Note 97 — OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

In the last six months of 1665 (leaving out one doubtful entry of £1 5s.), £10 0s. 9d. was spent upon malt for brewing at Renishaw. Malt in that year cost £1 3s. to £1 3s. 6d. a quarter, and these payments will therefore indicate a yearly use of something over 17 quarters, which, according to Markham’s English Husbandman of 1613, would give 51 hogsheads of ordinary beer and afterwards 17 hogsheads of small beer. Seventy hogsheads would allow nearly three quarts a day per head to Mr. Sitwell and his son and a household of four men servants, two footboys, and six women servants. They could not, of course, have drunk so much, but the calculation makes no allowance for visitors. At Barton, the seat of the Sacheverells, £16 was paid during the year 1685 for twenty quarters of barley for malting.