PECULIAR ANCIENT LEASES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19144, 9 October 1925, Page 5

PECULIAR ANCIENT LEASES.

SOME STRANGE CONDITIONS. OBLIGATIONS OF TENANTS. We live in an age of high rents. They m were happier in the old days, though ® some of the conditions of ancient leases || in Britain must have been difficult to pji fulfil. The law-books contain many an jjfj instance of strange conditions upon which ' estates used to be held, or even still are held. For instance, one Solomon Att- || field held lands at Repland and Atter- p ton, in Kent, upon condition that, as M often as the king should cross the sea, || the said Solomon should accom- g> pany him and " hold his head," should I! he have the misfortune to be sea-sick! | Many nobles held taanors in return for I the service of carving for the King at an- J nual feasts, or serving him, or guarding "'J his person. The lord of the manor of I Houghton, Cumberland, was obliged to hold the king's stirrup when he mounted his horse in Carlisle Castle. The Lord of Shirefield hid the duty of looking after t His Majesty's laundresses, in addition to measuring the gallons in. the royal household, and dismembering condemned criminals. To carry a hawk for the King; to present him with a grey hood or cap or a white ensign whenever he warred in Scotland; to attend with proper arms, a horse, sword, lance, or simple bow a'nd arrows, whenever their services wers required, were the duties impcsed upon other manor lords. The service of cornage, or horn-blow-ing, was very common, especially in. the Border counties, subject as they were to frequent Scottish raids. The owner of * Kingston Russell, Dorset, ha 3 the very j peaceable task of counting the royal ehesimen, and putting them back in a bag j when the king had finished hi.? game. There is a large estate it Yorkshire which is held on condition that the j tenant pays a yearly rental of " a snow- j ball at midsummer and a red rose at j Christmas." A queer, o'd-fashioned con- j dition was attached to the holding of the manor of- L&tston. This was that the. M tenant " should find our lord she king two arrows and one loaif of oat bread 1 when the sovereign should hunt in the - forest of Eastmoor." Geoffrey Frum- I brand and his heirs hold sixty acres of | land in Suffolk as long as they pay the | sovereign & yearly rental of two whits g doves. . -1 One of the safest holdings is that of a 1 certain Scottish duke, who' relinquishes _• his estate only if the weather should- over to become warm enough to melt the isiiOT> -dft U the highest peak of the highest mouiriam g in Scotland. „ . 1 For over seven hundred years the l,r " a poration of London has annual!} S charged two quaint ceremonies—the cutting of one fageot with a hatchet and another with a billhook-as qu.t-rentsto | the sovereign for certain lands stid SUP . J posed to be held by them m Shropshue I and Middlesex. Though nobody now | knows where the properties stand, the J ceremonies have never been forgotten.