ROSES AS RENT.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17882, 1 October 1923, Page 15

ROSES AS RENT.

The King was presented with a red rose the other day by a Scottish tenant, who holds his lands for ever on the quit rent of an annual rose. Everyone has Heard of a peppercorn rent, but rosea were equally popular at one period as an annual ottering in lieu of rent. There is a cottage in West Sussex L. I''. Kamsey in the "Oauy Mail") whoso owner formerly had to present a chaplet of rosea to the lady of the manor each midsummer as rent. His neighbour's rent consisted of two roots of ginger and a penny. In Spofforth, lorkshire, land was let in 1240 for a render of two chaplete, one for th.) lord and one for the lady, of primroses at Easter, of ruses at midsummer, and of sunflowers at Michaelmas, and one pair of furred gloves at Christmas. There is something very picturesque in huts offering of chaplete. History does not reccrd whether the tenants remained to witness the placing of the chaplets upon the brow of the noble lord and that of his lady. Nor does it relate which one got the pair of furred gioves. In the records of one West fciufrsex manor, there are many curious rents mentioned. Pepper is fairly common as rent, a pound of pepper to 12 acres of land. ''A hurdle maae or withies provided by the lorU," is part of the rent evidently of a shepherd's cottage, the tenant being required also to "carry the lord's sheepfold." This demand seems at first incompreltensible, but presumably it means that the tenant must move, when required, tne hurdles of which the sheepfold was composed. "To pay a halfpenny towardb Swellemede'' is another rent that requires elucidation. Swellemede is evidently the name of a.meadow, and the halfpenny went towards the mowing of it. Labour was cheap in those days, or at any rate, money went further. "Half a hen and five eggs'' is quite a common rent for a cottage, and a larger place is rented at a whole hen and ten eggs. Nor are these quit rents all things of the past. Only nowadays wt pny the equivalent in money. 1 myself am liable for a quit rent of pence. which is the payment instead of furnishing the best pig out of my litter.