Kilham : Population

The evidence for the population levels and tenurial development of the township has been collated by the County History and by Dixon (1985, II, 370-1). Some impression of the scale of the settlement and population has already been provided by the 1290 law suit which listed a total of 47 messuages, or building plots, in the vill, though this certainly underestimates the full total.

A few years later, in 1296, when the vill was assessed for the Lay Subsidy (a tax of one eleventh of the value of all non-essential moveable goods, levied to finance the campaigns of Edward I in Scotland), there were eleven taxpayers with sufficient wealth to be eligible (Fraser 1968, no. 290).

In 1377, however, 109 adults were accounted for in the Poll Tax return (PRO E179/158/31) and this probably gives us a clearer picture of the adult population. This may be compared with the twenty-six "well plenyshed" husbandlands, recorded by the border commissioners, Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerker, in 1541 (Bates 1891, 31), and the twenty tenants of Mr Gray reported by the 1580 survey of Border Service (CBP I, 14-19).

Together these figures suggest that there may have been a decline in population during 16th Century, as might be expected given the chronic insecurity experienced by the border communities during that period. However, the 1712 estate map, which shows 19 buildings in the village plus the mill and Longknowes Farm, and which excludes Thornington from its view though part of the township, implies that population levels had subsequently stabilised at around their late 16th-century levels with relatively little change in the intervening period.