Uhtræd 17

Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’, fl. 1066
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Name

Uhtræd
Uhtræd 18

Summary

Uhtræd 17 was the dominant landowner in West Derby hundred Between Ribble and Mersey and enjoyed judicial privileges which mark him out as a king’s thegn. With two other manors just across the Mersey in Cheshire, his nineteen estates were assessed at a total of 32¾ carucates and hides; their value in 1066 cannot be estimated.

Distribution map of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

List of property and lordships associated with this name in DB

Holder 1066

Shire Phil. ref. Vill DB Spelling Holder 1066 Lord 1066 Tenant-in-Chief 1086 1086 Subtenant Fiscal Value 1066 Value 1086 Value Conf. Show on Map
Cheshire 3,11 Wallasey Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ - Hugh, earl Robert of Rhuddlan 1.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire 9,20 Norton Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ - Hugh, earl William fitzNigel 1.00 0.40 0.23 - Map
Cheshire R1,13 Woolton Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 2.00 0.27 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,16 Speke Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 2.00 0.27 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Knowsley Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Roby Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Little Crosby Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 3.00 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Aughton Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Maghull Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,2 Kirkby Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 3.00 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,22 Aughton Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.00 0.13 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,26 Dalton Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.00 0.13 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,27 Skelmersdale Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.00 0.13 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,28 Up Litherland Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 1.00 0.13 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,31 Lathom Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 3.00 0.53 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,32 Hurlston Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 3.00 0.53 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,34 Lydiate Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 0.75 0.27 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,36 Altcar Vctred Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 0.50 0.00 0.00 - Map
Cheshire R1,7 Kirkdale Vctredus Uhtræd ‘of Little Crosby’ Edward, king Roger the Poitevin - 3.00 0.50 0.00 - Map
Totals

Profile

The name Uhtræd appears repeatedly in the king’s hundredal manor of West Derby, in the territory Between Ribble and Mersey, and clearly relates to a single individual with a dominant position in the hundred, rather than a multiplicity of namesakes (Lewis 1991: 26, 28–9). His estates there (30¼ carucates in total) amounted to a third of the assessment for West Derby and extended into all parts of the hundred, from Speke and Kirkdale on the Mersey over the Skelmersdale ridge and into the Douglas valley on the north-east. No other landowner in West Derby had more than a couple of manors. Moreover Uhtræd enjoyed judicial privileges at two of his larger estates, Little Crosby and Kirkdale, where he was quit from all customs except the fines for six of the most serious felonies and the payment of geld. The privileges mark him out as a king’s thegn. We might infer that Uhtræd’s principal residence was at one of those two places, and that one or both of them was a central place of some antiquity in which the judicial rights of the owner were embedded. Such inferences are intriguingly supported by the fact that a major coin hoard was deposited c. 910 at a place in Little Crosby called the Harkirk (‘the old church’) (Lewis 1991b: 29–30).

The location of the two estates in Cheshire, close to the Mersey, is such that their owner was clearly Uhtræd of West Derby. One was Wallasey, almost an island off the north end of Wirral and just across the mouth of the Mersey estuary from Kirkdale. Possession of Kirkdale and Wallasey made Uhtræd guardian of the estuary against any landing by Vikings or others. His other Cheshire manor was one of two at Norton, close to the head of the estuary. Both Wallasey and Norton had at some point in the relatively recent past been carved out of multiple estates once in royal hands, Wallasey from the Wirral estate held c. 1000 (along with Between Ribble and Mersey) by Wulfric Spot (Wulfric 52), Norton from the estate centred on Runcorn and Halton (Thacker 1987: 264; Higham 1993: 155). They look like strategic grants to a powerful landowner based north of the Mersey.

Norton stood opposite Warrington hundred rather than West Derby, and we do not know whether Uhtræd had lands in Warrington since DB does not provide details of landownership in any of the three hundreds which adjoined West Derby on the east (Warrington, Newton, and Leyland). Uhtræd’s estates may well have extended beyond West Derby alone, though probably not to the easterly hundred of Rochdale, where there was an equivalent dominant king’s thegn with judicial privileges (Lewis 1991: 30).

Given the structure of his local estate and his special status, it is conceivable that Uhtræd had been drafted in from beyond Between Ribble and Mersey, in exactly the same way as the territory as a whole had belonged c. 1000 to the Mercian grandee Wulfric Spot. If so, the only likely candidate is the North Riding landowner Uhtræd son of Thorkil of Cleveland (Uhtræd 18). On balance, however, Uhtræd 17 seems more likely to have been local to West Derby.

Bibliography


Higham 1993: N. J. Higham, The Origins of Cheshire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993) 

Lewis 1991: CPL, ‘An introduction to the Lancashire Domesday’, The Lancashire Domesday, [ed. Ann Williams and G. H. Martin] (London: Alecto Historical Editions, 1991), 1–41

Thacker 1987: A. T. Thacker, ‘Anglo-Saxon Cheshire’, in The Victoria History of the Counties of England: A History of the County of Chester, I, ed. B. E. Harris and A. T. Thacker (London: Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1987)