The old account of a(the) Carpenter family in the south of England still
dominates our thinking that we sufferer from a kind of mental paralysis.
The historical material that is now being made available in England,and
the quantity available online, is going to change everything. A case can
be now made for surnamed Carpenters on the wool estates near Winchester of
the 1200s. Just up the path from Winchester is Salisbury and greater
Wiltshire. It is hard to believe the Carpenters of Wiltshire/Berkshire are
not the descendants of the Hampshire le Charpenters and the merchant
Carpenters that lived in the principal ports along the wine/wool route to
Bordeaux. The following is a quote from a work in progress:
“Of interest is a Thomas Carpenter of Portsmouth who was mayor of the town
and extensive landholder in the local manor of Stubbington. In Portsmouth
Thomas Carpenter’s day the crown had a growing interest in the port as a
naval facility. When the antiquarian John Leland traveled (1534-1543)
through Portsmouth, he noted the still celebrated mayor Thomas Carpenter.
“One Carpenter a riche man of late tyme in the mydle of the high striate
of the town a town house,” he informs us. This group of Carpenters who
appear through the records of the Stubbington Manor are preceded by a John
Carpenter who M.P. for Portsmouth from 1427 to 1442. Clearly the family
there was a significant one with a long history. This group of Hampshire
Carpenters may have had antecedents that are important for our narrative.
We had seen previous in our discussion of the merchant Carpenter wine
trade, a definite connection with the nearby port of Southampton and at
least on one occasion with the mighty Bishop of Winchester. Implicit in
these dealings were the items that were exported as a corollary to wine
imports. Premier among these would have been wool from the many estates
in Hampshire. Indeed the volume of exported wool from Southampton
throughout the 1200s and 1300s was great from Hampshire estates lay and
ecclesiastical. Likewise of note was the designation of Winchester as a
wool staple at this time. Of these estates rich documentation exists for
Carpenter ties to Herriad Manor in the very north of Hampshire near
Basingstoke. The earliest reference for the years 1260-70 appears for a
John le Charpenter. From that date onwards, until at least 1429, these
documents show continual Carpenter connection to the Herriad Manor and its
satellite land holdings. The names of other witnesses appearing with the
Carpenters point to the upper reaches of the local gentry and businessmen,
such as Peter de Coudray and those of the manor lordship, as well as
various de Hereyerds. Many other names from more distant locations must
have been gentry businessmen like Simon le Hey of Micheldevere and Sir
Richard de Strattone, knight, with an interest in the manor wool clip. To
appreciate the scale of the economics of the manor and its associated
property, the land holdings were split into thirds after the last male
heir of the Coudray passed away in 1528. One of his daughters was given
her third of the land which consisted of over a thousand acres of pasture
alone. The medieval manor and the number of sheep must have been enormous.
Other references to Carpenters define the family group. For example by
the early 1300s family members were already taking local church positions,
such as a Father John Carpenter, vicar of Herierd. Others of the name
Carpenter can be identified as inhabitants of Winchester itself as in the
case of a 1409 Roger Carpenter of Winchester. The final references to the
Herriad area Carpenters in the early 1400s signals a Carpenter appearance
in the nearby abbey town of Reading. It may be that proliferation of
Carpenter name through Berkshire and Wiltshire in the 1400s was from this
original Hampshire group.”