s we come to this period of history, we start name-dropping. We first look at one other landmark. This is not particularly a Limmer landmark but rather a place where we find several Limmers. At the same time, we can link these Limmers indirectly to other Limmers living in Hampshire by the fourteenth century.
In 1274 AD, the widow of Henry II, Queen Eleanor, founded a house for Dominican Friars at Guildford. Edward I. granted to the friars the right to enclose the roads leading from Guildford to the royal park and enlarged the whole area for an ecclesiastical park.
Known as 'the Preachers of Gyldeford', (mainly because it served as a seminary), By 1324 AD this friary housed twenty four brothers and a large number of skilled support staff to service its numerous guest rooms. Its huge gardens included herb gardens for medicine, orchards and well-landscaped horticultural rarities from around the world. So grand was the friary that it attracted most nobility to its hospitality. One king booked the friary for a royal party. So riotous was the party that on leaving, he presented two pounds to cover the cost of damage to vessels and gardens61.
The mother of Edward II requested that the friary be given over to Dominican Sisters. Edward wrote to Pope John XXII. in 1318-9, sending two Dominican friars, to plead in person. The Bishop of Winchester, under whose See the friary resided, proposed this nunnery might better be sited in Hampshire at the rectory of Kingsclere.62 Making representation to the pope, the bishop won the day63. There were three Lymmers working at the friary near that time, William(1389.3) John(1390.3) and John(1416.4) 64 This story is told because it is a link between three other Limmer landmarks. Kingsclere, Limmer copse and pond, which formed part of the lands in nunnery of High Clere, and Great Limmer farm which, as a tax storehouse for the Winchester See, indirectly if not directly supplied the friars of Guildford. The clear finding of three Limmers acting as assistants in the friary and the Friary writings acknowledging that these workers were seconded to kings and gentry for horticultural landscaping and building in return for substantial donations to the friary, links nicely with the landscaping of Limmer copse and Limmer pond around the same time begs a connection. We will return to William, John and young John in a moment.
‘ Now’, as they say, ‘ Let's meet the .. ’ family.
Top of the list of discoveries are two Lymmers from Lymmer65. John Lymer born around 1225 AD66 was a practical man of the building trade. Of course it was all wooden buildings for the common folk of the day then, but Brickworks mortared with lime was the up and coming thing. Presumably John(1235.U) was the father because he established the company as Limer & Co. in 1260 AD, William(1243.U) Lymmer took over the business in 1265 renaming it as William Lymmer & Co.67. Adam(1245.U) Lymmer branched out in Cambridge the same year as Adam Lymmer & Co. Little more than this is known of these men and there is a gap before our next Lymmers are found in Norfolk.
mills of the bishop’s manor for the lifetime of the bishop for a quarterly rent of £14:13s 4d in January 1347.
By 1409 AD, black death had taken its toll on the family of Limmers in Hampshire. John’s close family may well have fallen victim to this plague. At the death of John in 1409 AD74, the farm passed from the Limmer line. On the death of John(1390.3), the Bishop informed the male relatives in accordance with the custom of the manor but none of these wanted to take up their rightful option on the farm75. The bishop then agreed one John Lyle and his wife Isabel, should be rightful tenants upon payment of an entrance fee of three shillings and four pence. Isabel may have been a sister of John and William who had married into the Lyle family. This seems likely because John and Isabel only paid an entrance fee costs and not a full new contract fee required by new tenants, this was a concession given to those taking over a contract within a family or descending through a daughter of the family.
The farm consisted of a Messuage, sixteen-and-one-half acres with another Messuage in one-sixth part of one acre of land, surrounded by eleven acres of arable & one rood of pasture-land76 nearby77, this second site later became the site of the rebuilt Limmer cottages previously mentioned.78 This farm finally became a Housing estate in the 1950’s and the only remaining memory today is Limmer lane marks the western boundary of the original farm.
How these two came into the bishop’s employ is not proven but given the link with Great Limmer farm and Their father’s association with the Bishop, it seems a logical route.
John's(1360.U) father, and his uncles had lived at Great Limmer Farm. Thus, a good relationship with the bishopric cemented. There is no evidence to tell if William(1389.3) married but John(1390.3) did. By
By the early 13th century, nuclear Limmer families were moving northward to Bedfordshire82
Lymmer's Sail Cloth company was still running well under the control of John's descendent in 1586 AD when sailcloth and other cloths were being exported to France via Robert(1556.28) Lymmer84 who had set up a merchant trading company85. Robert(1556.28) was an enterprising young man, By 1576 he had purchased a Capital Messuage and land in Otley86 Norfolk. By 1587, Robert(1556.28) Lymmer had become bailiff to Lord Hunsdon, Lord Chamberlain87. In 1593, he had been promoted to (or rather purchased), the title of Robert Lymmer, Portman of Ipswich from Edward Goodinge of Ipswich88. In 1580 he was made a Governor of the Ipswich hospital89 and in 1593 he had solicitors from Shottisham draw up his will. The will did not become active until he died in 1606. Robert Lymmer having been made magistrate in Ipswich a little before he died. The said Robert was buried the 9th of May 1606. 90
That Lymmers sail cloth company and Robert were in a league together becomes more evidence when in the night91 of the 4th April 1592, Lymmer's company, put about two-hundred-and sixty cloths onto eight horse drawn carts and transported them to Orford92, a small branch of Yarmouth port. Smuggling them onto a ship bound for Bordeaux, they returned home thinking to make a good profit that night. Unfortunately the ship met foul winds and weather and had to put in at Harwich where Customs officers boarded and seized 'Divers Cloths of the said Lymmer's, her Majesty93 was benefited by the seizure of them' .94 A few red faces were seen I suspect, when Robert received the following letter from Head Office:
Perhaps it was due to Robert's good offices that they got away with it so lightly.
Returning to family line 6, Thomas(1504.6), was born next around 1505. Thomas appears to gone into the merchants business also but His line was more likely to be cereals. Thomas(1504.6) seems to have made his journey northward in two stages. First he moved to Potton, Bedfordshire where we find him witnessing a will in 1552. our next sighting of him is in Sudbury Suffolk writing his own will in 1570.95
The address and age of Edward(1480.U) tells us he is probably brother to Thomas(1479.U) who was farming within a few miles of Edward(1480.U) at the time. Edward(1480.U) married around 1506 in St George’s church and his eldest daughter Ann(1509.8), married John Spencer in Edworth, Bedfordshire, at the age of 21 she was married in St George’s church in Edworth on 16 June 1530. Edworth was only a small community at the time, John's mother was part of the Baker family whose wood butted Edward's land so, the Bakers, Spencers and Lymmers were all close neighbours.
Ann died in Edworth aged 51 on 20 June 156097. The entry under ' the burial of Ann Spencer', in the church records paid her the following tribute:
. . . good hospitality keeper; she did give to the town of Edworth of her best bease(beasts) to be lett for pore folks in the towne a cow. the parson & churchwarden to have the letting of them & the distributing of the money to the poore & to see the stock meinteined.
Ann's will, dated 13 June 1560, names her sister, Elizabeth(1520.8) Lymmer, to have 4 shillings on her marriage (as Ann was 51 when she died Elizabeth clearly married late in life). Brother Edward's children were to have 1 shilling.
Our next family group has three young ladies. Thomas(1504.6), stayed in Bedfordshire when his father moved to Norfolk around 1532 AD98. Thomas(1504.6) married a wife and they raised a family, all to be baptised in the area of Potton Bedfordshire. All the family
Alyce. By 1538 they were married and happily keeping sheep and growing fruit on their smallholding.
The parents of James are not known but the birthplace is an ancient manorial holding known as ' Limmer Feald s'. The couple had bought a messuage an orchard and virgate of land, and another close and orchard similarly called ' Lymmer's field' containing nine acres of land.104 On the death of James, (James died in 1574)105 these were part rented and part sold. John Craynston, contracted to work this land – presumably the rent going to the Alyce and her daughters. At the same court hearing, Hugh Welshe, contracted for a garden and an orchard and half virgate of land in Crondal, also a meadow, 2 closes called parke, a five acres field and another field of seven acres ‘previously belonging to Lymmer’106 Alyce was a lady of means in her own right now and had property in Denton107. Alice was their first Daughter, born early in 1541. Elizabeth was born eighteen months later in Autumn 1542. Elizabeth(1543.10) married first, into the Smith (Smie) family. She and her husband appear to have a business in Gosport. On her marriage, Elizabeth moved to Gosport, (presumably the home place of her husband) and continued to work as a brass Painer108. This may be the same Elizabeth, a business woman, who is found widowed in Barningham in 1578, under her maiden name of Elizabeth Lymmer. 109 As Elizabeth had no other property allocated to her in Alyce’s will, I presume this part of the business was handed to them as a dowry on their wedding.
Alice(1541.10) meanwhile, stayed with her mother in a house at long Sutton. On the death of her Mother Alyce in 1581, Alice received the house in Long Sutton while Elizabeth(1543.10) took the remaining stock of brass pots under the ‘ movable and immovable goods not previously given’ clause of the will. One year after her mother’s death in 1582, Alice(1541.10) married Richard Rigg on 1 July110 Presumably, she closed the brass pot business in Long Sutton. The business is described in the will of Alyce as ‘Alyce Brasse potte (porringer) A Potte monger111, D enton’ .
