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Sandridge
Village History Sandridge-Cum-Walmons
Fee I have a number of 19th century legal documents relating to Sandridge wherein the appellation 'Sandridge-cum-Walmons Fee' (sometimes 'Sandridge-cum-Walmonds') is used. 'Cum' is the Latin word for 'with'. St. Paul's Walden, to the east of Sandridge parish (and where the present Queen Mother is alleged to have been born) was at one time - before the Domesday Survey, actually (and therefore in Saxon times) - within the spiritual domain of Sandridge but physically detached from its Hundred (an old geographical administrative area within a county; 100 vills or villages or townships constituted an Hundred). When, however, at an indeterminable date in history but probably around the 1086 Survey, the physical connection was severed, a mile long corridor from Sandridge parish boundary to St. Paul's Walden. This narrow corridor, now in Kimpton in Hitchin, flanked the probable course of the Baldock-Wheathampstead Roman road, which spans the gap. But the spiritual side was retained by calling the parish Sandridge-cum-Walmonds, Walmonds being a possible corruption over the centuries of 'Walden'. By an Indenture dated 17th April 1538, Richard Boreman, 41st and last Abbot of the exempt Monastery of St Albans, granted to John Byg, of Hounslow, Co. Middlesex, and Johan, his wife, 'the messuage called Seint Peters graunge1, OF OLD TIME CALLED WALMONS FEE2, in the county of Hertford, with all orchards, gardens, barns, etc, and the parsonage of St. Peters and Sandridge, with the tythes, but the patronages and pensions excepted, together with a portion of tythe within Sandridge, in Bridlehide [? indistinct in original] from the Feast of St John Baptist, 1539, until the end of fifty years, at the yearly rental of £22'. This means that in return for a capital sum paid to the abbot, John Byg received the £8 a year which was the vicar's income (of Sandridge) plus any profits he made otherwise, but excluding the right to appoint a vicar to Sandridge and excluding any payment of wages, etc. Months later Sandridge manor came into the hands of King Henry VIII who in 1541 conveyed [i.e. sold] it to Ralph Rowlatt, a London goldsmith and banker. 1 Graunge. An outlying farm-house with barns, etc., belonging to a monastery for storing tithes in kind etc. NOTE: Hence we get Grange Street which is opposite St. Peters church in St. Albans. 2 Walmons Fee. Who or what 'Walmons' was is not known. Fee = probably meaning an estate in land held on condition of homage and service to a superior lord. There is also reference in some documents to 'Sandridge-cum-St. Peters' - a reference to when St. Peter's church in St. Albans was probably the mother church of Sandridge. No record exists of any consecrated building existing at Sandridge during the Saxon period, though the use of Roman tiles in parts of St. Leonard's church strongly suggests a pre-Conquest date. When St. Peter's [at St. Albans] was built in the year 914 by Abbot Nersin, it was soon found that one building was inadequate to satisfy the needs of a vast parish, and the chapelries of Sandridge, Ridge and Northaw were formed to meet the difficulties, probably early in the 13th century. These chapelries eventually became separate parishes. The only definite date that can be assigned to the church of Sandridge is that of its consecration between 1094 and 1119, those dates being the time when Herbert Losigna was Bishop of Norwich. This prelate had previously been Bishop of Thetford, but obtained that position by purchase. Simony was a very fashionable sin at that period; certain it is that Losigna deemed it advisable to make a journey to Rome, where the Pope imposed upon him as a penance that he should spend much of his time in consecrating buildings to the divine service. In fulfilment of this he consecrated four churches in Hertfordshire alone, namely, Sandridge, Redbourn, Newnham and Norton.
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