PLYMOUTH |
The Encyclopaedia of Plymouth History |
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SUTTON-ON-PLYM As you will read on the history of Plymouth page, the modern City of Plymouth originated as a small hamlet on the banks of Sutton Pool and it is here that our review of Local Government starts. By around 700 AD the Saxons had conquered the Dumnonni and pushed them back into Cornwall. In 705 a new diocese of Sherborne was set up to govern the new territory. In that same year King Geraint of Cornwall gave the Bishop of Sherborne five hides of land at Maker, probably as a peace offering. The present county of Devon became a "shire" and when the parish system was set up in about 800 AD, the churches built by the earliest Saxon settlers became the parish churches. The land cleared and owned by the settlers became the parishes. Thus, Plymouth's ancient parishes were St Andrew's at Sutton, St Andrew's at Stoke, St Edward's at Egg Buckland and St Mary's at Tamerton. Because of the distance involved in getting from St Andrew's at Sutton to the far north of the parish, chapels were set up at Pennycross and St Budeaux. The earliest form of local government within the shire were the tithing and the hundred. The tithing was originally a group of ten households who were corporately held to account for each other's behaviour while the hundred was, of course, ten such groups. They were probably set up in the 10th century. Sutton fell within the Hundred of Walkhampton (or Wachetona as it was then spelt), an area which guarded not only the rivers Tamar, Tavy and Plym, but also the border with the remaining indigenous population, the Celts, in Cornwall. Sometime later, when the Hundred Court was moved to Roborough, so the Hundred took that name. The Court was presided over by the Reeve, who was the King's representative, and it considered all criminal offences, ecclesiastical matters of a minor nature, private pleas and the imposition of the King's taxes. It was also concerned with the maintenance of highways and ditches. Every male over the age of 12 years was expected to belong to a tithing and was obliged to attend at the Court, which met, usually, twice a year. Tithings were quickly overtaken by the ever expanding population of Britain and in the Plymouth area the only use of that titles in modern times was at Compton Gifford. The Hundred, however, lasted longer and was still the basis upon which William Whites's Directory of Devon was compiled as late as 1850. But Plymouth was growing and needed a different form of local government. Next - Plymouth's Charter of Incorporation 1439
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