Wheatley - Village Archive - Westbrooke's Charity and Town Meadow Charity

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Archive Notes:

Thomas Westbrooke, by wi11 in 1630, left £15 to the poor of Wheatley.

‘By inquisition taken under commission of charitable uses dated June 2nd.1686, it was found that there was given the sum of15 shillings per annum by Thomas Westbrooke, to the use of the poor of Wheatley with the payment of which 15s.per annum, the said Thomas Westbrooke charged his messuage or tenement & close in Horspath & that the same had been paid constantly by the owners of the same at Xmas, yearly & the commissioners therefore, ordered the same to be paid accordingly', for the use of the poor as there to before.'

Town Meadow Charity

In account of charities belonging to Wheatley entered in the Chapel wardens book in 1802 by the incumbent and copied by him from an older book, it is stated, that there were certain estates anciently given to this parish and after suits judged to belong to it in the time of James I to be used & employed by the inhabitants, to the use of the poor of the said town, the setting forth of soldiers, and payments of fifteenths for the poor inhabitants. It is further stated that the estates consisted of some tenements small parcels of land, all memory of which was then lost, except of the following:

An acre in the lower field called Boymore; two butts abutting Howe-lane; three dittos on Coombe Wood; three dittos in Piegape, then divided into six.

The statement then adds, that the above, except the first were then called Sims' Butts, & they were all let with the Town Meadow & were not above two acres together.

The several pieces of land, first above mentioned, are now, given up for an allotment adjoining the Town Meadow, containing little more than an acre of arable land. The Town Meadow (called in the inquisition Pokin’s meadow) consists of about 5 acres of meadow land, & there is also about an acre of meadow land lying within 200 or 300 yds of the Town Meadow & supposed to have been purchased at the same time with it.

Simon’s Close rent charge.

By the inquisition above referred to, it was further found that there was the sum of £5 per annum to be forever issued out of a close of Sir Sebastian Smith, in Wheatley, called Simon’s Close, & that the same was payable by the owners or occupiers of the said close at Christmas & Easter, or within 20 days after each of the said feasts by equal portion to the use of the said poor.

See: Abraham Archdale Will left £5, to be taken Yearly from the land
List of Manor land in the Bodleian
Col Casehill Draper Undated about 1686, mentions the same £5 to be deducted out of one of the Howes called ‘Symons Howe’
Payable to the poor of Wheatley.

Sir Sebastian Smith paid for it as owning the land.

Left in the Will of A. Archdale dated 1631.

By an Inquisition taken under a commission of charitable uses, dated June 2nd.1686, it was found, that one Mr. Archdale did theretofore give the sum of £100, the interest & increase whereof was to go to & for the use & benefit of the poor of Wheatley, in the county of Oxford, forever; & that the yearly interest of the same was for several years, bestowed & distributed to & amongst the said poor until such time as one Mr. Powell took the same on his own bond,& kept it in his hands several years without paying any interest for it, so long as the said £100 was increased to £150, & that by a joint charity of many of the cheapest sort of inhabitants of the said town the same was called in, & made up to £240 & laid out upon a purchase of a meadow in Wheatley aforesaid, called Pokin’s meadow, containing about 5 or 6 acres, in the possession of one Henry Mont, Willian Green & Nicholas Blea, in the names of Robert Whorwood, gentleman, Thomas Sims, John Robinson & Edward Pangbourne.

See record 1231 re Bishop Moss School in the High Street