank.
Pepys, who visited Parson Drove on 17 and 18 September 1663, described it as a 'heathen place' where he had to sleep in a 'sad, cold, stony chamber in a miserable inn'. His visit was made in connexion with the affairs of his deceased aunt Beatrice, relict of John Day of Wisbech, (fn. 8) who held much property in Leverington, especially in Outnewlands Field and Fen Croft. (fn. 9) 'Uncle Perkins', mentioned by the diarist as then living in Parson Drove in a poor way, was the husband of Jane Pepys, the diarist's aunt. (fn. 10) The inn in which the diarist lodged was the Swan which in 1834 belonged to Charles Boucher, a brewer, who altered it drastically. Pepys, who was very susceptible to environment, reacted unfavourably to the Fens. The roads, houses, living conditions, even the gnats from undrained swamps, come in for severe criticism.
From: 'Wisbech Hundred: Chapeiry of Parson Drove', A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4: City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (2002), pp. 197-200. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/…. Date accessed: 17 September 2006.
About Tuesday 15 September 1663
TerryF • Link
A "very" day, 5 in all -
2 of "weary", one of how fat *this* Betty is.
About Wednesday 16 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"we had caution enough for our money"
caution (n.)
1297, "bail, guarantee, pledge," from O.Fr., "security, surety," from L. cautionem (nom. cautio), from cautus pp. of cavere "to be on one's guard" (see caveat). The Latin sense re-emerged in Eng. 16c.-17c. The verb sense of "to warn" is from 1641; cautious is from 1640. http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…
About Monday 14 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"after a little bayte...at Ware"
bayte, bait
- refreshment on a journey, for travelers or their horses.
(Select Glossary)
About Monday 14 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"strong water" = "distilled spirits"
(L&M Select Glossary)
Hair of the dog? That would make her vomit!
About Samuel de Santhune
TerryF • Link
Samuel de Santhune
Uncle Thomas Pepys's son-in-law, a weaver (methinks a Huguenot) who married his daughter, Mary.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
About Monday 14 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"my cozen Thomas dropped his hanger"
hang·er n.
1. One who hangs something: a house painter who also works as a paperhanger.
2. A contrivance to which something hangs or by which something is hung, as:
a. A device around which a garment is draped for hanging from a hook or rod.
b. A loop or strap by which something is hung.
3. A bracket on the spring shackle of a motor vehicle, designed to hold it to the chassis.
4. A decorative strip of cloth hung on a garment or wall.
5. A short sword that may be hung from a belt.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/…
I'm betting on 5.
About Friday 11 September 1663
TerryF • Link
the doorkeeper/housekeeper to the Navy Office is William Griffith; but if he did not also tend resident quarters may explain the lack of an immediate hue and cry.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/encyclo…
About Sunday 13 September 1663
TerryF • Link
Good for Pepys that he lives in lax times
- no fine for church non-attendance (for the second Sunday in a row).
Last Sunday Robert's loverly scenario played out in his mind...6 September "(Lord’s day). My pill I took last night worked very well, and I lay long in bed and sweat to get away the itching all about my body from head to foot, which is beginning again as it did the last winter, and I find after I am up that it is abated. I staid at home all day and my wife also, whom, God forgive me, I staid along with me for fear of her seeing of Pembleton." http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
About Joseph Hill
TerryF • Link
Joseph Hill (1625-1707), biblical scholar; Magdelene Fellow from Oct. 1649-ca. Dec 1660, when he was extruded for Nonconformity. A don Pepys came to know well, and it was in Hill’s chamber on Fri 21 October 1653,in the presence of all the fellows then resident,that Pepys and a companion, Hind,had been solemnly admonished by Wood and Hill for having been scandalously overseen in drink the night before " Adapted from an annotation by gerry quoting from an L&M note to the 25 February 1659/60 diary entry. http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
About Saturday 12 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"I wish he may hold his mind"
Bradford, I assumed "this [is] analogous to holding one’s tongue" - but perhaps Mr. Hat or someone else as erudite will know for sure.
About Saturday 12 September 1663
TerryF • Link
Still...I fear the figures of 8 September shed no light at all on the letter of Carteret and Mennes.
It seemed to me that what was under discussion in the morning and at day's end are the accounts for the past half year of 8 September. AND there is a strong indication from Sir Philip Warwick that the like account will be paid going forward; but the *figures* don't compute (sure).
About Saturday 12 September 1663
TerryF • Link
The invoice presented to Sir Philip Warwick?
8 September - "At the office all the morning making up our last half year’s account to my Lord Treasurer, which comes to 160,000l. or there abouts, the proper expense of this half year, only with an addition of 13,000l. for the third due of the last account to the Treasurer for his disbursements, and 1100l. for this half year’s; so that in three years and a half his thirds come to 14,100l."
http://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1…
L&M say the record shows the invoice came to £167,215. The "third" is the Sir G. Carteret’s allowance.
Still.....
About Friday 11 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"I found it was the constable and his watch"
watch (n.)
O.E. wæcce "a watching," from wæccan (see watch (v.)). Sense of "sentinel" is recorded from c.1300; that of "person or group officially patroling a town (esp. at night) to keep order, etc." is first recorded 1539. Meaning "period of time in which a division of a ship's crew remains on deck" is from 1585. Sense of "period into which a night was divided in ancient times" translates L. vigilia, Gk. phylake, Heb. ashmoreth.
"The Hebrews divided the night into three watches, the Greeks usually into four (sometimes five), the Romans (followed by the Jews in New Testament times) into four." [OED]
The meaning "small timepiece" is from 1588, developing from that of "a clock to wake up sleepers" (1440). Watchmaker is recorded from 1630; watchtower is attested from 1544.
http://www.etymonline.com/index.p…
About Thursday 10 September 1663
TerryF • Link
"these 27 years in this office"
Michael, that quite credibly refines Dirk's suggestion (above).
About Thursday 10 September 1663
TerryF • Link
1636
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1636
Dirk, you must be right - thanks muchly.
About Thursday 10 September 1663
TerryF • Link
these 27 years
I tried to figure out what happened in 1636 that was a baseline for the Navy Office, but came up dry. Anyone know?
About Wednesday 9 September 1663
TerryF • Link
The mounting stories of the scandal at Chelsea
17 August - "Mr. Moore...tells me...of my lord’s being debauched...by this woman at Chelsey"
19 August - "Mr. Moore...a-talking about my Lord’s folly at Chelsey"
24 August - "Mr. Moore [told me] of strange dotages of his upon the slut at Chelsea"
7 September - "Mr. Pickering...tells me how he is sorry for my Lord at his being at Chelsey
9 September - "I met with Ned Pickering, with whom I walked 3 or 4 hours till evening, he telling me the whole business of my Lord’s folly with this Mrs. Becke, at Chelsey, of all which I am ashamed to see my Lord so grossly play the beast and fool, to the flinging off of all honour, friends, servants, and every thing and person that is good, and only will have his private lust undisturbed with this common [whore], his sitting up night after night alone, suffering nobody to come to them, and all the day too, casting off Pickering, basely reproaching him with his small estate, which yet is a good one, and other poor courses to obtain privacy beneath his honour, and with his carrying her abroad and playing on his lute under her window, and forty other poor sordid things, which I am grieved to hear; but believe it to no purpose for me to meddle with it, but let him go on till God Almighty and his own conscience and thoughts of his lady and family do it."
Shall Pepys, whose position at the Navy Office has become increaslingly secure, be able to resist intervening/ appealing to Sandwich, since the latter is endangering not only his own Cromwellian self, his dear Lady and daughter, and his retainers, esp. Moore, et al. (for he does owe Pepys considerable money).
About Wednesday 9 September 1663
TerryF • Link
Lignum Vitae - another take
"Lignum vitae is the heartwood of species of the genus Guaiacum, the trees of which are usually called guayacan. The name is Latin for "wood of life", and derives from its medicinal uses. Other names are palo santo, holy wood, and of course ironwood (one of many). The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, both slow growing trees that do not become large.
"This wood has a specific gravity between 1.28 and 1.37, so it will sink in water. It is a hard, dense and durable wood, one of the densest woods in the trade. The wood was important for uses requiring strength, weight and hardness. Master clockmaker John Harrison [who designed and built the world's first successful maritime clock, one whose accuracy was great enough to allow the determination of longitude over long distances.] used lignum vitae as the basis for his nearly all-wood clocks, since the wood provides natural lubricating oils which do not dry out." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lign…
It's a mild spoiler to look ahead to John Harrison and his abysmal treatment by the Royal Society later on over the longitude problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John…
Thanks, Miss Ann fr Home.
About Wednesday 9 September 1663
TerryF • Link
L&M tell us what is common - no surprise:
Mrs. Becke at Chelsey is "this common whore." ~ ipso facto Lord Sandwich is a common whoremonger ~ a commen john.
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl…