tax plus £2.00 on a £40.00 subsidy he had received. He and his wife had a lease on several other properties including land in Syldenfield, Longland, Weston Mill and Foxearth, Essex.
The story of Roger(1497.7)is sketchy. It looks as though Roger spent some time in London, at least it seems as though Roger associated with the corn exchange in London178 Roger(1497.7) of Lymmer brought land in Hargrave in the first quarter of the fifteen-hundreds, which has a corn store and windmill on it.179 Roger’s Lane was probably named after him. Roger(1497.7)was buried in 1558180 His son Roger(1530.19) carried on the licence to trade in corn on the farm. By now he had married a wife and fathered at least two sons, John(1545.28) and William(1555.28). Robert(1556.28) may be their third son. We find Robert, also making good as a merchant, in Ipswich. He has an export licence for France.181 Did Roger have some influence in that I wonder?
We have no concrete proof but Mary(1502.6) may be aunt to the three boys. Mary can be found living in Stanford where she died in 1558 as a spinster.182
Roger's land would have been left in its entirety to John(1545.28). But good opportunity came for William(1555.28). At the dissolution of monasteries in 1537 when Hargrave land was put under the care of Sir Thomas Kitson183, Roger seized the opportunity to apply for a copyhold184 on land adjacent to his, which we later see William(1555.28) farming. William willed the farm to his son Thomas(1572..29) 185.
After Henry had declared himself head of the church, parish records began to be kept, partly for Henry VIII's benefit as he took a keen interest in the vast amounts of land now under his control, but also because it gave him a better idea of tax revenues. The Limmers had by now built up a good deal of wealth in and around Hargrave.
By 1538 AD parishes were obliged to keep a register of births deaths and marriages by decree of Henry VIII. By 1539 we can find parish records for Long Sutton containing Limmers. But with the growing disappointment of King Henry in Suffolk there was little enthusiasm to carry out his wishes. In 1547 AD the injunction was enforced and we find our first records from Hargrave.
John and Margaret are clearly wealthy people having a large house; 188each room seems to have a fire in their house – a sign of affluence in itself.189 Margaret, who also left a will, suggests she brought some money to the household from her family, both in the form of a dowry and a personal allowance. The wealth of this family is also clear from the will of John(1545.28). ten shillings for Samuel sounds a small amount but in 1618 it amounted to fifteen weeks wages for a skilled joiner in Cambridge. Six Pounds was about three and a half years wages and thirty pounds was about seventeen and a half years wages190.
Reading Margaret's will, the kitchen and bible were focal points of this household, Matriarch Margaret saw to that. Margaret left William her Bible, clearly Margaret had a good education and saw to it the children were well educated also. William would have had no problem reading from the Latin Vulgate version. However, with the Puritan associations of the family191, the Bible left to William(1583.29) would more likely be the latest Version in English.
Written C1611 by the command of James I, it became known as the Authorised Bible. Church dignitaries were reluctant for the common man to own Vulgate Bibles; in their view the common man ‘ could not be expected to rightly interpret the word of God’192. But the education William(1583.29) had received meant Latin would have presented him no problem.
The estate was to be kept as one unit in common with aristocracy practice. John handed it on to the eldest son Thomas(1572.29), who was by then forty-seven years old. John and Margaret had moved to the smaller house in Bushey close together with ten acres of land, leaving Thomas to farm the remaining thirty-five acres. The farm was reunited under Thomas when John died leaving just a house and paddock for Margaret until her death.
It was always a dilemma for the head of an estate when it came for time to make a will. If he divided his estate between all the siblings it would not be long before the estate was divided so small that all the family struggled for income. Certainly community prestige would be quickly diminished this way. Greater wealth and prosperity clearly came from the harder headed, who gave custody of the whole estate to one descendant with a share of profits in the form of a trust being shared among the rest of the family. The disadvantage of this system would have been the jealousy and rivalry it may have produced among the siblings.
We ought to ask where were the children educated? Clearly they were and to high standard. Did they have a governess? John & Margaret would have been the employers of some of the domestic servants recorded to be in Hargrave but would that have included a governess?193
Hargrave has a church school. Such village schools would be unlikely to educate the standard this family seems to have attained. Edward VI established a grammar school in Bury-Saint-Edmunds a number of years before this. No Limmers appear on the role until the 1800’s. This does not mean they did not attend this school it is estimated that more than ten thousand boys passed through the gates from its opening but only two and a half thousand are documented. One other Grammar school existed near to Hargrave. Mildenhall Grammar School took fewer pupils than Bury and records are sparse. Fewer boys gradated to Cambridge194 through Mildenhall, than did through Edward VI – School in Bury.
Hargrave school itself became a grammar school later, but not until mid 1600’s, Most of William’s children would have missed out on this local school but his grandchildren would no doubt have started their education here.
His first child was Anne(1599.31) born 20th march 1602196. We don't
was to receive items from her grandmother Margaret’s will in January 1621. Susan was to become eighteen in the April when she heard : ' … to Susan Lymer daughter to John Lymer my next holland apron, a pewter platter and a sheet.'200 Elizabeth(1614.32) baptised 11th September 1614, being six-and-a-half, would hardly appreciate such Items.
Daniel son of John and Jane Lymmer was baptised 4th January 1617.
