Earlier this week we ran a fun poll as part of our Middleton Life history project, asking in the twelfth century the boundary between Middleton and which neighbouring area became the focus of a legal dispute?
We had lots of votes, with 25% suggesting Belle Isle, a further 25% suggesting Rothwell and 50% suggesting Beeston.
Well congrats to the 50%, it was, indeed, Beeston!
• It was a legal dispute between William Grammary of Middleton and Adam de Beeston.
• Over where the boundary lay through the dense woodland which then covered the area.
• Dispute settled in 1209 by “single combat” and the construction of a boundary bank and ditch, a stretch of which can still be seen in Middleton Woods.
• At one point the quarrel grew so acrimonious that William took Adam’s forester and put him in the stocks!
