Par t of the char ter of 11 July , 7 James I

Dublin, or to the commission subsequently issued from there is not clear. If the former then i t took nearly five months to obtain. In any event, i t seems to be wrong as will be seen in the next paragraph.) Seven years later on 10 June 1601 Elizabeth I commanded1 that a description of limi ts of the ancient lands (see point 4. above) belong ing to Carrickfergus should be set down—and this time i t was done. At a meeting in St Nicholas’s church on 6 October 1601,2 overseen by Sir Ar thure Chichester, Captain John Jephson, Deput y to Sir Geffrey Fenton, Sur veyor General of Ireland, Sir Fulke Conway, John Dallway, Gregor y Nor ton, & William W hi t tington vice-constable of the Castle of Carrickfergus, a jur y of 24 local men assembled to deliver from their own knowledge and from that of others a true account of the boundaries. The result was the description of t wo areas,3 the first the arable land which they called “the Town’s lands”, and the second the land used for grazing and extraction of turf which they called “the Commons”. The nor th-west boundar y of the Town’s lands ran west-south-west from Loug h Mourne to a hill called Carnesollog he, then southwest past li t tle Duneorowe to t wo fords,4 then “allongst the back of the Knockaghe to a meare or marke called Faseris Neey (alias the Deares layne) which is also the furdest par t & boundes of the Earrable landes medowe & pasture belong inge to the Towne that waye—And from thence turninge Sowthe to a Smale Streame or Rever called Lysnashemer which runethe Sowthe into the sea, and devydethe the Townes landes and the Earles Medowe”. The char ter of 44 Elizabeth I, 5 af ter reci ting the boundaries determined by the jur y, “[did] g ive grant and confirme unto the Mayor, Sherif fs, Burgesses, and Commonaltie of the Count y of the Towne of Carrickfergus aforesaid one parcel of land called Edengrene Marshalstowne, and Hill called Houg hnekeage, and one other hill called Haug hmarowecaple, Loug hmorne, Duncrowe, and li t tle Duncrowe, the Touge, t wo Hills called the Li t tle and Great Knockag h, Cloghloghortie alias the Ould Stone, containing by estimation tenn ploughlands of lands arable, be i t more or lesse, besides wastes and Commons, and all other the lands and Commons of pasture auncientlie belong ing to the said Town of Carrig fergus, bounded, si tuate, and meared wi thin the several meares and bounds before expressed. Except and always reser ved to our Constable of our said Castle for the time being, and the garrison there to have free Grazing in summer, and winter provisions for their Horses, as in our said Let ters, dated our Mannor of Nonesuch, is expressed.” That par t of the char ter of 11 July, 7 James I dealing wi th the south-west boundar y is ver y impor tant because i t makes i t qui te clear that the Silver Stream did not mark the south-west boundar y of the Town’s land. Two versions are available, the almost identical relevant text being underlined in the quotations below. A third version, M‘Skimin’s, by omi t ting that same text at the point marked ‘þ’ in the quote below from his book says qui te the opposi te and has misled readers for over t wo hundred years.

1 Page 19 above. 2 Page 21 above. 3 Pages 21 and 22 above. 4 These must be over the t wo tri butaries of the Woodburn River. 5 Carrickfergus Book (1911), page 24–30, par ticularly pages 26–29 .

Image of part of the charter of 11 Jul y, 7 James I. “Cloghanogherty, between (? ? ? ?) Silverstream and land/territor y town of Knockfergus”.

The first version is found on page 38 of the Carrickfergus Book (1911) and reads: “so to Fasserneig h other wise the Deer’s L ane and from thence as far as the head of a cer tain small river falling thence into the bay of Carrickfergus aforesaid near Cloug hanog hertie bet ween another small river called Silver Stream and the lands of the town of Knockfergus other wise Carrickfergus which said river rising near Fasserneig h aforesaid is the western bound of the said lands”. The second is found on page 743 of the Reports from Commissioners (1835) and reads: “so to Fassermeg h, other wise the Deer’s L ane, and from thence as far as the head of a cer tain small stream descending from thence into the bay of Carrickfergus towards Clog hanog her tie, bet ween another small stream called Silverstream and the land of Knockfergus, other wise Carrickfergus aforesaid, which stream, beg inning near Fassermeig h aforesaid, is the western boundar y of the land aforesaid”. M‘Skimin’s version is found in his Histor y of Carrickfergus1 and reads: “so to Fasserneag h, alias the Deer’s-lane, and from thence as far as the head of a cer tain small streamþcalled Silver-stream, and the lands of the town of Knockfergus, alias, Carrickfergus, aforesaid, which river beg inning near Fasser-neag h, aforesaid, is the western boundar y of said lands”. A ver y significant error, and one apparently due to M‘Skimin or the composi tor skipping from the first occurrence of “small stream” to the second and missing ever y thing in bet ween—an easy mistake to make. Fur ther evidence which helps to identif y the Lysnashemer stream and the Deer’s L ane comes from a consideration of the division of the land lying to the south-west of the Woodburn River in 1606.2 No details of the division i tself will be gone into here and the reader is referred instead to Mrs Sheela Speers’ invaluable paper enti tled The Imprint of the Past: The Divisions of Carrickfergus.

3 The records say4 “Beg ining at the West end of Woodborne land5 at the Sea Syde,

ther is a high waye layd out alongst the land of Woodborne towards the Knockaghe

of one Hundredth Thir t y & Six Perches in length or therabowts”, and from the lower end of this hig hway “which parteth Woodborne lands & the Towne lands” to the Silver Stream along the shore was “foure hundred and sixt y Perches or thereabouts”. Sheela Speers has pointed out that the modern Trooperslane lies almost exactly this distance from the Silver Stream, thus showing that i t and the hig hway are one and the same. If, as seems reasonable, i t is assumed that the land referred to as the Town’s lands in 1601 is the same as that referred to by the same name in 1606, then this is a most useful point as i t can be used to fix the Lysnashemer stream and thus Faseris Neey alias the Deer’s L ane. The jur y found in 1601 that the south-west boundar y of the Town’s lands was formed by the Lysnashemer stream, and the town in 1606 said that the Town’s lands were divided from the Woodburn lands by the hig hway. As the Lysnashemer stream and the hig hway were both markers of that same south-west boundar y along their respective lengths they must have been closely aligned, and i t is surely significant that today a small stream is still aligned wi th Trooperslane. Unnamed on the map, i t rises in the Stoney Glen bet ween Great Knockag h and Li t tle Knockag h and af ter running south-east down to and under the Upper Road and railway, i t follows

1 Page 188 of the 1811 edi tion, page 346 of the 1832 edi tion, and page 437 of the 1909 edi tion. 2 Pages 31 and 32 above. 3 Carrickfergus and District Historical Journal, volume 2, 1986, pages 29–37. 4 Pages 29 and 30 above. 5 “ Woodborne land” was not defined in the records.

Trooperslane closely on the Carrickfergus side until i t diverges towards the end and makes i ts way to the sea. It seems fairly cer tain that this is the stream which in 1601 was called the Lysnashemer, and that the g len in which i t arises was then called the Deer’s L ane. Note that both i t and the Silver Stream were said to have marked the boundar y of the Earl’s Meadow but that almost cer tainly i t was the Silver Stream which did. (There is a path called the Deer’s L ane on the Ordinance Sur vey map but south-south-west of the Knockag h monument and wi th no stream running to the sea close to the south of i t.) The Confirmation of the Chichester Patents, Inrolled 16691 includes the following: “and to the East par t of the said Terri tories or parcels of L and thereof, and the L ands of Carrickfergus, runs a small River beg inning near the water-fall Fasermeag h alias the Deer’s L and, and running by or near the old stone House called Clog hanog her tie towards the West from the same, and also from another small River called Silver Stream towards the East, and from Fasermeag h aforesaid the Meares extend directly…”. (This description, presumably wri t ten by a scri be in London, dif fers from the orig inal findings of the local jur y in 1601 and is less likely to be correct.) This is the third time that we have met the name Clog hlog hor tie/Clog hanog her tie.2 The first was in 44 Elizabeth I (“Clog hlog hor tie alias the Ould Stone, containing by estimation tenn ploug hlands of lands arable”) and the second was in 11 July, 7 James I (“descending from thence into the bay of Carrickfergus towards Clog hanog her tie”). Now, the ten ploug h lands that Clog hlog hor tie was said to contain is a significant amount of land. One ploug h land or carucate is eig ht oxgangs and an oxgang is the area that a sing le ox can ploug h in one season which in Eng lish sizes is about 15 acres.3,4 Ten ploug h lands therefore mig ht be 1,200 acres or 1.9 square miles and as this was of “lands arable” i t would not include any hills or roug h ground— so where was i t? The only place outside the Town’s lands that i t could have been was the area bounded by the Lysnashemer stream, the Silver Stream, the Knockag h, and the shore, which is marked ‘2’ or “South-westerly Par t” on the map on page 118. This land, roug hly 2.1 square miles in extent, was not included in the jur y’s boundar y verdict in 1601 nor in the boundaries reci ted in 44 Elizabeth I, but i t was granted by that char ter to the count y of the town of Carrickfergus under the name of Clog hlog hor tie and i t was par t of the land which was divided up in 1606. It was excluded from the lands which went to make up the count y of the town of Carrickfergus in 11 July, 7 James I, but i t remained in the possession of the town. Clog hlog hor tie’s alias was the Ould Stone, and Sheela Speers5 said that the Ould Stone was Castle Lugg (which si ts wi thin the area descri bed). John Salmon said that Lugg’s Castle was anciently called Cloug hnahar t y,6 where “cloċ, a stone, of ten means a castle, especially in names of places” and he thoug ht that the rest of the name was slig htly corrupt but that i t signified old or ancient or age or antiqui t y. W hether the castle gave the land the name or vice versa is unknown. An entr y in the town records dated 1 March 15747 notes that John Lugg, a waterbailif f employed by the town, was being g iven back “cer tayne Castles, Halles, L ands,

1 Young (1896) page 129. 2 Also ‘Cloug hnahar t y’. See below and page 117 above. 3 ht tps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carucate 4 ht tps://w w w.sizes.com/uni ts/oxgang.htm 5 Carrickfergus and District Historical Journal, volume 2, 1986, page 33. 6 Ulster Journal of Archaeology, vol 1, 1894, page 150. 7 Page 106 above.

Tenements & other Heredi taments wi thin the towne or Boroug h of Knockfergus” which had once been held in fee simple by Thomas Lugg, his grandfather, but which “by Estreat”1 had become the proper t y of the count y of the town of Carrickfergus. M‘Skimin2 said Lugg’s castle was so called “from a family of this place, by whom the lands at tached to i t were held in 1576”, and the Memoirs of Ireland3 said “The Luggs, by whom i t was inhabi ted, held some extensive tracts of the adjoining land.” How extensive they were is unknown but about 1592, John Lugg of Knockfergus, “the last and only relic of his whole ‘stirpe,’4” asked for the return of “one small parcel” of land in Lower or Nor th Clandeboy “whereof is the ancient inheri tance of your honour’s poor distressed orator, which parcel does not amount to more than four ploug hlands”5—which would have been 480 acres. The discrepancy bet ween Clog hlog hor tie’s large size and value and the relative obscuri t y in histor y of Castle Lugg would suggest that the one did not belong to the other, but i t must be said that judg ing from the proper t y returned in 1574 and claimed in 1592, John Lugg’s ancestors’ holdings must have been fairly extensive. Perhaps his grandfather Thomas did once own Clog hlog hor tie and perhaps i t did pass to the town by forfei t. In any event, the town had i t in their possession in 1594 as we find that Lymsey and Johnston said in Answer to the Lord Treasurer’s Objections, July 25, 15946 “for that part of the town’s land which lieth west from Woodborne to the Earl’s meadow, the garrison and constable have the whole grasing and commodi t y thereof as well for summer as winter provision for their horses and hackneyes. The said ten plough lands is no such great compass or circui t as may perhaps seem to your Lordship, and we do now hold the same7 in a manner wi th as great commodi t y as when the same shall be alloted”. That ten ploug h lands can only have been Clog hlog hor tie. The Report from Commissioners (1835)8 also acknowledged that dif ferent areas of land were held in dif ferent ways when i t said “The corporation, from a remote period, were possessed of the entire county of the town, wi th the exception of a few tenements, which, in the reign of Elizabeth, were vested in the Crown; they were also possessed of other Lands extending beyond the present limits of their jurisdiction”. In conclusion, this account of the town’s arable lands to the south-west of the Woodburn river may seem complicated but i t does appear to agree wi th the available facts.

1 “enforce the forfei t of (a suret y for bail or other recognizance)” ht tps://w w w.lexico.com/defini tion/estreat 2 M‘Skimin page 371. 3 Memoirs of Ireland, Carrickfergus, page 84. 4 “lineage” 5 Calendar of State Papers 1592–96, page 61, i tem 52. 6 Young (1896), page 16. Also see Appendix III. 7 Perhaps there is a li t tle suggestion here that i t was a recent acquisi tion? 8 Reports From Commissioners (1835), page 772.