Deopham Manor Lease – William Cullyer Letter

Contents

1. The Letter
2. Comments
3. Source Document
4. Footnotes

The Letter

To the Reverend the Dean & Prebends of Christ Church in Canterbury.
The humble petition of William Cullyer of Deopham in the County of Norfolk, Clerk, humbly showing that your petitioner being vicar of the said parish & having no vicarage house nor any other convenient place of habitation was enforced (for the better Service of the cure) to hire the Impropriation of Deopham aforesaid still of your possession (the house thereto belonging not to be lett apart by itself) at a rack-rent for the space of 21 years (to his great loss) of one M^r Bragg the then Lessee of the said Impropriation, whose lease being Expired a new Lease thereof (notwithstanding your petitioner’s importunate request two years before the said expiration to to have it made to him at the usual fine) was granted to one M^r Augustine Crow of London & managed by his brother an Attourney in Norfolk by whom your petitioner was persuaded to continue in the house after the End of his lease whereby he became obnoxious to law suits for his trespass, and that your petitioner thereupon to buy his peace was enforced to purchase the Lease of the said Augustine Crow and that your petitioner paid thrice as much for the said Lease than it proved to be really worth had it been a Fee simple estate, the severall payments issuing out of it & the great abatement of the rent thereof since being considered as

1. The Sum of £16 per annum for the ground rent 1st year and for the a?quittan?e besides the charge of your petitioner’s agent to pay the said rent at London for him;
2. The Sum of £1 : 4s for a pension yearly paid to the Dean & Chapter of Norwich;
3. The Sum of £6 per annum paid quarterly to the vicar of Deopham aforesaid;
4. The parliament Taxes or the monthly Assessenent – not less than £4 : 10s;
5. The payment towards the relief of the poor which is very considerable (tho’ the certain sums cannot be here inserted, the charge thereof varying according to ?imergent occasions)
   • & also other town charged to the constables’ rate
   • & for Armes & Ammunition money etc;
6. The repairs of the chancell, the dwelling house & the barn, stables and other outhouses & fences ?which cost not so ?litle as £5 per year communibus annis¹ besides the losses yearely susteyned which cannot well be avoided and

that the said Impropriation although worth near £50 per annum towards all charges when your petitioner first entered the same about 29 yeares since will not now lett for £35 per annum so that there remain not £2 per annum towards the Interest of the money it cost your petitioner at his taking the lease &
that your petitioner have made severall journeys to London & Canterbury to his great expense & have made application to the Rev^d the Dean & Prebends by himself & friends to gain the Lease formerly upon moderate terms but hitherto have been insuccissfull.
The premisses considered your petitioner humbly request that his Lease may be renewed & Seaven years added thereto without his paying anything for the same (only the usuall fees to the Registrar for the ingrossing thereof)² there being so many yeares run in his said Lease at Michaelmas last past & also as often as need require and that this may be effected without petitioner taking any more journeys about the same.

And your petitioner shall ever pray etc.

Comments

This letter is not dated.
William Cullyer appears to have had an arrangement with the lessee M^r Bragg contrary to clauses in subsequent leases specifically prohibiting this sort of arrangement for more than a year.

Source Document

Reproduced courtesy of the Chapter of Canterbury; their ref CCA-U63-70380

Footnotes

1. Communibus annis = On average ↩︎
2. This expression inside the parentheses is taken from the lease. ↩︎

Date	Change
11/1/26	Published