Dr Janet Tall, Head of Archives and Learning, writes: The account book belonged to William Walrond (1610-c.1667), a member of the Walrond family of Bradfield House, near Uffculme in mid Devon, and provides an unusually detailed insight into the operation of a significant country estate during the years following the English Civil War.
The account book comprises 192 pages and is closely written throughout in a clear legible hand (4749M/E/A/1). The volume’s original leather cover and binding are in excellent condition. The cover bears the arms of the Walrond family and is monogrammed with William Walrond’s initials. The volume’s early pages are mainly taken up with a range of Latin quotations and aphorisms and an indication that it first came into William Walrond’s possession in 1634. However, the main series of estate accounts begin in 1650, and most of the rest of the book records the daily business of an English rural estate during the Interregnum.
The accounts include details of repairs and upgrading work carried out on estate properties, such as ‘what it cost me to repaire Woodhouse, since my father suffered it to bee ruined’. This precedes a detailed account of the renovation of part of the house in the years following 1647, including payments for such items as lead, nails and linseed oil, and money paid to masons, carpenters and plasterers.
The volume also provides insight into the individuals who lived and worked on the estate. Entries record wages paid to estate employees, and rent received from tenants, as well as money paid out for a wide range of estate and personal expenses. These include parochial poor rates and tithes and aspects of livestock management. There are frequent references to the estate’s fulling and grist mills, which were important to Devon’s economy, as well as details of crops and rents. There is the additional inclusion of a survey of the Bradfield estate, undertaken by Edmund Crosse of Kentisbeare in February 1650. Personal family purchases are also listed, including for furniture (‘payd for a side Table at Tyverton’) and clothing (‘payd for a hatt at Exon’).
Several collections at the Devon Heritage Centre include material relating to the Walrond family, but most of this relates to later periods, so the volume adds to our knowledge of the family during the mid-17th century and complements records held relating to Bradfield House, most of which have later origins. We are grateful to the Friends of the National Libraries for enabling us to purchase this fine account book.
