One hall, one parlour, one kitchen, one dey house (dairy), one water house, one lower chamber near unto the parlour, one boulteinge house (boulteinge - a machine for separating grain and bran) one chamber over the hall, one chamber over the parlour, one chamber over the kitchen, one closet over the deyhouse, one chamber over the buttery, one chamber over the parlour chamber, one chamber behind the kitchen chimney, two draughts (draught - a privy or cess pit). One new barn containing three bays, one stable thereunto adjoining, and one poultry house.
By 1616, the vicarage had either been re-built or extensively improved. The earlier terrier makes no mention of upstairs rooms, and the house may have had an extra floor built in, creating bedrooms, and a flight of stairs provided. This was a favourite way of improving a mediaeval hall type house. Alternatively, it may have been at this time that the house was re-built outside the moat, which in more settled times, probably proved to be unnecessary for security, and rather restricting.
The document also gives a description of the glebe land - “To the Broad Field on the north side, to the piece of pasture ground called the Long Leasow on the east side, to the Lower Stallockmore or Stall Meadow and on the west side to the highway going from Mooreens (Moorend) Cross to Hackneels Cross (Hackney Cross). By 1840, the Tithe Report mentions only Broad Field. The other names seem to have gone out of use.
A great deal of building was done in the parish this century. Parker’s, a timber-framed house in the village street bears the date 1610 carved on the front, and most of the other buildings and cottages have been dated to the 17th Century, with the exception of Bank Farm, said to be 16th Century. Green wood was used for the main framework of the houses. Heavy baulks were required to minimise twisting as the wood dried out. The Cliffe Arms, and Town House both have cruck end frames, bent trees halved along their length and used to make an ‘A’ frame for the gable end. Crucks were thought to be very ancient and were dated to the 13th Century, but it is now known that the system continued for another three or four centuries. The framework was made by the carpenter in his yard, and the heavy timbers mortised and tenoned together dry, then each joint marked with chisel-cut Roman numeral for later assembly on the site, when the joints were pegged with heart of oak. Neighbours were called in to erect the frames, often with lavish expenditure of food and drink. Most of the houses were named after their first owners. Badger’s is a particularly interesting name, since a badger, as well as the familiar animal, was also the name of a licensed dealer in grain. There was a John Badger living in the village in 1619, who may have built the house, and who may have been such a dealer, and whose name may have been acquired from an ancestor in the corn trade.
For a village in a county which suffered as severely as Worcestershire did during the Civil War, Mathon seems to have escaped fairly lightly. However, there is a strong tradition in the village that a skirmish took place on Red Field, which is sometimes known locally as the ‘Field of Blood’. The dead are supposed to have been buried where they fell. I have been unable to find any mention of this action in written records, but that does not mean that it did not take place. There were large numbers of troops in the area, some of whom were quartered in Mathon. Disputes between soldiers and those upon whom they are billeted are frequently reported, arising from stolen and damaged property. The parish records contain the following list of village people claiming damages against the unpaid Parliamentary army of Scots who were billeted here.