The man who gave his name to this cottage in times long past was an important figure in his country's defence system. His name indicated that he was a maker of arrows. The 'fletchings' were, in fact, the flight feathers fixed to an arrow. This explains the presence of the small pond in David's sculpture, for our fletcher ensured that he had a plentiful supply of feathers by keeping his own geese. The term 'fletcher' was often extended to include not only the arrow-maker, but the bow-maker as well.
   If our early fletcher was also the maker of the longbow, then he could fairly claim to have contributed to his country's triumphs in battle. For the longbow, a distinctly English weapon, measuring five feet in length, could fire an arrow which could penetrate plate armour at a distance of up to 600 yards, It could despatch ten flights of arrows a minute. Longbows and arrows were the most important weapons on the battlefield from 1300 for the next 200 years. Without them, the outcome of battles such as Crecy and Agincourt would have been vastly different.