History of corn milling .. - Centrostudirpinia.it

SOME FEUDAL MILLS. 127
Ere long the manorial rights had passed to Robert
KiNr's^Tirq '
de Ferrers, Earl of Derby, a minor in ward to Prince Liverpool.
Edmund, son of Henry IIL; and in the Extent of i. Eastham~
the manor for 1257 Henry de Lee, bailiff, accounts Watermills,
for ^10 for the fee-farme of the town of including
Liverpool,
^^57-1423.
" two watermills and one windmill." On
the forfeiture of the Ferrars' estates Henry conferred
them, including Liverpool, on Edmund Crouchback,
by whom the three mills were leased out to some
holders, not now known, but very probably the general
body of the burgesses ; the milling soke of Liverpool
being thus established, as well as the system of leasing
and sub-leasing which continued to prevail so long as
the soke existed.
Beyond this definite point the records of the
watermills— to which alone it is first proposed to
refer—are extremely brief and vague :—
1297. Inquisition on the death of Edmund Plantagenet. The Chancery Rec,
town contains " two mills, one a watermill and the other a windmill, Inq. p. m.
worth by the year 5 marks [;£"3 6s. "
8d.] the entire rental of the
;
town being £,2^ los.
1326. Inquisition on the death of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster.
"
The manor possesses one windmill of 26s. and one watermill of
24s. per annum."
At the inquisition on the death of Earl Henry, in
"two wind-
1361, the estate is found to comprise
mills and one horse-mill "
; and mention of the earl's
watermills does not again occur."^ It seems, however,
that they had not been destroyed but merely sold,
probably as old-fashioned and inefficient ; various
*
In this connection may be mentioned a defaced, and possibly misleading, Moore Deeds,
deed, comprising a rental of LiverpoolIanHs ; which, though undated, proves by an lOO, ioo% io6».
examination of the names of tenants to be of about 1330-32. It mentions [Morton's numcertain
land held by " — del More in le Bonkstrete [Water Street] nup' ad. molend." ; ^gj-s to these
apparently referring to land formerly attached to'a mill in that street. But there deeds are those,
appears to have never been a mill in le Bonk Street ; and the allusion in the quoted in the
deed is to one Adam Molendinarius, who is found granting land in le Bonk whole of these.
Street and elsewhere in 1332 to John, son of William del More, and others, references.]
He may no doubt be identified with the De Molines family (whose names appear
in various ea>ly undated deeds), ancestors of the Molyneux family, from whom
descend the Earls of Sefton.