An Unusual Herefordshire Tea Room and Garden of Surprise
Grievous Bodily Harm
The use of the Shipley Wye Ford Trackway proceeded through the Dark Ages, with the British Isles entering into a period of maritime incursions by the Vikings. They entered the Seven estuary and proceeded up the river Wye.
Five hundred yards downstream from the Shipley River crossing is a raised area of land that stands out and remains dry when the river floods. It was a convenient place for a minute agricultural settlement, and history gave the raised area the Viking name ‘Holm’. Meaning an Island. There is another Viking settlement against the Wye in Herefordshire, marked as ‘The Holm’ upon the Ordinance Survey at Staunton Lakes.Entering into the British Isles in 1066 with William the Conk, was a French Knight called ‘de Lacy’. And with the further passage of time his family descendents erected a motte and bailey upon the Island, and the place came to be known as ‘Holm de Lacy’. As Kings ruling the British Isles, Williams descendents had particular difficulty in controlling and administering the border lands with Wales, which largely was developing into self administered land owning fiefdoms.
The practice of aspects of Equestrian warfare was evolving into Melees between rival Land ownerships and their retainers. In a casual thoughtful manner, as of a war game, an area of countryside of woods and valleys would be agreed as boundaries and two groups of mounted men, sometimes two hundred on each side, some in armour and others with lance, club, axe and sword – would attack and attempt to un seat each other, capture and retain the horse, and may be extract a small ransom if the person had tuppence to his name. Death in Melees was frowned upon by central government, and by 1194, Richard the first decided to attempt to control Mellee skirmishes by Licensing them under the title of “Tourneying” – for which a tax would be paid. But the rules were inadequate. In 1292, Edward the first, with a Committee of five Knights created the “Statuta Amorum”, limiting the opportunities of creating Grievous Bodily Harm. A Henry de Lacy was one of those five Knights. He was based near an area in Yorkshire then called Shipley.
It is my conjecture that in a visit to a Licensed Tourney Melee that was taking place in the area of his de Lacy relatives that lived within the Wye Island Holm motte & baile , he had problems at the river crossing due to floods and the ford then came to take the name of Shipley.