Gedling

God gives all men all earth to love,
But, since man's heart is small,
Ordains for each one spot shall prove
Beloved over all.

Rudyard Kipling


Gedling is described in the directories of the nineteenth century as a "very pleasantly situated village beside the river Trent, and watered by its own stream the Ousedyke".

The village at various times in its history is known by different names, Ghellinge, Gedlinga, Geddlings, Gettang. The final "ing" is an Anglo-Saxon ending meaning a "family settlement", and it is possible that an Anglo-Saxon tribe made its home here, and "Gedling" is derived from the name of its chieftain; but the variations in its spelling need cause no concern, for to our forbears, to quote the words of the first Queen Elizabeth, spelling was a "thing indifferent".

The geographical situation of Gedling in Nottinghamshire, almost the centre of England, from which an army could strike in any direction, ensures that its inhabitants must have been to some extent concerned in all the outstanding events of English history, although actual facts are scanty. The number of English kings who "slept" at the Saracen's Head, Southwell, - Richard II, Richard III, Henry VII, and Charles I illustrates this point. Gedling was certainly in the "Danelaw", that portion of England ceded to the Danes perforce by Alfred at the Treaty of Wedmore; it is on record that Alfred himself, then a stripling of 19 years, was present with the English army in an attack on Nottingham then held by the Danes. Many an inhabitant of Gedling must have stood upon his hills overlooking the Trent and seen with dismay the long boats with the curved prows which bought the dreaded invaders to kill and plunder, and then fled, with such possessions as he could muster to the surrounding forest for safety. It was not until the reign of Alfred's son, Edward and daughter Aethelflaeda, the wife of the earl of Mercia, that the ravages of the Danes were finally over.

The first recorded mention of Gedling is in the Doomsday Book, 1086, where it is called "Ghellinge".

The entries run somewhat as follows: "In Ghellinge, Roger de Busli held 9 and one half bovates and one third part of a bovate assessed to the geld: land for two ploughs: Roger had 2 ploughs and nine villeins and one bordar, having 2 ploughs and 10/- of meadow. Woodland for pannage 2 furlongs in length and one in breadth. In time of King Edward (T.R.E) worth 32 shillings; now 40/-".

"Goisfried de Ancelin had in Stockes and Ghellinge 3 carucates 2 bovates, 4 ploughs; in demesne Goisfried has 2 ploughs, 15 villeins, 21 bordars having 8 ploughs, 6 serfs. there is a priest and a church and 1 fishery and 2 mills, and 30 acres of meadow. Woodland for pannage 3 furlongs length and 2 furlongs breadth. In time of King Edward it was worth 110/-, now 6 pounds."

These complicated, and somewhat contradictory extracts do not tell us very much. But some information regarding Gedling can be gathered. There are two "manors" here: the size of a manor varied from county to county. The unit for the assessment of land was the "hide": it is still a matter of controversy how much land a hide involved, so that it is not possible to calculate the size of the holdings, certainly not that of a bovate or carucate or a selion, into which a hide was sub-divided. Also, it is obvious that the "lords of the manor" were "foreigners" - by 1086 the English thanes had been dispossessed. A man's position in the village depended on the amount of land he tilled, for which he paid rent by service on the lord's demesne. Throughout English history it has always been possible to rise in the social scale by obtaining more land as the laws of Ine and Alfred prove: the villein was a more important man than the bordar or cottar. Perhaps the most famous example of this truth is the career of Bess of Hardwick in the sixteenth century, who, beginning life as a small yeoman's daughter, ended it, by advantageous marriage and wise purchase as the Countess of Shrewsbury; head of the Talbot household which in size and opulence was second only to that of the King. Serfs as a body, who were entirely in the possession of their masters with no rights whatever, disappear from the records after the Norman Conquest, although their disappearance was only gradual.

It is perhaps surprising that no mention is made of the Quarry of Gedling Stone, which became so valuable in later ages, of which the great Church was built (that superseded the one mentioned in Doomsday Book), and the Nottingham castle was repaired. But in the days of thatch and wattle and daub stone was perhaps little used.


Written by: F.M. Swann

Transcribed by: Allen Copsey