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Pudlicote is a small hamlet situated about two miles from Chadlington. The
existing Pudlicote House is built on the site of a Roman villa. The present
owner, Sir Frederic Bolton, has been researching the history of Pudlicote and
has copies of leases dated in the 1740s which show that the present boundaries
are more or less the same as they were then, and that the land was not affected
by any of the local enclosure acts. There is also evidence that this land was
afforested to celebrate the coronation of Henry II and according to the laws of
the forests, if anyone was found shooting game they had their thumbs cut off.
A notorious owner of Pudlicote House was John de Pudlicote, who in 1303
attempted to steal the Crown Jewels from the Chapel of the Pyx in Westminster
Abbey. He and his accomplices were caught and hanged.
A number of crooked sixpences have been dug up in the fields around Pudlicote
and these apparently were luck tokens. Is there a connection here with the
rhyme, There was a crooked man who walked a crooked mile, And found a crooked
sixpence upon a crooked stile?
Sir Frederic also has in his possession a bill of sale dated 1878 which proudly
boasted of two rookeries, obviously in those days considered to be an
advantage to the sale of the farm, by supplementing the dinner table with rook
pie. The rookeries are still in existence today, but there is a very different
view of their value as they take their toll of the crops.
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