Laying out Ashe Meadow

Ashe Meadow, in the liberty of Warkworth, was shared among the neighbouring hamlets and mown by lot under old rules that Bridges set down in his History of Northamptonshire. On the Saturday sevennight after Midsummer Day six fieldmen, two from Warkworth, two from Overthorp and one each from Grimsbury and Nethercote, laid out its fifteen portions, marked by lots cut from an arrow, and the meadow was then run or trodden, with ale, a rump of beef and penny loaves brought into the field. The hayward and the master of the feast were called the Crocus-men. On the Monday the lots were drawn, the first and last mowers carried garlands, and an oyez was read forbidding any man to mow ahead of the garlands or past Monks-holm Brook before dinner, which was three cheesecakes, three cakes and a new-milk cheese, each the size of a winnowing sieve.