In 1281 the bishop of Lincoln claimed throughtoll at Newark, Spaldingford, Waith, Collingham, and Stokes. In 1329 he also enjoyed toll at Clifton, Besthorpe, and Coddington (QW, 442, 660). All of these vills were in the wapentake of Newark, and it seems likely that he was entitled to the due from the whole of Nottinghamshire east of the Trent.
It is not clear, however, whether the liberties were an original appurtenance of the manor of Newark, for no mention is made of toll in the confirmation of the estate to the bishop of Dorchester in 1053-5 (Cartulary of the Abbey of Eynsham i, ed. H. E. Salter, Oxford 1907, 28-9).
But the fact adds substantial weight to the essentially topographic al argument that has been produced to suggest that the wapentake of Newark was originally independent of Nottinghamshire, and possibly attached to Lincolnshire (A. Rogers, 'The Origins of Newark: the Evidence of Local Boundaries', TTS 78, (1974), 74-87). It must, however, have been administered from Nottingham by the time of carucation in the second half of the tenth century for the assessment of Newark was an integral element in the quota assigned to the territory of Nottingham