Posted Jan 5, 2009 by Ozzie Exile
I came across the following extract in a WMN article about medieval Exeter.
"There is little or no standardisation of spelling, date or time and there are considerable variations in some of the units of measurement. In Devon, any merchant doing business needs to keep his wits about him. An acre measures 5,760 square yards, not 4,840, there are 16 lbs to the stone (not 14), when measuring cheese or butter, and there are 10 gallons in a Devon bushel, not the usual eight.
In a later century a traveller remarks that a man from the Midlands or the north of England "might travel through all the countries of Europe and not find practices more foreign to his own than those of Devon".
I believe the larger acre may also have been used in Cornwall, but I am unsure about the rest.
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Posted Jan 7, 2009 by Plymouth Exile
Ozzie Exile,
I have noticed that prior to the 17th/18th Centuries the definition of the acre varied depending on which county you lived in, or even which part of a county. I have also seen references to the Devon acre being as low as 4,000 square yards, and the Cornish acre seemed to vary between 5,760 square yards and 120 standard acres.
The Cornish bushel seemed to vary between 16 and 24 gallons.
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