Yapton & Ford Local History Group

Yapton Tithe Map

In 1836 the Government of the day passed an Act called the Tithe Commutation Act. Tithes, the term means one tenth, were a form of tax on parishioners whereby the Church received 10% of any products produced by them. This form of income was to pay for the services that the church supplied to the Parish. Tithes were initially given in kind, in the form of crops, cattle, eggs, wool, milk, timber or the like, anything in fact that was produced in the Parish, hence the introduction of Tithe Barns to store the produce. There were generally two classes of Tithes, Great Tithes which normally consisted of corn, hay, wood and grain and were paid to the Rector. All other products which included calves and lambs, milk, eggs, wool and anything produced by the labour of parishioners were classed as Small Tithes and paid to the vicar.

After the dissolution of the monasteries, when the Church had some of their land confiscated, the associated tithes went to the new landlords. The system was cumbersome and needed to change. In some areas Tithes in kind were being replaced by payments in money. In an attempt to make the system consistent and fair to all, the Government passed the Act.

The Tithe Commutation Act required Tithe Commissioners to travel the country and instigate a field by field survey and have detailed maps drawn up accurately recording all the information attained from these surveys. These maps included every field boundary, stream, pond, road, wood and orchard. Each house, hovel, barn, hut or stable was religiously drawn to scale and in its correct position. Each feature was given a unique number. To accompany these maps was a schedule referring to these numbers listing the owner, occupier and in the case of the fields, whether they were arable, pasture or meadow.

The same applied to buildings, the names of the occupiers and owners were recorded along with a description of the property, whether it had a garden, orchard or a pond. Along with this wealth of information was the area of each parcel of land including roads, streams and woods which were recorded in units of Acres, Roods and Perches. From these facts and figures the proportion of land given over to various uses could be ascertained. This included the amount of land that was under the plough and how much was pasture for instance, as well as how much was taken up by roads, woods, streams and buildings.

Yapton Tithe Map

Once the survey and maps were completed the Tithe owners and the farmers had to agree a valuation and have an agreement drawn up which would be confirmed by the Commissioners. If an agreement couldn’t be reached the Commissioners had the power to adjudicate. Once this had been completed then the Tithes had to be apportioned between the various landowners, not an easy task.

In the case of Yapton the Apportionment table was drawn up in 1841. The following was the break-down of the Parish at that time.

(A rood is a historic measure of area equal to ¼ of an acre and there are 40 perches to a rood.)

The tithes payable then had to have a monetary value placed on them based on the average value of the commodities over the last seven years. The following is the list of Tithe owners for Yapton along with their agreed receipts for the year 1841.

Gross rent charge to the Tithe Owners in Lieu of Tithes  = £838  8s  2d

[£ = Pounds,  s = shillings (5p),  d = pence (0.42p)]

Allen Misselbrook
October 2019

(Originally published in Sussex Local Magazine, Arundel, December 2019)