The Domesday Book

In Saxon times remote communities like Chalfield had to be self sufficient in food and water and be able to defend themselves at the manor in times of trouble.

The church sat safe within the manor curtilage or compound protected by walls, mill pond or upper moat and bastions.In 1085 King William I (the Conqueror) sent men all over England to find out who owned what and how much each landowner had in land and in stock and what it was worth in order that he could extract as much tax from them as possible.

This record became known as the Domesday Book.

The Domesday Entry

A translation of the Domesday entry on folio 70 of Wiltshire, re. Caldefelle (Great & Little Chalfield, see left), states that- ‘under lands of Ernulf de Hesdin who was one of the largest landowners in Wiltshire after the King, the Bishops, and various Abbeys. Chalfield was one among his twenty seven manors collectively worth £81, and formed a small part of his demesnes’.

The entry is abbreviated in Latin and Norman French and reads roughly as follows:

“Ernulf himself holds Caldefelle, Wallef held it in the time of King Edward and paid geld for 2 and a half hides. There is land for 2 ploughs. Of this 1 and a half hides are in demesne, and there is one plough with one slave and 4 bordars. There is half a mill rendering 18 pence and 6 acres of meadow and 6 acres of woodland and 8 acres of pasture. It was worth £4, now 50 /-.”