Source:  Home Counties Magazine
Title:  Life in a Hertfordshire Parish¹ in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries.  By C. E. Johnston, 1905, London, 32
Date:  [undated]
Place:  Gilston

In the tithebooks and registers parishioners’ trades and occupations are sometimes mentioned, and from these we can gather how much more then than now a village supplied its own wants; some of the names are quaint too; thus we find Stephen Fairbeard, who kept the “Plume of Feathers” at Pye Corner; Henry Damian, the butcher; Burls Horsnale, the keeper; John Pluckrose, “taylor and church clark”; Robert Camp, blacksmith of Pye Corner and overseer of the poor, owning his own forge, which descended through various generations of Camps till quite recent times; Matthew Game the “collarmaker” (i.e., saddler); John Overall, weaver of Pye Corner; John Turner, carpenter and churchwarden; Roger Farmer, gardener; and “ye Chapman atte Pye Corner.” This was in a parish, which in 1801 had only 186 inhabitants. One can imagine them meeting at the “Feathers” and discussing the news, which came to them from the outside world, such as Monmouth’s rebellion and Judge Jeffreys, the flight of James II., the victories of Marlborough, and so forth, all of which doubtless scarcely affected their daily lives and seemed very far off events to them. 

¹ Gilston