Editing Stepney (section)

====Manor====
The [[Domesday Book]] survey of 1086 gives the name as ''Stibanhede'' and says that the land was held by the [[Bishop of London]] and was 32 [[Hide (unit)|hides]] large, mainly used for ploughing, meadows, woodland for 500 pigs, and 4 mills. The survey recorded 183 households; 74 of [[villeins]] who ploughed the land, 57 of [[Serfdom#Cottagers|cottars]] who assisted the villeins in return for a hut or cottage and 52 of bordars. This is estimated to have given the manor a total population of around a thousand people.<ref>Medieval London Suburbs, Pillimore Publishing, Kevin McDonnell p16</ref>

<blockquote>
Bishop William held this land in [[demesne]], in the manor of Stepney, on the day on which King Edward was alive and dead. In the same vill [[Ranulph Flambard]] holds 3½ hides of the bishop.<ref>''Domesday Book – A Complete Translation'' Folio 127V: MIDDLESEX. Penguin Books. Nov 2002. {{ISBN|0-14-100523-8}}</ref></blockquote>

The Bishop of London held many other estates around London, and one of them, heavily wooded Hornsey, was attached to Stepney as a remote [[exclave]] for a time (it was common practice for wooded exclaves to be attached to more intensely farmed and densely populated estates in that period). The sub-manor of Hornsey was not part of the original territory of Stepney but was subsequently attached as an administrative convenience, and detached once more around the late 13th century.<ref name="Highgate Wood p67"/> The earliest record of the district's Manor house, is from 1207, but the Bishop may have had a home in the Manor long before. The house was first known as [[Bethnal Green mulberry tree#The site|Bishopswood, and later Bishops Hall or Bonner Hall]], and was on a site in [[Bethnal Green]] later occupied by the [[London Chest Hospital]].<ref name="BHO" /> [[Edward VI]] passed Stepney to the [[Baron Wentworth|Wentworth]] family, and thence to their descendant, the [[Earl of Cleveland]]. The Manors of Stepney and Hackney were linked, until they passed into separate ownership in the 1660s.<ref name="BHO" />

The system of [[copyhold]], whereby land was leased to tenants for terms as short as seven years, prevailed throughout the manor. This severely limited scope for improvement of the land and new building until the estate was broken up in the 19th century.<ref name=Stepney>[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45083 ''Stepney, Old and New London: Volume 2'' (1878), pp. 137–142] accessed: 17 November 2007</ref>