Kirkham Priory’s Lands
The canons of Kirkham Priory, in the Vale of Pickering, received substantial grants of land from Michael of Kilham, and other landowners in the township during the 13th century, in addition to the two tofts already noted, all of which meticulously recorded in the priory’s cartulary (charter book).
The separate grants are set out in detail in the Northumberland County History (NCH XI (1922), 163-6, citing Kirkham Cartulary (Bod. Lib. MS Fairfax 7), fols. 85-8). The parcels were generally relatively small – 10 acres here, 8 acres there - but often included substantial grazing rights attached. Thus Michael of Kilham gave 10 acres of land in the place called Coteside (Coldside (?), east of Moneylaws Hill) with permission to build a sheepfold there, and pasture for 300 sheep.
The grant of two tofts and 12 bovates discussed previously also came with sufficient pasturage for 1000 sheep and their lambs from their birth till midsummer, and in a legal dispute over pasturage rights in 1269, it was stated that the priory had 1000 sheep feeding on the ‘great moor’ of Kilham (Northumb. Assize R. 176). Other religious corporations, namely Melrose Abbey and the leper hospital of St Thomas the Martyr at Bolton in Whittingham Vale, also acquired land in Kilham, but on nothing like the same scale as Kirkham Priory, which evidently benefited early on from the patronage of the barons of Wark, the latter being the original founders of the priory which lay close to their Yorkshire estates.
The Kirkham Cartulary contains a great deal of detailed information, not only about the extent and location of the priory’s holdings, but also regarding the way the institution was managing its land and, in particular, the livestock it maintained there. This detail includes the construction of sheepfolds and ponds, the enclosure of its various holdings by walls or ditches and the grazing of stock on different pastures at different times of the year.
Unfortunately, for the most part the locations named in the cartulary are not immediately identifiable with any current place names, however more prolonged and systematic study, involving detailed scrutiny of all the available estate maps and their attached schedules might begin to yield positive and highly significant results which could then be validated by field examination.