The Real Maud Heath

Maud Heath as a ‘peasant’ trader

Maud Heath has been many things to many people. A spinster or a widow, an egg seller, peasant trader, a farmer’s wife or wealthy widow, from Langley Burrell, from Bremhill, or from Tytherton Kellaways. She is celebrated in monuments and 550 years after its creation the trust established in her name still maintains a 4 ½ mile causeway from Bremhill Wick to Chippenham.

The (re)discovery of the foundation deed of Maud Heath’s Trust in 1871 dispelled some myths, although many are still recounted. From the document, however, we deduce Maud Heath was the recently widowed wife of John Heath, and she lived at Tytherton Kellaways. She owned property in Chippenham which in 1474 amidst civil war she placed in the hands of ten trustees, headed by one John Bagot. It dispels some myths about her marital status, where she lived, and any perception that she was anything other than a wealthy woman. But it gives no sense of who she was, her family, where their wealth came from and why she chose to endow a causeway. And it does not explicitly mention the purpose of her gift.

St Giles Church, Kellaways which was rebuilt in the 19th century

However, the document does give us clues. Maud was living in Tytherton Kellaways. Now part of Langley Burrell, it was formerly a parish in its own right. In the 15th century Kellaways was a rural hamlet on the east bank of the river Avon between Chippenham and Bremhill, that comprised a handful of cottages, a small chapel dedicated to St Giles, a moated mansion house and probably a mill. Both chapel and mansion have now disappeared from the landscape and the present ‘Kellaways Mill’ [which is now a house] and church are from much later.

During the time Maud lived there, the hamlet was owned by John Bagot. He was the first person that Maud made a trustee. In 1474 John Bagot had recently inherited Kellaways from his maternal (step) grandmother. John was a Bristol merchant and Member of Parliament. His father, Clement, and maternal grandfather, Robert Russell, were also wealthy seafaring merchants. Grandfather, Robert, had probably come from nearby Seagry but made his fortune in Bristol. By Maud’s time the wealthy Russell/ Bagot family were deeply embedded into north Wiltshire life, buying up estates and patronising religious institutions. But the Russell/ Bagot ties to Bristol continued to be close, and likely necessitated travel to and from the city to Wiltshire.

By 1474 the recently widowed and wealthy Maud was probably a woman in her 70s. She also lived at Kellaways. Maud trusted John. He was the most important of her trustees. His death in 1504 led to the creation of the second surviving document associated with her gift. The founding deed did not specify the reason for its creation because its purpose was well-known to John, and it was well-known because of his close relationship with Maud. Indeed, as his mansion was the only house of any status in the hamlet the wealthy Maud presumably lived with him. Besides he is likely to have owned all the dwellings in Kellaways. The reason for this closeness was that Maud Heath and John Bagot (the wealthy Bristolian merchant and MP) were most probably related.

Research into John Bagot has been illuminating. John had an uncle, Nicholas Bagot, who died suddenly probably in his 20s in 1422 while sheriff of Bristol and precipitated a minor political crisis. Nicholas left a young childless widow, Maud. It seems likely that the widowed Maud Bagot, John Bagot’s aunt, went on to marry John Heath. John Heath was a merchant and the son of a Bristol burgess and merchant. The Heaths would have known the Bagots and Russells. All three were mercantile families that had held positions of power in the government of Bristol. They were part of the same small Bristolian elite.

John Heath inherited a fortune in 1423, making him an attractive prospect, to Maud a young recently widowed woman with connections. Like the older Robert Russell, John Heath developed connections in the Chippenham area from the late 1420s. John and Maud Heath seemingly settled in the Bremhill area close to the Russells at Kellaways. On his death, Robert Russell was commemorated in stained glass in Bremhill church, opposite another window remembering John Heath and Maud, though sadly now destroyed.

St Martin’s Church, Bremhill where Maud and John Heath were memorialised in glass

But what of Maud Heath’s legacy? There were seemingly few opportunities for women, like Maud, during the medieval period to attain roles of economic importance. Nonetheless, despite obstacles, such as surrendering the right to hold and control property on marriage, some women held estates, ran businesses or were in paid employment. Women from Bristol mercantile families were no different. In fact, 50 women were involved in sea trade between 1461 and 1494. For most it was the financial liberation of their widowhood which provided the opportunity. Such was true for Maud Heath.

In this narrative, Maud Heath was probably not born in Wiltshire, but in Bristol. Inter-marriage between mercantile families was common, and it is likely that she was born and raised the daughter of a merchant. In fact we know of a young woman, Maud Joce, born soon after 1400 and the daughter of a mayor of Bristol, who may well have been our Maud. As a woman of the mercantile class, Maud was likely able to read and assisted in her husband’s trading. As Maud Bagot, she was her husband’s executor. An executor had to have a detailed knowledge of the deceased's financial affairs. And so, as executor Maud was clearly deemed a qualified person to shoulder these responsibilities. The implementation of her husband's will, the collection of debts and. the provision of a tomb, charitable bequests and prayers probably took Maud months to complete. These were important duties. Although John Heath’s will has not survived, she was seemingly his primary beneficiary, and likely undertook these same responsibilities on her second widowhood.  

Maud Heath’s background and relationships help to explain why she chose to endow a causeway, such a thing would facilitate trade. But the story is complicated. It is important to understand Maud Heath's intentions. While there is an assumption that Maud Heath's trust built a causeway from Bremhill Wick to Chippenham, there is no evidence to support this. Instead, Maud’s gift was to repair, maintain, and improve, not to create a new way.

The name Kellaways is believed to have originated from the family name of the estate owners and used to distinguish the village from other Tytherton-named places. However, earlier instances of the name standing alone suggest the opposite, instead, implying that the occupying family took its name from the place. The second element of the place-name is clearly way, the usual word for a (high)way or road. The meaning of the first element is unknown, but it may refer to Calne. In that case, the meaning of Kellaways could be ‘the way to Calne’. Thus, the road that Maud Heath endowed was part of a longer route, in fact, likely leading to Bristol in the west and London, via Calne, in the east.

Raised sections of Maud Heath’s causeway at Kellaways

From Wick Hill, at one end of the causeway, eastbound travellers could have headed south by the current lane passing the Dumb Post inn to Ratford, rejoining the main road at Chilvester Hill west of Calne. This route was significant in the medieval period and later, as a bridge had replaced the ford at Ratford before 1289. Maud’s goal was to create a trust that would help maintain and repair an existing route across the Avon valley floodplain, not to create a new road. That earlier route may have primarily existed for the benefit of travellers between northwest and central Wiltshire, but it could equally be used, developed, and maintained for traffic between Bristol and London, as an alternative to the unreliable route through Chippenham. The involvement of John Bagot, a Bristol merchant, and Maud Heath, a Bristol merchant’s widow, suggests this was the overriding concern. Their journeys from Kellaways to and from Bristol and London would have been made easier, and mercantile trade, the source of their wealth, would have been facilitated.

By the time she made her gift in 1474, Maud Heath was a wealthy widow in her seventies. If this identification is correct, she was most likely born in Bristol, had married two merchants from the city, both of whom she had outlived, and had relocated to Bremhill with her second husband. There is no evidence to suggest that she had children.  After the passing of her second husband, John, she retired to Kellaways, presumably to live with her nephew. It was during this period she chose to endow a causeway that ran past her home. But, Maud had much larger aspirations than merely assisting women to transport eggs to market in Chippenham; she was ensuring carts laden with goods did not get bogged down in mud while journeying between England’s two largest cities. She was enabling regional and national inland trade.That the trust and causeway still exist is a testament to Maud's enduring legacy for over 500 years. But, although celebrated, her ambition has been belittled and her own story has become lost.

Louise Ryland-Epton & John Chandler