Sapperton: Local government

LOCAL GOVERNMENT.

Profits of court for Sapperton manor were recorded in the mid 13th century (fn. 1) and records of courts baron exist for 1597, 1684-5, and 1696-8. (fn. 2) The records of courts baron for Frampton Mansell survive for the years 1572, 1580-1, 1655, and 1668 but the court there seems to have been discontinued after the fragmentation of the manor in the late 17th century. The Frampton court elected a hayward and 3 sheeptellers in 1655. (fn. 3) No evidence has been found for any court attached to Hailey manor. In the mid 16th century a tithingman for Sapperton and a tithingman for Frampton attended the view of frankpledge for Bisley hundred. (fn. 4) For parish government purposes Hailey tithing appears to have been incorporated with Sapperton and no record of a separate tithingman has been found for Hailey. (fn. 5)

Two churchwardens are recorded at Sapperton from the 15th century (fn. 6) and their accounts survive for the period 1730-1844. (fn. 7) A church house, given to the parish by Leonard Poole (d. 1538), (fn. 8) was let by the churchwardens as a poorhouse during the 18th century. (fn. 9) The churchwardens also held c. 2 a. in the parish by the same bequest. (fn. 10) In 1840 the church house, described as a pair of cottages, was sold to Earl Bathurst by the churchwardens and the guardians of Cirencester union. (fn. 11) The cottages, opposite the church, were rebuilt in 1889 (fn. 12) on to a 17th-century two-storey gabled cottage. There were two overseers of the poor, one for Frampton and one for Sapperton, whose accounts survive for the period 1720-1763. They usually housed two or three people in the poorhouse and occasionally boarded paupers with families in the parish. In 1721 the expenses of the overseers amounted to £37 10s. but they had increased to £51 12s. by 1740. In 1756 £63 was spent on poor-relief. (fn. 13) The cost of relief rose from £67 in 1776 to £89 in 1803 when nine people were on permanent relief and five were given occasional help. (fn. 14) By 1813 £234 was spent and 13 people, all in Sapperton tithing, were being permanently relieved and 12 occasionally. (fn. 15) In the mid 1820s the yearly cost of relief was c. £185 but between 1827 and 1834 the cost fluctuated between £220 and £291. (fn. 16) In 1836 Sapperton was made part of the Cirencester poorlaw union (fn. 17) and remained part of the Cirencester rural district in 1971. Among other surviving parish records are those of the surveyors of highways for the period 1787-1836. (fn. 18)