As I have shown elsewhere, the bay was a unit of measurement, containing 240 square feet. The evidence supporting this conclusion may be seen in various ancient documents. For instance, in the twelfth century, the villans of Aucklandshire had to “make the bishop’s hall in the forest, of the length of 60 feet, and of the breadth within the posts (_infra postes_) of sixteen feet.”[60] In other words, the hall was to consist of four bays of 240 square feet each, like those in the barn at Offerton. In 1694 there was a fire at Long Eaton, near Derby, which “consumed fourteen dwelling houses, togeather with the barnes, stables, outhouses, and other buildings, containeinge ninety bayes of buildings.”[61] Here the houses of a village are estimated by the bay, which must have been a recognised measure of quantity. It appears in the Eckington Court Rolls that in 1758 a man borrowed £40 on the security of “all that one bay of a barn, situate and being in the High Lane, called the Farr Bay, and all that close there called the Farr Over Close adjoining to the High Lane aforesaid southwards, containing by estimation three acres.” In 1764 an Eckington man and his wife surrendered “all that middle bay of a barn situate and being at High Lane aforesaid, together with twelve yards and two feet of land in length on the north side of the said barn, and one yard in breadth, with all the priveledges and appurtenances to the same belonging,” to the use of John Gill, of Cuckhold’s Haven, in the parish of Eckington, sicklesmith. The meaning is that bays, being measures of quantity, were sold like acres, or, rather, like links of sausages. We must not, of course, suppose that all bays were exactly of the same size, or that each of them contained an area of exactly 240 square feet. We might as well expect every acre in the fields to contain exactly 4,840 square yards. [60] _Boldon Buke_ (Surtees Soc.), pp. 26, 62. [61] Document in Cox’s _Annals of Derbyshire_, vol. ii., p. 294.