Victorian Gazetteer Description (c. 1840s)
FRESHWELL HUNDRED
Extends about sixteen miles southward from the borders of Cambridgeshire, and varies from five to less than three in breadth. It gives rise to the river Pant, and to a tributary stream of the river Granta.
ASHDON, a pleasant village near the source of a rivulet, 4 miles N.E. of Saffron Walden, has in its parish 948 souls, and 4045 acres of land, exclusive of LITTLE BARTLOW, or Bartlow End hamlet, which is a separate township, and has 216 souls and 841 acres, adjoining Great Bartlow, in Cambridgeshire, to which parish it pays church rates. Ashdon is in three manors, called Ashdon Hall, Newnham, and Mortisfaux, of which Viscount Maynard is lord. He also owns most of the soil, and the rest belongs to several smaller owners. The soil is mostly freehold, and the copyholds are subject to arbitrary fines. subject Walton Hall, alargebrick house in asmall park, now unoccupie built by Sir Wm. Maynard, and was for some time occupied by a branch of his family. Little Bartlow is in the same manors, and is some times called Steventon- End, or Stanton- End. An estate called Thickhoe was anciently held of the Earls of Oxford by a family of its own name. On the north side of the parish are several Roman Barrows, called Bartlow Hills. They consist of a line of four great barrows, with three smaller ones in front. They are on a gentle acclivity, and the country rises gently around them like an extended amphitheatre. They are supposed to cover the remains of Romans who died at an adjacent station in Cambridgeshire. The three smaller barrows were opened in 1832, and the remains found were purely Roman. In one of the sepulchres were found a number of glass and other vessels. A large cylindrical glass urn, open at the mouth, was nearly two-thirds full of a clear pale yellow liquor, covering a deposit of burnt human bones, on the top of which lay a signet ring, and a brass coin of the emperor Adrian. In the same year an urn, full of Roman coins, was found in a field near Linton.