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THE
WILTSHIRE Archenlayral ont Batueal Wistory MAGAZINE,
Published unver the Birection of the Society
FORMED IN THAT COUNTY, A.D. 1853.
VOL. XXV.
E DEVIZES : : H. F. Bout, 4, Saint Joun Srrzer.
1891.
Tue Enprror of the Wiltshire Magazine desires that it should be distinctly understood that neither he nor the Committee of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society hold themselves in any way answerable for any statements or opinions expressed in the Magazine; for all of which the Authors of the several papers and communications are alone responsible.
CONTENTS OF VOL. XXV.
No. LXXIII.
Account of the Thirty-Sixth General Meeting at Westbury ..........scecesee Notes on the Churches visited by the Society in 1889: By C. E. Pontine,
PEPIN P a pe ce cat Reva tedhak wan sea eeies fats dcadesenteocinddt cmedastasecats datas daasmatiae Westbury under the Plain: By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. White Horse Jottings: By the Rev. W. C. PLENDERLEATH ..........0.000 Some Western Circuit Assize Records of the Seventeenth Century: By
MN WARN ENE Ts) We cos ag Sap iovap ves oun esulivseatcersedecnestas <enecetaecaies The Buried Palzozoic Rocks of Wiltshire: By W. Hzwarp Bett, F.G.S. James Ley, Earl of Marlborough: By the Rev. W. P. S. Brnewam ...... The Church Heraldry of North Wiltshire (Continued): By ARTHUR
MESUEEG a sca aatk satis Val kas care doraceenlna sie aca (nivea weenie) acevebnanenne eanncet Wiltshire’s Contribution to the Piedmontese Fund in 1655: By J. WaYLEN Donations to Museum and Library ........ iieaite “heobeoercce Seer ad ance Soest :
No. LXXIV.
St. Nicholas’s Hospital, Salisbury : By the Rev. Canon MoBErty ........ :
_ The Bishop’s Palace at Salisbury: A Lecture delivered at the Blackmore
Museum, Salisbury, January 27th, 1890, by the Right Rev. the Lorp BisHor oF SaLisBury
On the Roman Conquest of Southern Britain, particularly in regard to its influence on the County of Wilts: Address by the Right Rev. the Lorp BisHor or Satispury, as President of the Society, at its Annual Meeting at Westbury, August Ist, 1889 .3.........00 Racbeedestecsareccudenre :
_ Two Wiltshire Mazers: By W. Cunnineton, F.G.S. ........... slevevavdvenee
_ Edington Church: By C. E. Ponrine, F.S.A. .
_ Notes on Remains of Roman Dwellings at useingion: “Wick : By the
Memeo, LH. GODDARD ‘siclic.cdkehoustortetebtvedecvactess Neagweupeuseeayeataues a
Donations to Museum and Library ...cccssssecsesssseas sesccessnscesesesssecoecces
PRO e ee meee were ee esse heseese sees sere ee eeeseseeseeeEse
119
165
191 205 209
232 234
iv. CONTENTS OF VOL. xXV.
No. LXXV. PAGE Account of the Thirty-Seventh Annual Meeting at Devizes ...... Waceescasse / | 200 Notes on the Churches visited by the Society in 1890: By C. E. Pontine, NOS TAG ee oo i cadedanscc ove Baeempamimmeratonseceeasthtowcncec eres Sente ts dee te laaaeeenmn 252
Notes on Plaees visited by the Society in 1890: By H. E. Mepuicorr... 280 Inaugural Address by the President of the Society, Lt.-Gun. Prtr-RrveErs, F.B.S., F.S.A., on the Excavations at Rotherley, Woodcuts, and Bokerly Dy BCG S iecatin cuss vce’. 3% » oe peameMamnnp beh paraansh acy sieebes is tpn see es aaah ean 283 Notes on Human Remains discovered by General Pitt-Rivers, D.C.L., F.RB.S., at Woodyates, Wiltshire: By J. G. Garson, M.D., V.P.A.L, Lecturer on Comparative Anatomy at Charing Cross Hospital Medical
Schools London: .......dcssusensaemeaeentaessiasancapmtncecas sere ceteneetartne PEO yan aul The Geology of Devizes: By A. J. Juxus-Browng, B.A., F.GS.......... 317 Notes on the Church Plate of North Wilts: By the Rev. E.H.Gopparp 336 In Memoriam John Edward Jackson, F.S.A., Hon. Canon of Bristol...... 355 Recent Occurrence of the Great Bustard in Wilts: By the Rev. A. C.
SMITH; ib ssddesicssdessisesosaneceousnsteseVanee timanaase ance te Barn sainoscAnesciac 359 Additions to the Museum and Library......sccscassscvesesseeses nvaieven Sayeed vee = B64
Kllustrations.
The Uffington White Horse, 66. The Old Westbury Horse, 67. The Modern Westbury Horse, 67. The Alligator Mound, Ohio, U.S.A., 68. The Beaver Mound, Wisconsin, U.S.A., 68. The Buffalo Mound, Wisconsin, U.S.A., 68. Map of the British Isles in the Triassic Period, 80. Map of the British Isles in the Liassic Period, 80. Map of the British Isles in the Cretaceous Period, 80. Geological Sections (A. and B.) of Rocks under Westbury, 82. Section (C) from Vallis Vale to Westbury, 82.
Plans (Nos. I. II. and III.) of St. Nicholas’ Hospital, Salisbury, 128. Plans No. I., II., and III.) of the Bishop’s Palace, Salisbury, 184. Photo-print of Mr. Cunnington’s Mazer, 205. Photo-print of the Rev. C. E. B. Barnwell’s Mazer, 206. Edington Church, Wilts, Longitudinal Section, looking south, 215. Edington Church, Wilts, Tomb in South Transept, 220. Drawing of Stole from the Effigy of William of Edington in Winchester Cathedral, and of In- scriptions under Figures of Saints in the Clerestory Windows of Edington Church, 222. Plan of Roman Dwellings at Manor Farm, Hannington Wick, uncovered October 23rd, 1890, 232.
Font—Cherington, 260. Church of All Saints, Marden, Wilts, 263. Map of Bokerly Dyke, between Dorset and Wilts, 288. Section 1—showing the natural order of the Strata beneath Devizes, 318. Section 2—showing the successive beds of Chalk at Morgan’s Hill, 318. Fig. 3.—Structure of Siliceous Chalk, 324. Figs. 4 and 5,—Structure of Melbourn Rock and of Chalk Rock, 326. Fig. 6.—Structure of Middle Chalk, 327. Fig. 7.—Structure of Chalk Rock, 328. Plate of ten Chalices in Churches in North Wilts, 342. Plate of five Flagons in Churches in North Wilts, 348.
b Anhitpvamd tye ee a ce Vay ont Mate te oe eee her as aA rn ~ 5
JULY, 1890. “Vou, XXV.
THE
WILTSHIRE Archeological ant Patwral Brstory
MAGAZINE,
Published unver the Direction
OF THE
SOCIETY FORMED IN THAT COUNTY,
A.D. 1853.
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DEVIZES: _- PRINTED AND SOLD FOR THE SOCIETY BY H. F Butt, Sarnt Jonn SrReer.
Price 5s. 6d.—Members Grats.
E NOTICE, hat a copiGue Index for Gh Pp : ~ Volumes of the Magazine will be found at the es ) viii., xvi., and xxiv. H
the Financial Seelaees Mr. Digs eee 31, Long Hie Devizes, to whom also all communications as "to the supply of Magazines sbould be addressed, and os whom most of back Numbers may be had.
The Numbers of this Magazine will be delivered ilies as er Be MS e: to Members who are not in arrear of their Annual Subscrip- tions, but in accordance with Byelaw No. 8 “The Financial Secretary shall give notice to Members in arrear, and the Society’s publications will not be forwarded to Members whose subscriptions shall remain unpaid after such notice.”
All other communications to be addressed to the Honorary sual’ ie taries: H. E. Mepuicorr, Esq., Sandfield, Potterne, Devizes : and the Rev. E. H. Gopparp, Clyffe Vicarage, Wootton Basset %
The Rev. A. C. Surru will be much obliged to observers of beds 342 4 in all parts of the county, to forward to him notices of rar occurrences, early arrivals of migrants, or any remarkable fact connected with birds, which may come under their notice.
A resolution has been passed by the Committee of the Society “that it is highly desirable that every encouragement shoul be given towards obtaining second copies of Wiltshire Parish Registers.”
| Wiltshire—The ch OTs C ollections i.
of Fohn Aubrey, F-R.S., A.D. 1b5G—70. CORRECTED AND ‘ENLARGED
BY THE REV. CANON J. E. JACKSON, M. A. FS. In 4to, Cloth, pp. 491, with 46 Plates. peel Price £2 10s.
aap SECOND EDITION OF | ns a — The British and Roman Antiquities of “34 the orth Wiltshire Downs, BY THE REV. ‘Ae Ae SMITH, fap
Exera Cloth. Price £2 28,
ss WILTSHIRE Archeolagiral and Patncal Wistaryy
MAGAZINE.
Keg SM) > Bae WME me PIF Sa
= aS a»
No, LXXIII. JULY, 1890.
es:
Contents. 4 PAGE Account oF THE THIRTY-SIXTH GENERAL Meretine at WESTBURY 1 Nores on THE CHURCHES VISITED BY THE Society 1n 1889: By 12
"0. B. Ponting, B.S.A. .accceessssssseeeeersetee te naserismneceereae Westsury UNDER THE Pain : By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 33
aime Horse Jorrines: By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath ............ 57 mez Western Circuit AssiZE Recorps OF THE SEVENTEENTH Century: By W. W. Ravenhill ..........::cceceeeceeeeeeeeeeeesreesseseenes ‘Buriep Panrmozorc Rocks or WILTSHIRE: By W. Heward
Teh le fcc asne Wisdng ia™ Ach rpmte rea “0+ Terese piensena toes ? sees s Ley, Eart oF MARLBOROUGH : By the Rev. W. P. S. Bingham 86
eer Giabiestutliciee™ sducivseoceve-ésssss ancsaxecs ace tevsncverensese recess eas sneess 100
LTSHIRE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE PrepMontest Funp in 1655: By J. Waylen ........0+ Me em ese Meche cata’ vonnelp nen Suns ioc smbnioe trp’ SLID 118
. = DONATIONS TO MvusEuUM AND LIBRABY.......cccvcccccsccessecseeenccescnenees
&, ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Uffington White Horse ........:sescssresessssereeseneeeees 66 The Old Westbury Horse .......sscssseesereereeeeeseeeseeresees 67 The Modern Westbury Horse ....scsecscesecrsessereseeseneees 67 The Alligator Mound, Ohio, U.S.A.........:seecseeereeeee rene 68
_ The Beaver Mound, Wisconsin, U.S.A. ......s.sseeeeeeeees 68
The Buffalo Mound, Wisconsin, U.S.A. ......sseseeeeeeeees 68
ebted to the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath for the kind loan
(The Society is ind of the wood blocks for the above.)
Map of the British Isles in the Triassic Period ............ 80
3 Liassic Period ............ 80
‘is % Cretaceous Period......... 80
— Geological Sections (A. and B.) of Rocks under Westbury 82
“Section (C.) from Vallis Vale to Westbury ...... ..+.-++++- 82 DEVIZES :
H. F. Bust, 4, Sarnt JoHN SrReEevt.
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THE
WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE,
“MULTORUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUR ONUS. ’—Ovid,
THE THIRTY-SIXTH GENERAL MEETING OF THE Wiltshire Archeological and Natural History Society,' HELD AT WESTBURY, July 31st, August lst and 2nd, 1889, THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY, Tue Ricut Rey. Tue Lorp BisHor or SAuisBury,
IN THE CHAIR.
GHIS was the first occasion on which the Society had selected t AS Westbury as the place of its Annual Meeting. The num- bers attending were smaller than they have been at some recent Meetings, but the programme gone through by those who were present was a most enjoyable one, and the weather was everything that could be desired—warm and fine until the close of the third day’s excursion, the rain only beginning to fall as the archzologists departed for their homes.
The Right Rev. The President was unfortunately unable to be
present at the General Meeting, held in the Town Hall, at 3 o’clock;
1 For many of the details in the account of this Meeting the Editor is in- debted to the columns of the Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette, the Trowbridge Chronicle, and the Warminster and Westbury Journal.
VOL. XXV.——NO. LXXII, B
2 The Thirty-Sixth General Meeting.
and in his absence the chair was taken by Mr. W. H. Laverton, who at once called on the Rev. A. C. Smiru to read
THE REPORT,
which was as follows :—
“The Committee has again the satisfaction of reporting the steady progress of the Society, which, though not yet numbering amongst its Members so large a body of Wiltshiremen as it desires to do, yet contains on its books (including, as usual, the Societies with which publications are exchanged) three hundred and seventy- three names—a slight increase since last year,
“ We have, however, to lament the loss of several of our Members, and though the list of these is not numerically so long as usual, it contains the names of some whom we could ill afford to spare. Among these we would first mention our late Financial Secretary, Mr. Nott, whose active business habits and whose courtesy and energy in our cause had rendered his services well-nigh invaluable to the Officers of the Society ; and it is with most real gratitude, as well as regret, that we call to mind his ready aid, on which we could always rely. In Mr. Meek, again, whose loss has heen severely felt by the whole county, we of this Society deplore one of our most valued Officers, who served for a great many years on the Committee and was a Member from the foundation of the Society. Another original Member, who took part in the formation of the Society in 1853, and who was a Vice-President and Member of the Committee from the first, was Mr. H. N. Clarke, long resident at Park Cottage, Devizes, and now very lately deceased. We would also mention with regret the name of the Rev. A. O. Hartley, late Vicar of Steeple Ashton; and there are some few others who have died or left the county, or who, from other causes, have resigned _ membership.
* As regards finance, as the balance sheet containing the account of last year’s receipts and expenditure has just been placed in the- hands of the Members of the Society, it is needless to say more than that while our income is sufficient to cover our annual ex- penditure with economy, we are not in a condition financially to
The Report. 38
incur any extraordinary expense in the way of exploration, restora- tion, or otherwise, as we are often invited and sometimes expected
to do. “‘The Library and Museum have been enriched with many donations, several of which are of great value, as illustrating the topography, antiquities, and natural history of the county. Detailed lists of these donations are given at the end of each number of the Magazine. For these the Committee desires cordially to thank all the contributors, and at the same time to remind the Members of the Society scattered all over the county how great is the importance of preserving in some Museum, whether at Devizes, Salisbury, or Marlborough, objects which, when scattered and in private hands, are of little value, but are of the highest interest when collected, classified, and arranged for purposes of observation and study. The Committee has again to report very important work carried out by the munificence and under the personal superintendence and direction of the accomplished archzologist,General Pitt-Rivers,whose excavations at Bokerly Dyke, in the extreme south of the county, were recorded in the Report last year. This year the General acceded to the urgent request of the Secretaries, and made a large section through Wansdyke, a little to the north of Old Shepherd’s Shore. This section was scientifically cut under the immediate eye of the General and his three clerks, by a body of a dozen or more labourers, who carried on the work for a fortnight in the spring of this year, when, unfortunately, the weather was exceptionally cold and the wind more than ordinarily keen and cutting. Though nothing was found to indicate the exact date of the throwing up of the Wansdyke, the discovery of some fragments of Samian ware on the original surface of the down beneath the ramparts, in addition to the finding of an iron knife and an iron nail, and the position in which these relics were respectively found, proved to the satisfaction of all who ex- amined them that the work was not pre-Roman, as had generally -been supposed. But whether Roman or post-Roman (possibly even Saxon) there is no evidence as yet to show. We rejoice, however, to add that General Pitt-Rivers is not satisfied that the evidence is exhausted, and proposes shortly to make further examination into
B 2
4 The Thirty-Siath General Meeting.
this interesting earthwork. We are confident that the Members of the Society generally would desire to join the Committee in cordially thanking the General for this great work of excavation, which he is carrying on entirely at his own expense (for he generously declines any help from the Society), and we shall all await the result of his further researches with no little interest.
“In conclusion the Committee again invites the active co- operation of Members of the Society in all parts of the county, reminding them how very much yet remains to be investigated and brought to light, and what a large field of enquiry yet offers itself on all sides. For though your committee cannot but be aware that the Society has done something towards elucidating some of the obscure details of the history of the county, and calling attention to some branches of its natural history, it is profoundly sensible that it has as yet only touched the border of these subjects, and that there is still a great work to be carried on before we can be said to have mastered the antiquities as well as the natural history and the general history of Wiltshire.”
The Rev. W. P. S. Bryeuaw, in proposing the adoption of the Report, said that he hoped that the holding of the Meeting at Westbury would lead to a considerable increase of Members from that neighbourhood. At present, he thought, the Westbury district was not at all adequately represented in the Society. He thought that the thanks of the Meeting were due to Mr. Smith, for the pains and trouble he had taken in the work of the Society during the past year, and in drawing up the Report they had just heard. He also thought that the thanks of the Meeting ought to be con- veyed to General Pitt-Rivers, for the very valuable work he had undertaken in the excavation of Wansdyke. Mr. H. J. F. Swayne having seconded the motion the Report was carried.
On the motion of the Cuarrman, seconded by Mr. E. O. Bouveriz, the whole of the Officers of the Society were re-elected to office.
The Cuairman then called on the Rev. Canon Jackson to read “Some Notes on Westbury History.” It is needless to say that this paper was listened to with the greatest attention, and that at its conclusion a vote of thanks to Canon Jackson, proposed by the
The Dinner. 5:
Chairman, was carried with acclamation by the Meeting. Those who have ever heard one of the veteran Canon’s papers know that the singular power he possesses of revivifying even the driest bones of local history by the touch of his own genial humour makes those papers one of the greatest treats of the Annual Meetings of the Society. The paper itself will be found at a later page of the Magazine.
Mr. Smita having stated that the Rev. Canon Warre and the Rev. W. P. S. Bingham had consented to act as Local Honorary Secretaries for Melksham and Westbury respectively, proposed that their names skould be added to the list of Local Secretaries. This having been seconded by Mr. Swayne, and agreed to, the Meeting came to aclose, and the Members, under the guidance of the Rev. W. P. S. Bineuam and Mr. C. E. Pontine, F.S.A., adjourned to the parish Church and examined its architectural details; some few Members paying a visit to the Westbury Iron Works, which by the kindness of Mr, S. Anderson were open for their inspection.
THE DINNER.
At 6 o’clock some thirty Members sat down to the Anniversary Dinner at the Lopes Arms Hotel. The Presipent of the Society, the Bishop of Salisbury, who had arrived shortly before the hour fixed for dinner, oceupied the chair—and at the conclusion of dinner proposed as the first toast, ‘‘ The Queen, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the rest of the Royal Family,” dwelling especially on the late marriage of Princess Louise of Wales and the great interest that had been taken by the whole nation in that event.
_ The PrestpEnt next proposed the “ Health of the Inhabitants of Westbury,” coupling with the toast the name of Mr. Laverton, who had so kindly taken his place that afternoon. He expressed his regret that he was unable to be present before, more especially as
he had missed the pleasure of hearing Canon Jackson’s paper, by
ek Bi =e
his absence.
Mr. Laverton, in responding, expressed the hope that the in-
| habitants of Westbury would show their appreciation of the Society’s
6 The Thirty-Siath General Meetiug.
visit to their town by a large attendance at the Conversazione to be held that evening.
The next toast proposed by the Prusrpunt was the “ Healths of the Local Secretaries, the Rev. W. P. S. Bingham and Mr. C. W. Pinniger.” He said that theirs was not an easy position to occupy, and the Society was under great obligation to them for the trouble they had taken to make the Meeting a success.
The Rev. W. P. S. Biyeuam thanked the President for his kind expressions, and the company for the way in which they had received the toast; and alluding to the President’s remark that the office he had filled was a difficult one, said that he could not say that he had found it so himself, for Mr. Pinniger had done all the work.
Mr. C. W. Prynicer also responded, assuring the company that any trouble he had undergone in endeavouring to make successful arrangements for the Meeting and excursions had been a real pleasure to him. His task had been much lightened, too, by the ready assistance lent him by the Local Committee, the General Secretaries, and more especially by the Local Secretary of last year, Mr. Wilkins.
After a vote of thanks to the Bishop, for presiding, proposed by Mr. Laverton, the company dispersed—to meet again at 8 o’clock for
THE CONVERSAZIONE
at the Laverton Institute—which, through the kindness of Mr. Laverton, had been transformed into a drawing-room plentifully furnished with lounges and easy chairs and beautifully decorated with flowers, while a number of curiosities had been also arranged for the inspection of the Members. Refreshments later on were most kindly provided by Mrs. Pinniger and Mrs, E. Smalleombe.
The proceedings were opened by the reading of the Presidential address by the Bisuop, on the subject of “ the Roman Conquest of Southern Britain; its character and influence, especially upon our own county.’’ This was a paper full of the most valuable matter, but as it will appear in the Magazine its contents need not be further mentioned here.
After a vote of thanks to the President, for his address, proposed
F
a
Thursday, August 1st. 7
by the Rev. A. C. Smith, the next paper was read by the Rev. W. C. PrenprertEatH, on “Some further White Horse Jottings,” in which, with reference to the Westbury White Horse, he maintained that the balance of evidence was in favour of the tradition which ascribed the origin of the old horse, replaced in 1778 by the present one, to King Alfred on the morrow of his victory over the Danes at Ethandune, in 878. “A short discussion followed this paper, the Rev. J. Crarke expressing his opinion that strong reasons ought to be adduced against the old tradition before they were required to give it up.
The Rev. W. P.S. Bingham read the next paper on “ James, Earl
of Marlborough, and his successors,” connected with Westbury by
the fact that he lived at Heywood, and that his handsome monument with effigies of himself and his first wife still stands in the south transept of the parish Church.
Votes of thanks to the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath and the Rev. W. P. S. Bingham, for their excellent papers, brought a pleasant evening to a close.
THURSDAY, AUGUST lst.
About forty Members, and their friends, including the President and Mrs. Wordsworth, took their seats in the breaks provided for the purpose, at 9 o’clock, at the Town Hall, and a start was made for Bratton Camp. On the arrival of the breaks at the bottom of the steep escarpment on the brow of which the camp is situated, the more active members of the party climbed the hill by a shorter path, which afforded those who were botanically inclined an excellent opportunity of observing some of the less common plants of the characteristic down flora of Wiltshire—notably the pretty little yellow Chilora Perfoliata. Arrived at the top, the earthworks of the camp' were inspected and the magnificent view admired—but only a few minutes halt was made, as the day’s programme was a long one and time was getting on. A delightful drive over the downs brought the party to Imber, one of the many Wiltshire
1See Magazine, vol. xix., p. 134,
8 The Thirty-Sixth General Meeting.
villages still remote from railways and the busier haunts of men. Here the five-pinnacled tower and other objects of interest in the Church, ranging in age from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, were well pointed out by Mr. C. E. Pontsna, F.S.A., whose notes on this and the other Churches visited during this Excursion will be found at a later page.
The next place visited was West Lavington, where the Rev. Canon Baynham—the Vicar—gave an account of the monuments in the Chureh, and Mr. Ponting called attention to the various changes in style and design which occurred as the fine edifice was gradually brought to completion through a long period of time.
The study of architecture, combined with the effect of the down air, having by this time greatly predisposed everybody in favour of luncheon, ample justice was done to the refreshments provided by the proprietor of the Lopes Arms, Westbury—after the discussion of which the Members entered the breaks again for the seeond half of the day’s excursion.
The first stoppage was at Little Cheverell Church, which, with the exception of the tower, was entirely re-built in 1850. A few remains of the old Church have, however, been built into the walls of the new building and these were examined before the party drove on to Great Cheverell, where the architectural history of the Chureh was again explained by Mr. Pontina. On arriving at Erlestoke Park the party left the carriages, and, by the kind permission of Mr. Watson Taylor, proceeded through the lovely walks beside the miniature lakes and cascades, and under the splendid trees for which Erlestoke is famous; the only drawback being that so little time could be spared to dwell on its beauties. After a hasty glance at the beautiful little Church erected in 1880 from the designs of the late Mr. Street, and containing a good east window by Clayton & Bell, the party entered the carriages again and drove on to East Coulston, stopping there for a look at the little Church, with its Norman doorway, built up in the wall, before passing to Edington.
The visit to the magnificent Church of this place, under the personal guidance of Mr. Pontine, who has so ably and carefully directed its restoration during the last few years, was, perhaps, the
Thursday, August lst. 9
most interesting feature of the Westbury Meeting. The Vicar, the Rev. H. Cave-Brown-Cavr (who has since died before the completion of the work which was so near his heart), gave an account of the restoration carried on gradually by the Committee, who, at the Bishop’s instigation, have been instrumental in pre- serving this grand, and in many respects unique, example of the transition from the Decorated to the Perpendicular style, from the ruin which must inevitably have overwhelmed it in a few years if it had not been taken in hand intime. The magnitude of the work made it altogether beyond the power of the parish to raise the necessary funds, and the Committee, feeling that the interest of such a building belonged rather to the county, or indeed to the nation, than to the parish of Edington alone, appealed far and wide for funds, with the result that the most necessary repairs have been executed, though there is much still to be done.
The Members of the Society had every opportunity of judging of the loving care bestowed on every part of the building by Mr. Ponting—from the old glass, so carefully replaced in the transept windows, to the late and curious plaster roof, restored and made secure with great trouble and difficulty, in the nave. It wasa _ privilege to see the building under the guidance of one who knows every stone of it, as he does, and we are happy to say that the paper on this Church read by him at the Salisbury Meeting will, by the courtesy of the Council of the Archeological Institute, be reprinted in the Wagazine.
After enjoying the welcome refreshment of a cup of tea at the vicarage, by the kind hospitality of the Vicar, a move was made for Westbury, taking Bratton on the way. There was some doubt whether there would be time for this, but happily the programme was adhered to; for, even after Edington, it was generally agreed that Bratton Church, both in its architecture and its situation » Was quite one of the most charming things we had seen. Moreover the inhabitants of the village had prepared a welcome for the Society and its President such as we met with nowhere else on our excursions, the bells ringing merrily and numbers of the people turning out to greet their visitors. The little eruciform Church, with its central
10 The Thirty-Siath General Meeting.
tower, is a singularly complete and perfect example of early fifteenth century work; and its position in the valley, with the long flights of paved steps leading up the hill-side to the houses of the village, is singularly picturesque; and altogether the visit to Bratton will remain among the pleasantest memories of a very pleasant Excursion.
Arrived at Westbury the most was made of the very short time remaining for dinner, before the hour for the Conversazione arrived.
Tue PresipENnT, occupying the chair, called on Mr. W. W. RavenuILL to read his paper on “Some Western Circuit Assize Records of the Seventeenth Century,” in which Mr. Ravenhill ob- served that these records form most valuable sources of information for the future historian of that century.
Tue Presipent having conveyed the thanks of the Meeting to Mr. Ravenhill, Mr. W. Hewarp Bett gave a very interesting address, illustrated by several carefully-drawn diagrams, on “ The Buried Rocks of Wiltshire,” for which he received the warmer thanks, as papers on geological and natural history subjects have been somewhat rare at our Meetings as compared with those which are purely antiquarian and archeological.
A paper by the Rev. W. C. Prenperxeats, on “ Etymological Interchanges” in that language of Wiltshire, which, in spite of universal education, dies hard ; with a vote of thanks cordially given, brought an instructive evening to a close.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2np.
The interest of Thursday’s Excursion bad centred in Church architecture. The interest of Friday’s Excursion, on the other hand, was largely found in the domestic architecture of the delightful group of old houses visited during the day.
The party which left the Town Hall at 9, a.m., was considerably reduced in numbers from that of the previous day, many of the Members being unable to stay for the last day’s Excursion. The route lay past Heywood House to North Bradley, where the party was received by the Vicar, the Rev. W. A. S. Mrereweruer, who, assisted by Mr. Pontina, directed attention to the most remarkable
Friday, August nd. 11
features of the Church—the fine western tower and the beautiful chapel at the end of the North aisle.
Then on to Cutteridge House, whence, after a short stay, the archeologists walked to the neighbouring Brook House. Here, in what are now used as the stables and cow-houses of the farm-house, is an extremely interesting range of buildings, which, as Mr. Ponting pointed out, formed the domestic offices of an early fifteenth century house of considerable importance ; and although they are now put to baser uses, yet they still remain in good preservation— the original walls, floors, and roofs, the windows with their iron grilles, the doorways and fireplaces being still in si/u and compara- tively uninjured. These buildings were the subject of as much discussion as time allowed of, and many of the party would willingly have lingered longer had it not been necessary to continue their journey.
The next item on the programme was Seymour’s Court, but before the party arrived there they were hospitably stopped by the way and entertained by Mr. W. R. Brown, at his shooting lodge. After doing justice to the very welcome refreshments provided, a short drive further brought the party to the charming old manor- house, now—like Brook House—occupied as a farm. Mr. Pontine read the history of the present condition of the building, as far as a hurried examination of it sufficed to reveal it. He pointed out that the back of the house, the very picturesque porch and room over it, with the chimney stacks and one end of the house, were all the work of about the middle of the fifteenth century, whilst the front walls had been re-built, and windows of the period constructed in them at the same time that the house was lengthened in the time of James I.
Continuing on the Somerset side of the border Road Church was soon reached, where the Rev. J. B. Mepigy gave many interesting details of its history, and Mr. Ponrine, as before, described the architecture.
At Beckington—which was the next place visited—luncheon, by general consent, took precedence of sight seeing ; after which the interesting Church was examined, and the study of domestic
12 Notes on the Churches
architecture was happily combined with tea, through the kind hospitality of Mrs. Starky, at Beckington Castle.
Entering the breaks once more on the return journey to Westbury, a halt was made opposite the entirely modern Church of Dilton Marsh—not without protests at the impropriety of wasting time on such a building, protests, which were, however, acknowledged to be unnecessary as soon as the party found themselves in the really striking interior, the style of which is a species of Byzantine used here with singularly good taste and effect. }
Old Dilton Church, a picturesque little fifteenth century building lying close beside the railroad, was the last place to be stopped at, and after observing the points of interest about it under our inde- fatigable architectural guide the party proceeded to Westbury, some to catch the train, others—more fortunate—to the vicarage, where tea was provided by the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Binanam.
Alotes on the Churches visited by the Society
°
m 1889.
[Prepared (and in part delivered) during the Excursion.] By C. E. Ponrtne, F.S.A. Wednesday, July 31st, 1889. Tue CuurcH oF ALL Saints. WESTBURY.
[Mr. Ponting’s notes on the structural features of this Church were only intended to supplement the Vicar’s description. ]
“ek is a cruciform Church of clerestoried nave of four bays ¥ y‘ with narrow aisles, north and south transepts, chapels on the north and south of the chancel, and a further chapel to the north
—
Visited by the Society im 1889. 13
of the easternmost bay of the north aisle. There is a south porch and a modern vestry between this and the transept.
Although no Norman work is visible above ground (except, perhaps, parts of the south transept wall), it is almost certain, from the narrowness of the aisles, that the Church stands on Norman foundations. I had been informed that there were Norman remains in the tower, but I have failed to discover them. ‘The nave, aisles, transepts, and tower, appear to have been re-built circa 1480, the chapels on the north and south of the chancel some fifty years after, and that against the north aisle later still. The clerestory appears to have been an afterthought, and traces of an earlier roof can be seen on the west face of the tower, but the alteration must have taken place before the Church was completed.
The feature which strikes one at once inside the Church is the way in which the buttresses of the aisles are carried over to support the clerestory and at the same time to form arches to carry the aisle roofs. Another special feature is the richly-groined porch under the west window of the nave, the doorway of which has been mutilated by the head being squared out. There is a stoup by the south door. Stone bench seats are carried all round the Church inside.
The turret staircase to the tower also led to the rood-loft, the exit doorway for which remains. The archways between the transepts and chapels ave of the panelled type of which we shall see several examples during our excursion. There is a piscina in the south transept, also a coeval recessed tomb. The two chapels have their original roofs; that on the north has lost its braces, but the corbels which supported them still remain in the east angles and over the arcade. There are niches in the east walls of both chapels ; those in the south chapel with their rich canopies appear to be entirely new, but they are presumably copied from original work,
Thursday, August st.
Cuurce or S. Gires. ImBer.
This Church is one of the seven in the county dedicated in the
14 Notes on the Churches
name of S. Giles; it is simple in plan, having only nave with north and south aisles, chancel, and western tower, but it has many points of great interest.
As is frequently the case, the oldest feature is the font, the bowl of which appears to be Norman work of about the middle of the twelfth century. This would indicate the probability of an older Church than the present one having stood on this site, and this probability receives support from the extreme narrowness of the aisles. The present aisles were built at a time when it was customary to make them of much greater width than before, and that this was not done here is probably due to the foundation lines of a Norman Church having been followed. We may, therefore, fairly assume that a Norman Church with aisles once stood here. The foundations of Norman work—at least down to the middle of the twelfth century—were almost invariably bad, and this doubtless accounts for the re-building of Churches having so often become necessary within so short a time of their original construction. The re-building here began with the side walls and arcades of the nave, which are probably the work of quite the end of the thirteenth century. The west end of the north aisle was most likely built at the same time, for the two buttresses there are of the work of that period.
The great wave of Church building which swept over the country in the fifteenth century did not miss Imber, for at a date not later than 1420 the north and south aisles—with the very usual door in each wall, the square-headed windows in the side walls, and the pointed one in the east end—were re-built and the north porch and tower added. The nave was also re-roofed in the waggon-head form so prevalent in the south-west of England but less commonly met with in this county. This fifteenth century work is bold and massive, and it must have been no slight task in those days to get up to Imber the large quoin and bonding stones which may be seen on the outside. Owing to the peculiar treatment of the turret staircase the tower has jive corners, and although it has losta pinnacle it can still claim to possess the same number of pinnacles as many other towers which have been less unfortunate. It will be
—__ =
Visited by the Society im 1889. 15
seen that the staircase is fair with the east face of the main body of the tower, and is treated as an integral part of it, the parapet and cornice being carried all round.
It is possible that, either during his lifetime, or at his death, the knight, whose effigy lies under the beautiful recessed tomb in the south aisle, was a benefactor to the Church at this time, and the piscina adjoining the tomb indicates a chantry founded for his benefit. There is a recumbent effigy of a second warrior under the last bay of the south nave arcade, his head resting on a cushion supported by angels and his feet upon a lion. His shield bears the three lions rampant, but I believe his identity has not yet been established. [Heralds Visitation, 1620, mentions Rous of (Imber) three lions rampant. (Hereford 44.)]
There are a few bits of old glass in the windows of the south aisle and tower, the most noticeable being a representation of our Lord’s head, with nimbus, in the upper part of the east window of © the chapel at the end of the aisle.
This Church is unusually rich in post-Reformation oak work. The pews and pulpit in the nave and the two benches and two chairs in the chancel are good examples of the earlier work of the seven- teenth century. There is a characteristic oval window in the south wall of the aisle—inserted, probably, to light the squire’s pew—an interesting relic of the early Georgian era, which should be retained in any restoration, as a mark of history: it will become increasingly valuable as time goes on. The chancel and vestry were erected in 1849, and there is no record of what the old chancel was. The only remains of it are the two carved label terminals, representing a king and a bishop, to be seen inside the vestry.
Att Satnts Cuurcn. BisHorps LavineTon.
: This Church presents a plan of unusual variety and interest for a village Church—the result of many alterations, some of which are not easy to make out. In the study of it we must bear in mind
_ that it was not the practice at the period we are considering to build
16 Notes on the Churches.
Churches by contract with a penalty on the contractor if he did not complete it in the given time—say twelve or eighteen months. One of the most rapid large works of the kind on record was the erection of our mother Church of Salisbury. The foundation stones were laid in 1220, and although within five years Bishop Richard Poore saw the building sufficiently advanced to admit of service being celebrated in the Lady Chapel, yet it was left to three of his successors to continue the work, which was not ready for consecration until 1258, nor quite completed until 1266 (the tower and spire being added some sixty years after this). Thus the Cathedral took forty-six years to build in spite of the enormous efforts which were made to push on the work and so to remove the disadvantages of the Cathedral being, as it was at Old Sarum, within the precincts of the King’s castle.
We know, too, that the Charch at Edington was built in nine years, but there also the object was a special one—the formation of a new monastery—and the work was undertaken by a Bishop holding the high civil office of Lord High Chancellor of England.
To return to Bishop’s Lavington, We may well believe that in the building of a village Church like this, where perhaps there was much more difficulty in raising the money, the proceedings were much slower, and the style changed during the progress of the work. This will explain the difference in style in different parts of this Church. Thus, the earliest work we have here is the north arcade of the nave: this has vigorously-carved capitals of a distinctly Norman type—there being two patterns of carving on each cap— and was probably erected soon after the middle of the twelfth century; then, turning to the south arcade, although at first sight its capitals would almost appear to be part of a later Church, I am of opinion that this was erected in continuation of that on the north side, and was completed before the end of the twelfth century. These arcades are an interesting study, both have cylindrical columns and arches in two square orders, with labels of a very similar type: the capitals on the north side have the angles notched out so that the abacus follows the line of the arch, and the arches themselves are only slightly pointed—while the capitals on the south side have
Visited by the Society in 1889. 17
the abacus rounded, a distinct advance in style, and the arches are rather more pointed.
The clerestory on both sides appears to have been erected on the completion of the south arcade.
Then, before reaching the chancel, the builders seem to have changed their original design, and decided to have a north transept, so they prepared for it by re-constructing the easternmost bay on that side in the later style then prevailing with a more pointed and chamfered arch, but re-using the label-mould over. This arch and respond (the latter with canted abacus) are coeval with the chancel arch, which, however, has no label. If any proof is needed that the north aisle was shortened to carry out the transept, and that the latter was not originally intended, it may be found in the fact : that the clerestory window of that bay is blocked up by the roof on the outside, and that the arch between aisle and transept cuts into the arch of the arcade.
The chancel was next proceeded with (before the erection of the transept), and the four lancet windows, the piscina, and the string course remain of the original features of about 1220—as also the corbel table of the eaves on the north side. The present doorway is a late fourteenth century insertion, and has the carved paterzx of that period, but it probably supplanted an earlier doorway, as the string appears to have been returned over it. The north and east sides of the chancel are new work, and Canon Baynham informs me that a priest’s door on the north side was done away with in erecting it. This work appears, however, to be a good copy of the original.
The north transept appears to have been next built, and indicates the dawn of tracery in the north window. The single lancet in the west wall is coeval, whilst that in the east wall is a !ater insertion, There were, of course, north and south aisles at that time, but the present windows are modern, and it is questionable whether much of the old walls remains,
The Church was not, so far as can be seen, considered complete until this stage had been reached, its erection having thus occupied nearly a century; and this may be taken as a typical, though VOL, XXIV.—-NO. LXXII, Cc
18 Notes on the Churches
perhaps prolonged, example of the method employed in building the Churches of the early Middle Ages.
There are here, as in most cases, many subsequent alterations and additions. At the west end the last hays of the nave arcades were shortened, probably early in the fourteenth century, for the erection of the tower. At that time the tower appears not to have had the aisles continued past it as at present; these were added and the side arches cut through some fifty years later. Traces of a coeval arch may be seen in the east wall of the tower, over the present one.
Buttresses were built on the outside to resist the thrust of these arches, and as it was probably found that the east wall was giving way under the increased weight a new arch was constructed within the previous one, and arches were built across the aisles. A staircase for access was at the same time carried up on the south side, forming a clumsy block on the interior, The tracery of the west window has been renewed.
The next addition was the Dauntsey Chapel, erected outside the south aisle, opposite the transept, about 1430. It is probable that this chapel did not originally communicate with the Church, for the present archway between it and the aisle is an elliptic one of Elizabethan character, built of chalk or clunch, the soffit being enriched with an ornament formed by four Ds united within a square panel; the same device appears in some post-Reformation glass in the west window here, which has been made up together with older glass in which the chalice appears. It is doubtless intended as the initial of either the Dauntsey or Danvers family, or both, for they were united at this time. The former entrance to the chapel was by a doorway in the west wall, now built up. An arch is carried across from this chapel to support the clerestory.
There is a Perpendicular recessed tomb, with the effigy of an unknown individual, and good later monuments which have been described by the Vicar.
The last addition to the plan was the Beckett Chapel, erected on the south side of the chancel towards the end of the fifteenth century—about 1480. This must have been a richly-ornamented work. The windows are all square-headed, but well traceried; the
Visited by the Society im 1889. 19
one on the east is placed out of the centre to accommodate a niche on the north side of it. There are also traces of another niche, with its corbel, in the south wall and a good piscina preserved intact below it. The archway communicating with the aisle has been removed and a modern window substituted. The corbel table of the thirteenth century chancel has been carried round the chapel as a cornice mould. At about the time of the erection of this chapel an upper stage was added to the tower, carried on the north and south sides on arches thrown across within the walls of the previous structure, as though to reduce its plan from an oblong to a square.
There is an iron-bound oak chest in this chapel with the three locks as enjoined by the 84th Canon of 1603.
All the roofs of the Church are modern.
S. Paerer’s. Lirrte Carvers.
This Church was re-built, with the exception of the tower, in 1850, but several features of interest have been preserved, although it is to be regretted that they have been so scraped as to make it difficult at first sight to say whether they are original, or good copies; on comparing them with the new work, however, the difficulty disappears. These reinstated features consist of the outer and inner doorways of the porch, the chancel arch, the vestry window, the priest’s door, and the bowl of the font—all late fourteenth century in date. The priest’s door is a beautiful feature with ogee arch, and has suffered less than the others.
The tower is a remarkable structure of early fifteenth century date ; it has vertical wall-faces without weatherings or string-courses to divide it into stages: the buttresses are massive and good, but beyond a west window of three lights, with a doorway under, it has no openings on either side (if we except the small slits on the north and east). There is a singular corbel over the west window, with rich oak-leaf foliage, and probably intended in lieu of a niche, to support a figure of S. Peter. The original parapet or roof has disappeared and a modern slated one has taken its place.
c 2
20 Notes on the Churches
S. Perer’s. Great CHEVERELL.
This Church, like the last, is dedicated to S. Peter. It consists of nave with south porch, chancel and western tower, with a chapel on the south side of the nave and a modern vestry.
The side walls of the chancel are of early thirteenth century date, and the facing is a good though unusually late specimen of flint- - work laid in herring-bone pattern. The lancets in the north and south walls of the chancel are original ; the other window on the south side, the priest’s door, and the piscina are Perpendicular in- sertions. The recessed tomb in the north wall of the chancel is coeval with the earlier work and is probably that of the founder or some great benefactor of the Church. It may, possibly, however, have been the Easter Sepulchre. The east wall has been rebuilt.
The nave, porch and chapel are coeval, and were erected in the best period of the Perpendicular—about 1460. All the windows are square-headed, with good mouldings and tracery. Both nave and chapel have their original roofs, that of the nave being of the wageon-head or barrel-vault form, like the one at Imber, with plaster-panels, the ribs being moulded and having carved bosses at the intersections. The roof of the chapel is of flat span form, richer and more massive, the timbers being moulded and the bosses carved. The inscription “ W.S. 1699 ” on the east boss has no reference to the date of the structure. The window and other features at the east end have been destroyed to give access to the modern vestry.
The tower appears to have been added after the nave was built, but it is very little later in style.
The font is a modern one; it would be interesting to know what has become of the old one. There are some late memorial inscriptions cut on the outside of the east wall of the chapel,
East Covutston.
This is one of the three Churches in Wiltshire dedicated in the name of S. Thomas A Becket; and it is of earlier foundation than any other Church in to-day’s programme. It consists of nave and chancel with a chapel on the north side of the latter.
On the south side of the nave there is a good specimen of a
. . : | 1
Visited by the Society im 1889. 21
Norman doorway of about 1120, apparently im situ, with carved caps (the shafts are missing), the opening square, and the tympanum over it plain. The caps of the chancel arch are coeval with it, but the restorer has mistaken the Norman volutes for owls, and has given them wings and feathers!
There is a fifteenth century doorway in the north wall of the nave, with a stoup, and the buttress at the north-west angle is of about the same date.
The chancel dates from early in the fourteenth century, but only parts of the windows on the south side and the piscina remain,
The chapel was added about the middle of the fifteenth century, and the piscina in the east jamb of the arch shows it to have been a chantry. The window on the north has had its sill raised and its head rebuilt in a square form, the old label being affixed over it in a quite original fashion. The angle buttresses and plinth of this part are good work.
There is a nice piece of seventeenth century wood carving of * Grinling Gibbons ” type in the lectern.
[A full account of Edington Church will appear ata later page of the Magazine.}
Cxuurcu or S. James. BRatron.
This is a perfect model of the cruciform village Church—a minster on a small scale: and although there is evidence of a part of the work being earlier yet it underwent such an entire re- modelling early in the fifteenth century that it may be taken as representing the idea then prevailing of what such a Church should be, for it has had no additions, and no subsequent structural alterations other than the re-building of the chancel within recent years.
The Church consists of nave of two bays with north and south aisles and clerestory; north and south transepts and chancel, with
22 Notes on the Churches
a tower at the crossing: there are three doorways, one in the west wall and one in the north and south walls of the aisles, near the east end, that on the south having a porch.
The east walls of the transepts are evidently parts of an earlier Church, for they are built of rubble masonry instead of wrought stone like the rest, and they have no plinths (the connection of the later work with them is clearly distinguishable on the outside), ° but they had new parapets and buttresses added when the great re-modelling took place at about 14.00.
The walls of the porch are also older, probably late twelfth or early thirteenth century work, and they originally supported a roof of stone, carried on moulded ribs—one of these ribs remains over the outer doorway, and traces of another can be seen over the inner doorway, which, if retained, would have interfered with the fifteenth century niche, and to make room for this it was probably removed. The line of the stone roof is also visible on the outside gable and the old label terminals have been re-used for the later label. The re-modelling of the porch took place after that of the south transept.
To return to my description of the Church as re-modelled. It will be seen that, whilst the design is perfect, the work is also of the most solid and complete description—the whole of the re-built walls are faced inside and outside with wrought stone, the tower is divided into four stages in height, the two lower ones being open to the interior and ceiled with a groined vault; and light is admitted to the crossing by windows in the north and south sides above the transept roofs. The corbels supporting the angle ribs are carved to represent kings and bishops alternately. The four piers of the tower rest on stone bench-tables (which were probably the only seats then used in the Church), but the bases are otherwise identical with those of the nave arcade. .
The usual intention of transepts appears to have been to afford more east wall space for altars, and that they were in this case used as chapels is shewn by the four later niches, or reredos, inserted in the wall of the north transept, and the piscina in that of the south. There were no windows in these east walls, for the one now existing in the latter is a modern insertion. The roof of the north transept
Visited by the Society m 1889. 23
was carried on four corbels with carved heads, whilst the corbels in the south transept are plain. All roofs throughout the Church are new.
The position of the turret staircase is placed so as to be available for access to the upper stages of the tower, and also to the rood-loft ; and in re-building the chancel the position of the exit door has very properly been retained. This turret is carried up on the outside above the tower, and capped with a spire, making a most picturesque feature.
The jambs of the west window of the nave are carried down to the ground inside, and the filling-in below the window sill, with the door, are of later date; in making this alteration it was apparently intended to erect a porch, for the bases on the outside are returned, but the intention was probably never carried into effect. The _ position of the north and south doorways, so far eastward in the aisles, is unusual—that on the south was fixed by the older porch, which came, perhaps, about in the centre of the original Church (supposing it to have been without a central tower), whilst I think that on the north may be also accounted for. Before I visited this Church I was quite expecting to find that the great work which had within a comparatively recent time been carried out in the neighbouring parish of Edington, had made its influence felt here ; and whilst my expectation was not realized as regards the details of mouldings, arches, and tracery (which had kept pace with the changes which had taken place during the forty or fifty years which intervened), I attribute one or two peculiarities in the general arrangement of the design to the noble example which the builders had before their eyes; and I cannot help thinking it is this that led to the placing of a doorway in such an unusual position in the north aisle; but while its use as the monks’ entrance at Edington is manifest, no such reason can be assigned for it here. Then, the adoption of the cruciform plan in so small a Church must, surely, be more the result of example than necessity !
The bowl of the font is Norman, and probably coeval with the earlier Church, parts of which we have noticed as still remaining ; and the base is of the date of the re-modelling of the Church,
Q4 Notes on the Churches
Friday, August 2nd.
Tur Cuurcnu or S. Nicuouas. Nort Brap.ey.
The plan of this Church shows some variation from the usual type. It has a clerestoried nave with north and south aisles and chancel in the ordinary way, but the position of the chapels is unusual—that on the north occupying the easternmost bay of the arcade, stopping the aisle and forming a kind of transept; whilst the south chapel, besides covering the corresponding space to that on the north, is carried on eastward against the wall of the chancel, and has a second (though late) archway opening into it; the result of this arrangement is very pleasing.
The nave arcade of three bays is apparently fourteenth century work (although the re-facing of the stonework introduces some doubt), and the south chapel is about the same date.
A complete re-modelling of the Church—a frequent process at this time—was commenced about eighty years later. First a clerestory was added to the nave, the north chapel was built, then the chancel, aisles and porch were re-built and the tower added at the west end.
The design of the north chapel is very remarkable—the founder’s tomb in the north wall is treated on the inside as a recessed bay, and, with its separate diagonal buttresses and pinnacles and richly- panelled plinth on the outside, makes a charming feature. The slab has the incised effigy of Emma, mother of Archbishop Stafford, dated 1446. The original oak roof exists (it is profusely orna- mented with carving, though almost, if not entirely, without heraldry), and the piscina remains in the respond of the arch.
The south chapel, also, has the old roof, but it is more simple in design than the last, There is no trace of niche or piscina here. (A fine old chest with three locks stands in this aisle.)
The chancel has its original windows in the side walls, but the east window is new; the coeval sedilia are of plain character, with square heads. The panelled archways communicating with the south chapel from the chancel and south aisle were doubtless inserted
Visited by the Society in 1889. 25
when the chancel and aisles were built, as also the similar one between the north aisle and chapel.
The font is a very fine example of Perpendicular work. It is of large size and octagonal, the four cardinal panels have the emblems of the evangelists, and the diagonal sides are enriched with those of the Passion. The porch has had its roof altered in pitch, but the original can be traced.
The Church has a noble tower, well designed and substantially built, with the stair-turret well pronounced and carried up for the full height. The buttresses have diagonal shafts continued above the top weathering, as though intended to carry pinnacles, but they end in grotesque gargoyles at the cornice level in a very abrupt manner. The angle pinnacles have been lost.
In a glass case in the vestry are an ancient chalice and paten of pewter, the former much crushed, perhaps of the fourteenth century, which were found during the restoration of the Church in 1863 in a coffin formed out of a hollowed tree, under the arch on the south side of the chancel.
[15th June, 1548. Amongst the list of chantry furniture bought (in one lot) by Thomas Chafyn, of Mere, are the following :—
The Chauntre in the parish of North Bradley. Imprimis—A chalyce of sylver waying viii ownce Item. One old torn vestment of dornysse » One altar cloth of no valewe xij4, » One corporas with j old case » One bell waying half a hundred
The vestments do not seem to have been of such great value that we need regret the evident bargain made by Mr. Chafyn, but it would be interesting to know what the bell was—perhaps thesanctus.]
Roap CuurcH.
This Church appears to have heen built all at one time (about the middle of the fifteenth century), excepting the tower, which is somewhat more debased. The plan consists of nave with clerestory, north and south aisles, western tower, and chancel with north chapel.
26 Notes on the Churches
The nave arcades are well designed and the archway into the chapel is similar to them ; the capitals of both are surmounted by a pretty carved cresting. The roof and the inner arches of the clerestory windows are modern. The stairs to the rood loft have been removed, but the doorways remain, and a puzzling appearance is given to the upper one by building a piece of the window tracery across it. For some reason nearly all the original window tracery of this Church has been taken out, and a stack of it, covered with ivy, exists in the churchyard : I presume the new work which takes its place has been copied from the old. A piscina in the north aisle indicates the existence of an altar in front of the archway opening into the chapel, and there is a squint looking into the chancel, but nol towards the high altar—the same may be said of the one on the south side. There was an altar also in the south aisle, the piscina of which remains, and there is a recessed altar-tomb in the south wall coeval with the Church. There are the remains of, apparently, a stoup built in here. A piece of fresco, with a kneeling female figure (probably representing the Annunciation) has been carefully preserved on the south wall, and there is a pretty little niche with colour near it remaining 7m sitw further westward. Both aisles retain their original roofs of trussed-rafter form, but it will be observed that the windows of the south are richer than those of the north ; those at the east and west ends have pointed heads, and the tracery of the square-headed side windows is more varied. At the west end are the remains of a doorway which, probably, previously led to a staircase for access to the roof, which was closed by the addition of the tower,
The archway into the tower is of the same panelled kind as those we saw at North Bradley, and the lower stage is vaulted in stone. The staircase doorway is unusually good.
The chancel has been much altered, and the two-bay arcade between it and the chapel is apparently new. The piscina and one window in the south wall are original work, but the other and the east window are new.
The side windows of the chapel have been less interfered with than any others in the Church, but the east window here also is new.
Visited by the Society in 1889. 27
The bits of shafts and an early coffin lid built in over the door point to the conclusion that a Norman Church stood on this site.
The porch has the original roof and ogee inner doorway with the old hinges, but the outer doorway is new. The font is probably coeval with the Church.
Cuurcy or S. Grecory. BErcKINGTON.
This is a Church of the written history of which I know nothing but what has been given to us by Mr. Medley. I have nothing to add to this but what can be gathered from the stones of the building itself ; and from these we may trace many of the alterations which the Church has undergone, and which make it so extremely in- teresting. This interest has been well preserved in a very careful restoration. :
In the first place I may say that we have here only the second piece of pure Norman work which we have seen during our ex- eursions, and it is somewhat remarkable that we should have journeyed for two days within our own county of Wiltshire and yet have to go over its berders to find any complete part of a Church older than the middle of the twelfth century. The tower of this Church is of Norman date for its full height, although it was re-modelled in the fifteenth century by adding angle-buttresses, staircase, and parapet, and by the insertion of the west window and the archway into the nave (which, by the way, is of the same panelled type as those we saw at North Bradley and Road), and by vaulting the lower stage in stone.
It is not easy to account for the arch above the west window, but it is part of the original work, and at first sight it seems to suggest there having been some erection to the west of the tower, as at Netheravon, but the string below, and the absence of traces of the side walls contradict this, and the character of the arch is that of a relieving arch. There are also traces of windows in the north and south sides. Like many other Norman towers this appears to have had insufficient foundations, hence the necessity for the buttresses added in the fifteenth century and the somewat clumsy excrescence against the north wall. There are remains of the Norman work in
28 Notes on the Churches
the chancel, which we shall see presently, and there are fragments built up in the aisle walls, but not 2a situ. The pitch of the roof of the early nave can be traced on the east face of the tower.
The body of the Church appears to have been entirely re-built at about the middle of the fifteenth century—the nave, with clerestory, aisles, and north and south porches being of that date, and the hand of the designer of Road Church can be traced here in the columns of the arcades with the same crested capitals. There are squints in an unusual position on the east wall of the nave on each side of the chancel arch, their direction being towards the high altar. The original sanctus bell-cot remains on the east gable of the nave. The rood-screen has disappeared, but there are pronounced evidences of its having existed, and the two corbels in the east wall probably indicate its level. The Church having been rebuilt at the time when rood-screens were coming more into use the staircase for access was made a part of the plan, and the inconvenient arrange- ment usually met with where the rood-screen and stairs were inserted is avoided. The staircase is made quite a feature here, and is carried up the full height of the arch wall; it starts from the north aisle and has a doorway opening out on to the loft, which probably existed over the side altar there; a second door—the use of which is not apparent—looks into the chancel; and a third, higher up, afforded access to the principal loft across the chancel arch, whence the staircase is continued on to the roof. There are the usual accessories of side altars at the end of each aisle, the south aisle having a piscina, with shelf, in the south wall, and an aumbry in the east wall—also a squint pointing in the direction of the high altar. The remains in the north aisle comprise a niche and part of the reredos in the east wall, besides the piscina.
There is a curious instance in this Church of how the old builders got over a mistake in setting out their work : the windows of the aisle are not properly arranged to correspond with the bays of the arcade, so that the roof-principals cut into the heads of the windows —a position in which it would seem to be impossible to get a corbel ; and more prosaic people might have done away with the brace altogether in such acase. But these old builders were above such
Visited by the Society im 1889. 29
an expedient, and put in the corbel by the side of the window, twisting the grotesque round and across it sufficiently far to catch the bottom of the brace, altogether ignoring the fact that by such means its practical value is lost.
The north porch formerly had a room over it, with a turret staircase for access, the upper and lower doors of which remain. The floor has been removed and the roof (which is the original one) brought down below the top of the doorway. This was probably a watching chamber, and the opening through the aisle wall can be traced. On the outside there is also evidence of the lowering of the walls and roof, but the niche in the gable has not been disturbed
In the chancel there are two recessed altar tombs in the north wall, which were originally flush with the face of it, there being a projection on the outside to admit of the depth of the recess; the easternmost one appears to have been converted into a canopied tomb at a later date, but the sides of the added portion look as though they were not worked for their present position. This contains two figures, supposed to represent John and Margaret de Ereleigh, 1380—1400. The other has a single female figure, put at 1860—1370, probably one of their daughters. 'The brass in the floor commemorates John St. Maur and his wife Elizabeth, 1485. There are two sedilia and a piscina with shelf in the south wall of the sanctuary. The roof and east window are modern. ‘The re- mains of the Norman chancel, to which I referred, are distinctly traceable in the herring-bone masonry near the floor and part of a window over it, cut into when the archway into the chapel was formed.
The chapel on the south side of the chancel appears to have been added late in the fifteenth century, and part of an earlier buttress weathering is seen in the angle. . It is chiefly remarkable for the large extent of window surface, the east window being of four lights and the south window of six lights. There is a rude niche, formed of rough masonry, also the remains of an aumbry, in the east wall and a doorway exists in the south wall; the roof is a poor one of the seventeeth century. The brass in the floor is to John and Edith Compton, the former of whom died in 1515, and might have been
30 Notes on the Churches
the founder. The arms of the Longs (the lion rampant) figure on a brass in the north jamb of this arch.
The font is of very unusual form, consisting of a large octagonal bow] and base with a central shaft and eight small shafts around it * all of Purbeck. It looks like the work of the twelfth century.
An Elizabethan tablet, bearing the Royal arms and the inscription “ KE. R. 1574—God save the Queen ” is well preserved in the south aisle.
Tus Cuurcu or S. Mary. Oxp Ditton.
This very picturesque little Church is a happy termination to our two days’ excursion, and it will fully repay close investigation, for there are many points of extreme interest in it which are not ap- parent at first sight.
The Church was built, late in the fifteenth century, with a nave, north aisle, chancel, and south porch, and there is no trace of earlier work. (Ido not know whether the list of rectors goes back farther than this, or whether there is any other evidence of a Church having stood here before the present one.)
There was never any tower, but instead of it a charming bell-cot was erected upon the west gable; this is octagonal in plan—the west cardinal face is supported on a buttress carried up the centre of the wall outside, and the east face is corbelled over inside; the sides are filled by perforated stone panels. The bell-cot is sur- mounted by a stone spire, and instead of a parapet the blocking course above the moulded cornice is crenellated.
There were probably no windows in the west end, but the original windows in the Church which still exist are:—One of three lights in the south wall of the nave, three of three lights in the north wall of the nave, and one of two lights in the south wall of the chancel. The rest, for some reason not apparent, were removed, and two new ones inserted in the west wall when the vestry and gallery were erected ~ on the south of the chancel in the debased Gothic of the seventeenth century.
The porch itself remains almost untouched, and there is the usual door opposite in the north wall. The inner door of the porch has
a
Visited by the Society im 1889. 31
an awkward-looking arch, with the remains of a segmental label and its terminals over; but on looking at the north door we see that the peculiar form of the arch is due to to the cusping having been cut away. The remains of a niche—probably for a figure of Our Lady, to whom the Church is dedicated—exist over the door. The porch has the moulded oak ribs of its original roof, but the ridge-piece is missing. Even the door and its hinges are old. The outer doorway of the porch has the pointed arch under a square label, which is so common in late Perpendicular work.
The nave arcade is of a peculiar type, but it was not constructed as we now see it, and some of its peculiarity disappears on closer inspection. The arches are panelled (the panelling being without cusping), and the ribs die out on to the face of the pillars; these latter were merely square piers, without caps or even an abacus mould. This simple form seems to have offended the eye of some more modern guardian of the Church, who (probably when the other alterations were made) pared off the angles to give the piers more the appearance of ordinary columns.
I have no doubt that there was a chancel arch of similar kind, for there are no projecting responds: this, however, has disappeared, possibly improved away; but I think it is more likely that it fell, owing to the spreading of the abutments, for there are evidences everywhere of defective foundations—the south wall is going out and the nave arcade inclining northwards to an extent which should receive consideration.
Further evidence of the chancel arch being the full width of the chancel is afforded by the lower part of the rood-screen, which remains intact, and apparently im situ, on the south side of the gangway: this has been cut off at the middle rail, and the mortices and pins of the upper stage can be seen. This rail has a broad flat member, which contained carving planted in, as at Edington, so that we may conclude the screen was a rich one. There are many pieces of it—mullions, &c.—used as supports to the seats (two or three being in one pew in the north aisle), and I have no doubt the removal of the more modern pews would reveal sufficient evidence for the entire restoration of the screen.
382 Notes on the Churches
Adjoining the part of the screen may be seen the roughly-cut poppy-head of one of the chancel stalls, and another (better carved) is in the pew I before mentioned. There are many of the original benches in the Church, probably nearly enough to seat the nave, so that I believe this little Church could be almost entirely re-fitted with its old fifteenth century oak-work. It will be noticed, also, that there are parts of the front framing in the large pews on the north side of the chancel, and in the one in the aisle ; also that the panelled sinking in the bench ends is, like that of the aisle arches, without cusping.
It is probable that the original roof of the nave remains above the plaster ceiling, for the waggon-head form is hardly that of such a roof as would have been put on in more recent times.
The chancel has its priest’s door on the south side.
The font is the original one, but sad/y scraped, and on a new plinth. It is a very nice example of the font of the period and of good size. I am glad that the other stonework of the Church has not suffered the fate of this.
There are bits of old glass in the old south window of the nave, and amongst the devices are the initials R. H. coupled by a cord; the Tudor flower and a cock—the latter probably heraldic.
There are some pieces of Jacobean pewing, and also some of oak- work still later—all well worth taking care of. The rest of the pews, also the pulpit and desk are of deal.
Probably at the end of the seventeenth or early in the eighteenth century the addition to the north of the chancel was erected—a vestry of two stories, both being open to the chancel, and the upper being intended for use as a gallery. The east window and others I have referred to were probably added at the same time.
It will be seen that the east gable of the nave has been made up in a temporary manner, and slated, since the removal of the chancel arch and the wall over it.
:
33
GHAesthury
Ander the Plat. By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jacxson, F.S.A.!
N the programme of our proceedings the paper now about to
be read was announced as “Some Notes of Westbury History,” simply because its full history down to A.D. 1830 was written in the late Sir Richard C. Hoare’s magnificent work on South Wiltshire. The authors of county histories are, and must be, always largely assisted ; and the best assistants are those who belong to and reside in the particular district described, being able to supply local in- formation, and having opportunity of access to documents in private hands, without which nothing can be done with accuracy. Sir Richard was helped, in such portions as related to modern times, by Mr. Richard Harris, of Dilton; in his account of ancient times and
_ families by the officers in charge of the public records in London.
Such works as his are, no doubt, noble additions to our literature, but, unfortunately, it requires a nobility of purse to buy them.
_ They are very costly, and, thanks to our American friends who love
to trace their connection with the families and places of the old country, and so have raised the market price enormously, such works are getting quite out of the reach of ordinary folk—who accordingly are not much the better for them. Now, one of your fellow- townsmen, Mr. Michael, has, to his great credit, taken pains to present you with the main outline and substance of the more splendid publication, at a price and in a form which bear a strange contrast with the more expensive work—a modest little pamphlet, price twopence. But observe the result. Where one person can buy Sir Richard, thousands can buy Mr. Michael. At the railway stalls among his little publications I observed one with which, as it
1 Read at the Meeting of the Wilts Archeological Society at Westbury, July 81st, 1889.
VoL, YXIV.——-NO. LXXII. D
34 Westbury under the Plain.
was compiled chiefly from something of my own writing, he has done me the honour to connect my name. Some people might feel mortified at seeing their handiwork, or rather the spinning of their brains, offered at such a very insignificant figure. On the contrary, this was exactly what I was pleased to see: because, the very object of our Society was from the first, and is now, not to keep our in- formation to ourselves, or hide it in volumes which nobody ean buy, but to put county history and other archeological subjects into a cheaper form, to popularize and diffuse it, to encourage a taste for it, and enable people of the humblest class to take more interest ia the places they live in, by knowing who had been there before them, who built this house or Church, what changes there have been, and so forth—things of which they are generally quiteignorant. I have told the story before, but as a specimen of popular acquaintance with the history of a place it will bear telling again. Visiting Glastonbury Abbey some years ago, though not altogether unacquainted with its history, I thought myself in duty bound to get all the information I could from the cicerone of the ruins. The regular official happening to be ill, or, at any rate, not forthcoming, an old post-boy (an animal hardly known, except by tradition, to the present generation) hanging about the gate offered his services, assuring me that he knew all about it quite well. So, in the course of our tour, I asked him, for fun, who was it that built up this old place? He had not got his lesson quite pat, so he scratched his head, and said he’d heard tell it wur Oliver Crummell. ‘‘ Well, then,” said I, ‘‘ who knocked it about in this way?” ‘Oh! [then another scratch] why that wur Willum Norman.”
A cheap account, then, of Westbury being now within very easy reach, and other gentlemen being about to address you upon the Church, the geology of the district, &c., I propose to make only a few remarks on one or two of the more prominent points of the subject, with, first, a slight sketch of the general history, for the benefit of those who may not happen to have invested twopence in Mr. Michael.
There is no other Westbury in Wiltshire, but there are several places of the same name in England, some of them in counties
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.8.A. 85
adjoining Wiltshire: and as it lies under the northern escarpment of Salisbury Plain it used to be called “‘ Westbury under the Plain ” _ to distinguish it more particularly from Westbury-on-Trym, near Bristol, and Westbury-upon-Severn, both in Gloucestershire, as well as from Westbury, near Wells, in Co. Somerset.
One peculiarity is that, whereas all the other hundreds in the county contain, more or less, many parishes, the hundred of West- bury consists of only one—the parish of Westbury. It is very large, somewhere about thirty miles round, the town being nearly in thecentre. For those who may wish to take so long a walk, there is for their guidance an old Perambulation deed, taken three hundred. years ago, which describes the parish boundaries with a very curious minuteness, It includes several smaller places, villages and hamlets, as Bratton, Westbury Leigh, Dilton, Heywood, &e. Of the most ancient inhabitants there are vestiges in plenty, both above and underground. On the downs above Bratton are the oldest, the usual tumuli or burial mounds, and the great earthwork called Bratton Castle. There are also traces of the Romans, and, after them, of the Romanised Britons. Wherever the name of Ridge or Street occurs in a country place, it is probable that something Roman is not far off: and so it is here. There are, as is well known, four or five principal highways called Roman (though some of them are suspected to be really older), traversing the whole length of Britain in various directions; but there were by-ways as well as highways, and these are now to be discovered by local observers. The Romans were at very great pains and cost in making their roads: some were paved, others made with gravel or stone, but generally raised above the level of the ground so as to present a slight ridge. Ridge is a common country people’s name for an old Roman way; one in Yorkshire, a very perfect specimen, goes, in the dialect of that county, by the name of the Roman “rig.” Now that name occurs here at several places, in one continuous line, You have first, simply, Ridge (Rudge, as they call it), Hawkridge, Coteridge, Stor- ridge, Bremridge, and Norridge (1.e., North Ridge) : and you have also Short Street; all contiguous: so that there can be little doubt about a Roman by-way having gone along there, though where it came
D2
36 Westbury under the Plain.
from, or led to, may not be now very evident. Under ground in different places all along that side of the parish numerous coins and fragments of pottery have turned up: many at Ham, a large open tract north-west of the town. Tradition has it that old Westbury stood there, and that it was battered (our friend Oliver Cromwell again) from Bratton Camp. Sir R. C. Hoare was told by a quarry- man that in a little piece of ground, then lately ploughed up, called Compton’s Plot, was the well of the old town, into which all the valuables had been thrown. Im the field between that plot and Heywood the same man had assisted in digging up the foundations of a large building of well-bewn stone ; and another labourer spoke of a tesselated pavement found near the well. Cinerary urns have been unearthed at the Iron Works!; at Highsomley many Roman relics; and in Mr. Phipps’s garden at Charleote, where I happened some time ago to see the men making new flower-beds, the earth appeared to be almost black and strewed thickly with fragments of pottery as if it had been an ancient cemetery. There is no record of the state of things here in the days of these Roman roads and tesselated pavements, nor does anything appear to be known about it till we come towards the end of the Saxon period, when the whole belonged to the Crown. By degrees, in Norman times, certain portions were granted to monasteries and to the Cathedral of Old Sarum : the rest was disposed of to the laity. But the monasteries did not get so large a share in this as in neighbouring parishes. Whilst the house of Bonhommes at Edington possessed the greater
1 Tn April, 1881, the late Mr. Henry Cunnington wrote to the Devizes Gazette: “The workmen engaged at the Westbury Iron Works have just discovered, about two feet under the surface of the soil, a cinerary urn, about eight inches high, containing the burnt bones of a young person about sixteen years of age. In the mouth of this urn another smaller one was placed, to prevent the earth from falling in on the interment. What is very remarkable, on taking out the contents of the lower urn, a very fine coin of Constantine’s was found at the bottom, amongst the ashes. The coin is a bronze, and was struck in London. On the obverse is the head of Constantine, laureated. Inscription : Emperor Constantine, Pius, Felix, Augustus. Reverse: Mars marching to the right, with shield and spear. Inscription: Mars, the defender of the country ; under the figure P.L.N. Pecunia Londinensis), showing that the coin was struck in London. Both the urns are in fine condition, and will shortly be placed in the Devizes Museum.”
By the Rev. Canon J. EB. Jackson, F.8.A. 37
part of that parish, and the nuns of the convent of Romsey in
Hampshire had all Steeple Ashton, a comparatively small part of Westbury fell into ecclesiastical hands—what is called the Parsonage Manor was bestowed by King Henry IJ. upon Sarum for the maintenance of the Precentor. A manor that had belonged to Bishop Waltham, of Salisbury (1888-1395), and afterwards to the alien priory of Steventon, in Berkshire, being confiscated (as the lands of alien priories often were), was given by Richard II. to the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, to whose successors, the Dean and Chapter there, it now belongs. Monkton Farleigh Priory, near Bath, had the part still called Leigh Priors. Edington Monastery had land at Bratton and Bremridge—the rest, as I have said, was granted or sold to persons of influence, and in this way the one original great manor got cut up into a number of estates. The history becomes then very complicated, and not interesting to a general audience. Instead of passing on in the simple way from father to son, the properties had soon to be divided between co- heiresses—each of whom carried away her moiety into another family. In a generation or two more co-heiresses appeared, and then there was a fresh sub-division of the first moiety, and so on; so that what with moieties, semi-moieties, and demi-semi-moieties, _ Westbury territorial history is somewhat of a labyrinth, abounding, however, in old aristocratic names, such as St. Maur, Mauduit, Stafford, Arundell, which, I believe, still survive as the names of different portions of land about the parish. In course of years many of these sub-divisions became re-united by successive pur- chases, centreing chiefly in the Phipps family, of which a large part has recently passed into the hands of Mr. Laverton. All the pre- vious changes are given in detail in Sir Richard Hoare’s history. For the present purpose it will be enough to select one or two of _ the most important: before doing which I have a note or two about _ the town itself.
ParuiIAMENTARY Notices.
The earliest mention we have of Westbury as a borough returning members to Parliament is in the year 1446-7 (27th of Henry VL).
388 Westbury under the Plain.
Its obtaining that privilege is accounted for in the same way as in the case of Calne, Wootton Basset, Chippenham, and others. They were all Crown property, and the Crown took good care to strengthen its own position by bestowing the privilege on places under*its immediate control. The members for Westbury have been from the first, upon the whole, taken from among Wiltshire families in the immediate neighbourhood, and in one of these instances Westbury borough is distinguished as having been the first in which bribery was detected. The offender was Mr. Thomas Long, of the Semington branch of that family, but owner of a manor within the parish of Westbury ,who,in 1571 (14 Eliz.) ,was refused admittance to the House on the ground of having paid to the mayor four pounds to obtain the seat.' Among strangers wholly unconnected with the place who have been returned as members, Westbury may boast of two very eminent public men, Sir William Blackstone, the famous author of that standard work, the Commentaries on the Laws of England ; the other, the late Sir Robert Peel. There was also another M.P. for Westbury who deserves notice, Capt. Matthew Mitchell, R.N., who died in 1747. He had been a companion of Commodore (afterwards Lord) Anson in his voyage round the world in 1741, as commandant of The Gloucester. This unfortnnate ship, having been driven by bad weather far from the rest, narrowly escaped destruction, was lost for a considerable time, and when recovered was found with most of her crew dead, and the captain nearly so, from starvation. The story is given in Anson’s voyage.
1'W. Prynne mentions this as the first precedent he could find for the Com- mons beginning to seclude one another upon pretence of undue elections and returns. The case is thus described by Oldfield :—“14 Eliz. May 9, 1571. Thomas Longe [Prynne prints Lucy, by mistake] gent. who was returned for this borough, and who was deemed not of sufficient capacity to serve in Parliament confessed that he had given Anthony Garlande, Mayor of Westbury, and one Watts of the same town, the sum of four pounds for that place and room of burgessship: And it was ordered by the House that the said Garlande and Watts should immediately repay the said Thomas Longe the said four pounds, and also that a fine of £20 be, by this House assessed upon the Corporation of the said town to the Queen’s Majesty’s use for the said lewd and slanderous attempt.”’ [Oldfield’s Parliamentary History, vol. v., p. 141.]
By the Rev. Canon J. EL. Jackson, F.S.A. 39
Currey!
Of the ill-endowed vicars of the parish we have a list for five hundred and fifty years, or thereabouts, but I do not see among them the names of any persons of what may be called national reputation, so that where nothing is known there is nothing to be told. But every one must have observed how soon, how very soon, names that made, perhaps, considerable noise in the country in their day, slip out of memory when their day is over. Unless they have left some abiding mark whereby posterity may be reminded of their having once existed, the biography is summed up in the three entries of a parish register—born, married, and died, if even so much as that. It is so (according to Hamlet) with persons of more im- portance than the modest vicars of acountry parish : “ There is hope that a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year, but by our Lady he must build Churches then, or else shall he suffer not thinking on.” But Time which so mercilessly devours most things has kindly spared us a few crumbs concerning two of the older vicars of this parish. One was
Puitre Hunton.
A man of good learning and abilities, who, after being schoolmaster at Abury, was appointed in the Commonwealth period to be minister first at Devizes, then at Heytesbury, and lastly ‘at Westbury. Whilst he was here he was appointed one of the commissioners for Wilts for ejecting from their livings those of the clergy who in the good pleasure of the Puritanical party were considered to be “ scan- dalous, ignorant, and insufficient.” He afterwards published a treatise on monarchy, in which his views gave such offence to the
a
1 There is a singular entry relating to the Church property here, in Domesday Book, at which time the whole lay manor belonged to the Crown. The land belonging to the Church was nearly two hundred acres : held, says the record, by
* elericolus quidam.” The late Canon Rich Jones, in his edition of the Wilts - Domesday (p. 14), observes that “* by clericolus the scribe meant clericulus: &
_ word explained by Ducange to mean a junior clerk or a choir-boy ’’ (both of which - interpretations seem highly inapplicable), “ but it is difficult to say what is the ~ exact meaning of the word in this passage.”
40 Westbury under the Plain.
orthodox University of Oxford that they condemned it in Convo- cation, and ordered it to be publicly burnt in the schools quadrangle.!
JoHN PaRaDisE. The other vicar, also a Commonwealth man, minister of Westbury, who survives in a printed publication, was a native of the county, of whom it is particularly recorded, as something extraordinary, though not so now-a-days, that he was so dexterous in writing shorthand as to be able to take down, word for word, a whole sermon from the mouth of any preacher. On the Restoration he conformed, and preached as earnestly for the King as he had formerly done for the Commonwealth. His shorthand notes from discourses of the previous complexion could scarcely have been of much use to him. The one discourse by which his memory lives was preached at Westbury on 30th January, 1661. It has the odd title of “ Hadad-rimmon, or England’s mourning for Regicide, preached at Westbury on a solemn Fast for the Horrid Murder of K. Charles I. of glorious memory.” The name of Hadad-rimmon occurs only once in the Bible, in the twelfth chapter of Zechariah :—*“In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadad- rimmon in the valley of Megiddo”: alluding to a place of that
1 Antony Wood, in his account of Mr. Hunton in “ Athenz Oxonienses,” says that this treatise on monarchy was in great vogue among many persons of Commonwealth and Levelling principles, but that the offence specially taken to it at Oxford arose from its assertion that the sovereignty of England lay in the “Three Estates, the King, Lords, and Commons.” That is still the general idea of the “Three Estates,” but strictly speaking, it is incorrect. The Crown is not one of the estates of the realm. In the heading of the now disused service for the 5th of November, in the Prayer Book, the case is stated correctly: * A Form of Prayer and Thanksgiving for the happy Deliverance of King James and the three Estates of England.’’ The collects of that service are still more explicit: “The King and the Estates of the Realm, viz., The Nobility, Clergy, and Commons assembled in Parliament.’’ Master Hunton designedly omitted the clergy. The year 1683 was an awkward time to make such an omission, because the Established Clergy having been for many years, in the Commonwealth period, shelved and ejected, had lately recovered their position at the Restoration of Charles II., and for them to be then proclaimed, by one of their own order, as no longer one of the estates of the realm, was intolerable in the ears of Oxford divines, who accordingly showed their sense of the indignity by putting the Vicar of Westbury’s book into the fire.
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, FS. A. 41
name where the good King Josiah was slain (II. Kings, xxiii., 27). The object of this discourse was to rouse the slumbering loyalty of Westbury. How far it was successful may be questionable. Ac- cording to modern ideas, a ponderous discourse filling fifty-two pages of close small print, requiring, if properly delivered, at least three hours of attention, instead of rousing the slumbering loyalty of a congregation would be more likely to have a different effect and send them to keep company with their loyalty.'
I will now say a few words about one or two of the principal old families and their places of residence within the parish.
Brook Hovsz, or Hatt.
The most important of the old families who owned large estates here seems to have been the Pavely family, of Brook House. They were here for about two hundred and fifty years, from Henry I. to Edward III., and during all that time their estate passed through successive Walters and Reginalds from father to son. The name does not seem to have made much figure in the general history of England at that period: and what is known about them is just what isin most cases known about ancient families from deeds relating to property that happen not to have been destroyed. They were sheriffs, commissioners for the Crown in county business, such as levies of militia, perambulations of Royal forests, and the like. One was a judge, another a prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem: some appear to have been Religious men, as in the south transept of the Church, where they had a chantry chapel, there are, or once were, in a niche in the wall, monumental stones with crosses carved upon them. The devices and arms of Pavely are found upon neighbouring Churches, implying contributious towards those buildings. One of the old documents from which we glean their
1 The full title of this dreary discourse was “‘ Hapaprimmov, Sive Threnodia Anglicana ob Regicidium: A Sermon on David’s Humiliatiou for Cutting off the Royat Rozz, and Detestation of Cutting off the Royat Hxap of the Lorp’s ANOINTED. Preached Jan. 30, 1660; Being a Solemn Fast for the Horrid Murther of Kine Cuarues I. of glorious memory. At Westsury, in the County of Witts. By Joun Parapisz, Preacher of the Word there.”
42 Westbury under the Plain.
history is rather curious. It is a formal deed in Latin, a sort of letters patent, proclaiming (as such documents begin) to all the faithful in Christ that Walter Pavely binds himself to supply Roger Marmion every Christmas as long as he (Marmion) lives with a furred robe after the pattern of that worn by the other Esquires in attendance upon him. In consideration of which dignity Marmion was to give up any claim he might have to a certain one hundred acres of land, and pay one mark of silver every year. A train of young Marmions in furred robes in attendance upon him gives one an idea of the dignity of the chief esquire of Westbury in those days. The formal grant of an annual dress, secured by a solemn document, was quite a common custom then. In many of what are called the wardrobe accounts of the Royal household we find legal documents regularly drawn up in Latin and registered, in which are prescribed most carefully how many yards of cloth or silk, fur, ermine or rabbit skins, as the case might be, were to be used for such and such an officer. The last male heir of the Pavely family died in 1361, and left two coheiresses, Alice and Joan: and here begins the splitting up of estates which I alluded to before: with which, however, we must deal very briefly. Alice married, and left three daughters co-heiresses of her share; and one of those daughters married and left two more co-heiresses: so that in course of time Alice’s original half of the Brooke House cake got cut up into very thin slices indeed. The story of the descent from her is simply a labyrinth of pedigree. It is enough to say that to Alice Pavely’s original moiety belonged whatever lands in Westbury were after- wards found belonging to, or bearing the names of St. Loe, Chedyock, St. Maur, Arundell, Stowell or Drury. Joan, the other co-heiress of Pavely, married a Cheyney, and her moiety was not subjected to so many subdivisions. It was divided only once, between a Willoughby and a Paulet, Marquis of Winchester. The Willoughby share passed by marriage to Blount, Lord Mountjoy, so that ultimately half the original Pavely property belonged to the two families of Blount and Paulett.! What house of residence
1The following table will explain, better than a long verbal detail, how the
By the Rev. Canon J. #. Jackson, F8.A. 43
there may have been for the elder sister Alice Pavely’s representatives I cannot say: but of Joan’s representatives we know that Brook House (which stood where Brook House Farm now stands) was theirs. Of that house we have some account. Leland visited it in his tour, in the reign of Henry VIII. He says, “ From Steple Ashton to Brook Haule by woody ground. There was of very auncient tyme an old Manor Place where Brook Haule now is, and part of it yet apperith. But the new building that is there is of the creating of the Lord Steward unto K. Hen. VII. [the first Lord Willoughby de Broke, I believe]. The windows be full of rudders (device). Peradventure it was his badge or token of the Admiral. There is a fayr Park but no great thing. In it be a great number of very fair and fine grand okes apt to sele houses.” John Aubrey, a hundred years after Leland, saw and describes it as “ a very great and stately old house. The Hall great and open with very old windows—but only one coat of Pavely was left.” In the parlour, chapel and canopy chamber, he found and copied twenty coats of arms. “The rudders everywhere.” ‘These have been drawn and published in the volume ealled “ Wiltshire Collections.” The ship’s rudder, so frequent as a device, does not, however, appear to have been as Leland “ peradventured ” peculiar to the Willoughby family, but rather to their predecessors the Cheyneys; for it is found in Edington Church on a little chantry chapel, of a date many years before the Willoughbys succeeded to Brook. Of the Cheney family of Brook little is left except the chantry just mentioned, which
original property of Pavely became ultimately subdivided. Suppose it, when entire, to be represented by 20s.
pore 20s,
| | St. Lo. Cheney, 10s, 10s, | | ae, Ghedyok. St. Maur. Willoughby.
58, 5a. 5s. Gira 3 vi vest} PO Hise | | I | |
Arundell, Stourton, Drury, Stowell, Bampfield, Blount, Paulett, 2s, 6d, 2s, 6d, ls. 8d, 1s, 8d, ls, 8d, 5a, 5a.
Three co-heiresses sold to Webb,
Ad Westbury under the Plain.
is built between two of the columns that divide the nave from the south aisle. They were among the earliest patrons of Bishop William of Edington, the founder of that fine old monastic Church, and no doubt assisted him in the work.
WILLOUGHBY.
By marriage with one of the two co-heiresses of Cheney, Brook came to Sir William Willoughby (of a junior branch of Willoughby D’ Eresby), who was created baron by Henry VII. with the annex of “de Broke” to his name. His grandson, Edward, died leaving no male issue, so the estate was divided between Edward’s two sisters, one of whom married Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, and the other W. Paulet, Marquis of Winchester ; and the title fell into abeyance. But the grandson, Edward, left a daughter, who married Sir Fulke Greville, ennobled as Lord Beauchamp of Broke. He, again, leaving no son, his daughter married Sir Richard Verney, who, being raised to the peerage, adopted the old title of Willoughby de Broke, by which the Verney Family still continues to be repre- sented in the House of Lords.'
Biount, Lorp Movunrioy.
By marriage with one of the two co-heiresses of Willoughby, Brook was next the property of Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy. The family of Blount was a widely-spread one, and produced many remarkable men. Their history is published in a large volume, which, in that department of literature, bears a high reputation. William, Lord Mountjoy, the father of Charles, who obtained Brook by marriage, had filled several high offices under Henry VII. and
1The Harleian MS. No. 483, p. 486, mentions that “ Brooke and Southwick were granted to Edmund Ratcliffe, late ¢raitor Willoughby.” The explanation of this is, that Sir Robert Willoughby the second and last baron was one of those who favoured Henry, Earl of Richmond, and conspired under Humphrey Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, to bring him to the thone, in opposition to King Richard III. Stafford was beheaded, the rest fled abroad, but soon returned, and were successful sharers in the Battle of Bosworth. (Dugdale’s Baronage.) Southwick, in the adjoining parish of North Bradley, had belonged to the Cheney family, and by marriage of an heiress had passed to the Willoughbys.
————— *
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. F.8.A. 45
VIII. He had for his preceptor the celebrated Erasmus, from whom he acquired that taste for letters for which the Court was then remarkable. Erasmus says, in one of his letters, that he looked upon England as his own country by adoption,"and desires to serve it as much as his own native country. He often describes himself as charmed with it, especially with the flourishing state of learning and the number of learned men. He observes that it was the peculiar distinction of England that the nobility and men about the Court were conspicuous for the culture of the sciences; that there was among them more rational conversation both on religious and secular matters than in all the schools and monasteries in the country. It was to William, Lord Mountjoy, that Erasmus had dedicated his large folio work, the collection of proverbs, called « Adagia Erasmi,’ but the father happening to die the very year the work came out Erasmus wrote a supplementary dedication to the son, Charles, Lord Mountjoy, then of Brook, of whom he speaks as a person no less elegantly accomplished than the father. It is, therefore, not unlikely that Erasmus may, in one of his many visits to England, have been a guest at Brook House.' Charles, Lord Mountjoy, was a soldier engaged in the wars with France. Whilst there, not unmindful of the special uncertainty of a soldier’s life, he made a will, which, under the circumstances, is so remarkable that it must not be passed over in these notes of Westbury history. Though a soldier, and busy in the rough work of war, he did not forget the parish in which he was now a large owner of land. He did that which in these days so boastful of enlightenment, so many. people are striving to undo, or rather prevent, he made provision for the religious education of the young in Westbury ; and although, as will be perceived, he belonged to the faith which is not now the national one, still, with a single exception, there is nothing in his instructions but what might be usefully adopted at the present time. His will runs thus :—“ Also I will that for the space of two years after my decease a godly and discreet man may be chosen to
SS eee
"1 An ancient volume of Erasmus’s Commentary is still preserved in Westbury Church, fastened to a desk by a chain.
46 Westbury under the Plain.
edify the youth of Westbury under the Plain with two lectures, whereof the first lecture to be every day in the morning ordained for the catechising of children, that they thereby may be perfectly instructed to know what they profess in their baptism: in their Pater-noster how to pray: in their Ave-Maria to know how our Lord ought to be honoured, and in the ten commandments: and that he who may be reader shall not only read unto them, but also appose! them [#.e., question them] as they do in matters of gram- mar. The second lecture to be within the same parish at after- noon four times in the week ; 7.e., on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, to them that come; wherein chiefly to be declared, the duties of subjects to their king and magistrates, for maintenance of good order and obeysance, not only for fear but for conscience, with Scriptures divine, and profane® policies [meaning secular teaching’] consonant thereunto ; also increpation [?.e., condemnation] of vice; with their texts of Scripture; and for the performance thereof the Reader to have xx marks by the year.”
Brook Hall is said to have been bought from the Blounts by the Hungerford family.
PENLEIGH
belonged anciently to the Fitzwarrens, of whom one was knight of the shire in A.D. 1300. In one of the windows there are some of the coats of arms of the Hungerfords.
BREMRIDGE.
This manor, with the advowson of the Heywood Chantry in Westbury Church, belonged to the Marmions, afterwards to Sir Philip Fitzwaryn and his wife, Constance, who granted it to Edington Monastery in exchange for Highway Manor, near Calne,
1In Sir R. C. Hoare’s History of Westbury, p. 27, this word is accidentally misprinted “oppose.” To appose is an old University term formerly used in schools at Oxford, when two scholars tried to puzzle one another by questions. This ‘“ Exercise’? was called ‘‘ Appositions.” We still retain the word in a mutilated form when we say such and such a person was posed.
2 By “ profane” he only meant “ other than religious,” 7.e., secular instruction. In Heb. xii., 16, Esau is called a profane person, not meaning blasphemous, but non-religious.
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.8.A. AT
It could not have been of much benefit to the Edington brethren, for they had to pay out of it £10 a year, or thirty nobles, to Sarum Cathedral, leaving only 13s. 4d., or two nobles, for themselves. I mention the amount emphatically in nobles, as it suggests an in- teresting discovery at Bremridge. The name is properly Bremel ridge, and Bremel is simply our old acquaintance the bramble: the same that gave its name to Bremhill, and we are to presume that at both places the ground was more open and rough, and favourable to its growth.! On the farm here belonging to Mr. Charles Phipps some workmen making alterations in the house, in the year 1877, came upon a hoard of thirty-two gold coins, piled one upon another, as if they had been packed in some case of wood or leather, which had perished. The workmen, ignorant of the law, proceeded forthwith to appropriate the spoil, but being informed that such gold treasure-trove belongs neither to the finder nor even to the landlord, disgorged it. The coins were shown to the late Dr. Baron, of Upton Scudamore, who took much interest in ascertaining what they were, and published a full account of them, with plates, both in the Archeologia and in the Wiltshire Magazine. He describes them as gold nobles of the reigns of Edward III. and his son, Richard II., and, therefore, deposited not before Richard. One peculiarity is that some of them were coined in England, bearing the English King’s name on them, and some in Flanders, bearing the name of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Flanders. This, as Dr. Baron observes, confirms the historical fact (and this is one of the principal uses of old coins) that Edward IIT. in his struggle with France did all in his power to secure the alliance with Flanders, one important step towards his purpose being the making the coinage of England and Flanders international. Another interesting circumstance connected with these coins is that on one side of some of them isa ship with the King standing in it, crowned, and on the other side a legend or inscription round the margin, in Latin, taken from Luke iv., verse 30 :—“ JESUS AUTEM TRANSIENS PER MEDIUM ILLoRUM BAT.” [Jesus passing through the midst of them went his way.| The first gold nobles were issued soon after a 1 See Vol. xxi., 121.
48 Westbury under the Plain.
great naval victory at Helvoetsluys, in which fight the French ships were drawn up in line chained together. Edward seeing this, had recourse to a stratagem. He steered off asif in flight. The French loosed their ships to pursue. Edward then suddenly turned about, and dashing through the centre of the French, broke the line and won the day. It might be thought that the application of the text of Scripture savoured rather of boldness, or worse: but, no doubt, it was used religiously. Many members of the Government in those days were high ecclesiastics, who would not quote Scripture carelessly, and it was certainly intended that the victory should be regarded as a providential deliverance from overwhelming numbers. The gold noble got its name from its handsome appearance and purity of metal. The market value is said to be 20s., but that is increased to any amount, even to fabulous prices, by the rarity of a coin. Only a few weeks ago, what is called the Pattern Crown of Charles II., of which only two specimens are known to be in existence, fetched the stupendous sum of £500. The Bremridge nobles were sent up to the Treasury, according to law. Two or three specimens only were detained for the National Museum, the rest were returned with the request that the workmen might receive suitable compen- sation. There is no fear, therefore, of anyone being shabbily treated by the Crown officers, so that it is the best way always to obey the law, for there is a heavy penalty if any infringement of it in this point is discovered. I may add that if the number of thirty-two nobles was really all that were found it is singular that this was precisely the annual sum of thirty due from Bremridge to the Cathedral of Sarum and two to the landlord. We may suppose, therefore, that the tenant had got the money ready and was actually going to pay when some disturbance or other induced him to hide it, and that some accident having happened to himself it was never recovered.
CHALFORD.
A correspondent acquainted with this part of the parish, between Westbury and Westbury Leigh, says that ‘‘ there used to be here an old place of meeting of the magistrates, and tnat the house, now
q .
By the Rev. Canon J. LE. Jackson, F.S.A. 49
a private dwelling and shop, has in its front a stone on which is the following: ‘Here is a stone stand in the wall, to testifie this is Whitehall, I.H.M. 1704.” At the back still exists the place formerly used as cells, and in the house itself is a capacious cellar, which tradition affirms was for the use of the justices. In 1790 it was the property of Lord Abingdon, and was known as “ The Council House.” !
1The same “correspondent” gives the following account of a singular discovery of coins at this place: “At the bottom of the hill coming from Westbury, and just at the angle caused by the junction of the road that leads from Ball’s Water, stood an old house known as the ‘George Inn.’ In its latter days, some fifty years ago, it had fallen into decay. At one time it had been a place of some importance, and was in fact a large building. As people failed to get a living there it remained unoccupied and gradually tumbled down, till it became in such a ruinous state that it was demolished and the woodwork stored away in a shed near at hand. This shed was not fastened ; consequently those cottagers living near made free use of the debris to burn or for any other purpose. Some forty-five years since a man still residing in Chalford, was returning home—the period of the year was about Christmas time—and as he passed the place where the old George Inn had stood, he picked up a piece of wood about six feet long. The finder carried the wood to his cottage only a few yards off, and it being too long to burn took a saw to cut it in pieces. He, however, failed to do so as the wood was too hard. He then noticed a mortice, and thinking the tool would bite in that place he again essayed to cut the piece, but the saw stopped half-way through. Enraged at his failure the man took the wood up by one end and held it over his head and brought the other end violently on the stone floor, causing the piece to fracture just at the part half sawed through, and out rolled ninety-nine gold coins. The man, frightened, ran out of the house, and the news quickly spreading, the neighbours flocked in to inspect the pieces, which had been collected on a plate. An old pensioner, who was looked on as an oracle, declared the coins to be worthless, and the finder offered to take a sovereign for the lot. They had been wrapped in a piece of rag and laid in a roll in a hollow that had been scooped out of the wood, and a piece nailed down on them; it was in this part that the finder attempted to saw, and one of the coins was found to have been partly cut through by the tool. The same evening, or the next day after the discovery, a man who employed the finder, obtained from him all the money on the understanding that a full account should be given of it, and said he to the finder: ‘ May my right arm wither if I fail to give you the full value.’ From that hour till now the finder has never had a penny, and it is said and believed, too, that the arm of the man who had the coins actually did wither ; in fact he was never after in possession of the use of his arm.”
VOL. XXIV.—NO. LXXIT, E
50 Westbury under the Plain.
Herywoop.
This place, on the northern side of the parish, is more connected than the rest of it with the names of men of eminence who have filled high public offices, more especially as distinguished members of the legal profession, for it has been the home of three judges, besides a Governor of the Province of Bombay. In early days, before family names were settled, men, especially the clergy, were known by their Christian name with that of the place of which they were natives. By degrees the name of the place became the family name. This was the case with William of Wickham, and William of Edington, both Bishops of Winchester; and here of William of Westbury. He was of a family possessed of property in this and neighbouring parishes, and he rose to be Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in the reign of Henry 1V. He and his father built a chantry chapel on the north side of the Church, which he endowed with lands, and then desired to be buried in it. In the inquisition taken upon his death Heywood is mentioned as part of his estates. The second judge, owner and occupier of Heywood, was James Ley Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in 1620, created by Charles I., Earl of Marlborough. His biography is given succinctly on his monument in the Church, and some account of him and his family is to be the subject of a paper from one of our col- leagues. The third, whom, indeed, I need hardly name where he is so well known, and known to be not less distinguished than any of his predecessors, is the Right Hon. Lord Justice Lopes. Another eminent lawyer, the late Lord Chancellor Bethel, paid your town the compliment of taking it for his title, but he was not a native, for he was born at Bradford, son of Dr. Bethel, a well-known physician there at the beginning of this century : nor am I aware that Lord Westbury had any kind of connection with this town, but Bradford being already the title of one of the peers of the realm, he adopted Westbury as the nearest to it in the same county. Before Heywood became the property of the family of Ludlow, from which the present owner derived it, it belonged to and was the residence of William Phipps, Governor of Bombay, who died in 1748. An in- teresting relic is preserved at the house, the identical tablet of wood
By the Rev. Canon J. £. Jackson, F.8.A. 51
brought from the house at Vevay, on the Lake of Geneva, inhabited during his banishment by the celebrated Parliamentary General, Edmund Ludlow. On the tablet are the words, “‘ Omune solwm forti patria.” “ Any land is a home to a brave-hearted man.”
DItton.
Dilton, within this parish, and ecclesiastically attached to the vicarage, has a little old Church, with a small crocketed spire, close by the railway on the line tow ards Warminster. Dilton had formerly, what many parishes used to have, a Church house : one kept solely for parish meetings and business. This was built by the parishioners at their own cost on a piece of ground nigh to the Church which they held on a ninety-nine years’ lease from Edington Monastery. There was also in Dilton a field called “The Sanctuary,” which belonged to the Knights Templars, or Hospitallers of St. J ohn of Jerusalem. This order had a small branch establishment at Ansty, in South Wilts, called “‘ The Commandery of Ansty,” which was - endowed with bits of land here and there all about the county.
Dilton Marsh is a different hamlet a little way off, and has a Church, a vicar, and parish officers of its own. The manor house called Dilton Court was no part of the great Pavely estate, but together with Bratton belonged very anciently to the families of Marmion and Dauntsey,
DAvNTSEY.
The Dauntsey family was one of the very oldest in this parish, and I think that it must have been from them that were derived by a succcesion of marriages the estates that in the last century belonged to the Earl of Abingdon. There is a parish in North Wilts of the name of Dauntsey which belonged to them, and they had also large property at West Lavington.' Now, the Dauntseys of Dauntsey ~ 1 The name of Daunteey, of Lavington, after being extinct for some hundreds of years, has been lately brought into very prominent notice in such a way that the county is not likely to lose sight of it again. Under the will of a William Dauntsey, @ native of Lavington, who died some four hundred years ago, a very large sum of money has been offered by the Mercers’ Company in London, to which certain property of his in London had been bequeathod, with certain cons ditions, towards the establishment of a school,
E 2
52 Westbury under the Plain.
in North Wilts, ended in an heiress, who married Sir John Danvers. The heiress of Danvers married Sir Henry Lee, of Ditchley, and the heiress of Lee married the first Earl of Abingdon. In the year 1651 all the burgage houses in Westbury certainly belonged to Sir John Danvers, who held his court here, and the Earls of Abingdon certainly resided at Lavington, at a mansion now destroyed, famous in its day for fine gardens, &c., so that putting all these links together it seems highly probable that the Abingdon estates came to that family through the chain of descent now suggested. Sir R. C. Hoare mentions the property as theirs, but gives no ac- count of the way in which it came to them. I know of no other way of connecting the Earls of Abingdon, an Oxfordshire family, with Westbury.
CHALCOTE.
Chaleote, so far back as 1364, belonged to the then great family of Mauduit, whose name still survives in North Wilts, attached to the parish of Somerford. Whether they lived here or not I cannot say. They had larger possessions at Fonthill and elsewhere, especially at Warminster, where they were lords paramount, and where, if any- where, their residence would most likely have been. The heiress of Mauduit married Sir Henry Green, one of the faithful adherents of King Richard II. He defended Bristol Castle for the King, but being betrayed by Bolingbroke (afterwards King Henry IV.) was beheaded witk the rest.
Tn later times Chalcote passed through various hands till towards the end of last century it became the property of a gentleman whose name, being honourably connected with English literature, must not be passed over now, for he was a native of Westbury, Bryan Edwards, author of an able and accurate history of the British Colonies in the West Indies. He was born in 1743. His father had some small property in this parish, but died in difficulties. The
1 Ourself and Bushey, Bagot there and Green.” [Shakspeare, Richard II. act I., scene 4.] In the second act, scene 2, Sir Henry appears on the stage and brings to Queen Isabel the news of Bolingbroke having landed at Ravens- purg.
ee
By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson, P.S.A. 53
mother had a wealthy brother in the West Indies, Mr. Zachary Bailey, who took the family under his protection and educated young Edwards. The education was entirely in the English language: for it was rather later in life that he began the usual Latin, in which he says he made no great progress for he found it “‘inexpressibly disgusting.” He was fond of writing, and, strange to say, ventured upon turning Horace into English verse: but it was only after he had got somebody else to translate the “ inex- pressibly disgusting ” into English for him. Ultimately he became rich by succeeding to some property, came home, sat in Parliament for Grampound, and died in 1800. He purchased Chalcote, but shortly before his death sold it to a younger brother. He was the means of ejecting from the West Indies Dr. Wolcott, the famous Peter Pindar, who was in that country doing mischief by some furious poetry.’
Waite Horse.
I cannot bring to a close the few notes of Westbury history now strung together without saying a few words upon that which is, in one sense, the most conspicuous object in the parish; to get a hasty sight of which the heads of young and old press towards the carriage window as the train approaches Westbury railway station. In the old coaching days we used to have more time for seeing whatever was worth looking at along the line of the turnpike roads. In these days of flying locomotion we can see nothing but our book or newspaper; the journey is almost a dead blank, for no sooner does a Church or other object come in sight than it is out of sight again directly : something like the flash described in Midsummer Night’s Dream :—
“ Brief as the lightning in the collied night That in a spleen unfolds both heaven and earth, And ’ere a man hath power to say, Behold! The jaws of darkness have devour’d it up. But at Wantage and at Westbury we are disappointed if the weather is too foggy to let us see the White Horse. There is,
1 Gent. Mag., 1800, Part 2, pp. 702, 793.
54 Westbury under the Plain.
however, another kind of fog, always surrounding these objects, through which it is by no means easy to see one’s way: and that is, their real history. Our friend Mr. Plenderleath is the White Horse champion, and has taken the subject under his special pro- tection in an interesting little book, which probably many of you may have read. He has a whole team of them to deal with, for there are, I believe, no less than eight in the county of Wilts alone, besides one or two in the North of England: and I see by the programme that he has something more to say about them. There are only two out of our eight that have any claim to antiquity : the two I have just mentioned ; and even of these two the one on Bratton Hill is only a second edition, the original figure, which was of more antique shape, having been destroyed by a land agent a little more than a hundred years ago. All the rest are not old horses, but only young colts, set up to prance on the hill sides, some of them within the memory of man. Some years ago one of our farmers was asking me about these things, what they meant? I told him the little I knew, how old some were said to be: but as to the one at Marl- borough I did not know how old that one was. “Oh,” said he, “TI can tell ’ee that, for I helped to make him. We boys at Mr. Gresley’s school worked at it.” One opinion, perhaps the one most generally held, about the old white horses, is that they were cut out upon the turf to commemorate a great victory; and it is certainly a historical fact that King Alfred did win a battle against the Danes, at Ashdown, near the Berkshire white horse. And it is also a historical fact that he did defeat them again at another place called Athandun, which is interpreted by many archeologists to be your Edington. It is entirely beyond the limits of this paper to go into all the details of the discussion to which this has given rise : for there are no less than six places that compete for the honour of being the very identical spot on which Alfred crushed for a time the power of the Danes in this country. What makes it so difficult to decide the point is, that every one of those places has a name sufficiently like Aithandun, and, further, every one of them has also a strong hill fortress close at hand to which the defeated might have fled, as in the history of the event, written at the time, they
By the Rev. Canon J. EL. Jackson, F.8.A. 55
are said to have done. If I may presume to imitate a well-known passage in one of Cicero’s orations, in which he sums up the various places that competed for the glory of having been Homert’s birth- place, I may say that Camden, Sir Richard Hoare, and others place ABthandun beyond all doubt at Edington, near Westbury; Milner is clamorous for Heddington, near Calne; Whitaker of Manchester, Beke, and Thurnam, insist upon Yatton Down, near Chippenham, where, moreover, the late Mr. Poulett Serope actually built a tower, with an inscription, to put an end to all strife. Barker maintains it was at Edington, near Hungerford. Other Berkshire antiquaries vociferate for Yattenden, in Berkshire; and latest of all comes Bishop Clifford, of Clifton, contending, and with very strong argument indeed—that it was neither in Wilts, nor in Berks, but at Edington, near Bridgwater, in Somersetshire. Now I am sure that if five eminent counsel were each to take up one of these cases they would severally be able to produce such overwhelming reasons in favour of each to perplex and bewilder you that you would bounce out of the situation as King James I. did, after hearing first one and then another, by declaring that they were every one of them right. But as that cannot be,*‘and as only one can be right, though it is not for me to venture to pronounce whieh that is, I do feel obliged to say that: I cannot understand how it could possibly have been at your Edington. It would take a deal of time to go through all the pros and cons of this much- agitated question: so I will just say a few words why your Edington does not appear to me to fit the case. The names for Alfred’s resting- places in his advance from the Isle of Athelney must be conjectures in every one of the six competing explanations; but, in that which brings him to your Edington, his stages and quarters for the night are not only conjectures, but wholly unfitted to the circumstances. You all know Brixton Deverel, a little way beyond Warminster, and Cley Hill. Well, according to this theory, Alfred, having passed one night with his army at Brixton, set off as soon as it was light, reached Cley Hill, and passed the next night there. Now the distance from Brixton to Cley Hill, as the crow flies, is just four miles, by the road say five or six. It seems highly improbable
56 Westbury under the Plain.
that a commander-in-chief, anxious to pounce unexpectedly on an enemy, should occupy a whole day from dawn to get over five or six miles, and then go to sleep again within sight of his enemy at Bratton. Moreover, if the Danish general, being in Bratton Camp, saw that Alfred and his army had reached Cley Hill, and were close upon him, he would surely never have come out of his stronghold on the hill, but would have kept snug behind his rampart, and let Alfred turn him out if he could. And there is another circumstance which has always stood in the way of accepting your Edington as the place. Soon after the battle, Alfred prevailed upon the Danish leader to change his faith and be publicly baptized in a Church, which was done. Was it in Edington or Bratton Church? In neither ; but at Aller. Now Aller, in Somersetshire, is the nearest Church to that other Edington at which Bishop Clifford fixes the Battle of fEthandun. There is certainly no white horse there ; nor, according to another, and a rather increasing number of archzologists, was there any reason to expect one; because, according to their opinion, these ancient figures of horses in conspicuous places had nothing whatever to do with any battles in the time of King Alfred, but had been displayed on the hill side, weather-beaten, scoured or unscoured, as the case might be, for centuries before Alfred was born. These writers consider them to have been emblems connected with the superstitious religion of the old Britons. On the original rudely-cut horse at Bratton there was a crescent attached to the horse: and it is very remarkable that a crescent accompanies the figure of a rudely-cut horse upon ancient British coins. Dr. Phené, a learned foreigner, in writing upon these subjects tells us, in one of his papers, just issued, that he has made them almost the sole study of his life; for he has spent no less than thirty years in travelling all over the world to search for and examine these strange emblems of animals. They are most frequently found in earthworks, mounds, and banks, heaped up in the shape of an elephant, dragon, serpent, or the like. He assigns to them all a strange religious origin, and very great antiquity. I lately read in some magazine article (the reference to which I have unfortunately mislaid) that in a work on “Travels in Central America,” the author mentions his
White Horse Jottings. 57
having seen on an island in the mysterious lake of Peten, the figure of a white horse, which the people called “ Tzimin chak ”—chak in their language signifying white.
So you see, with so many conflicting opinions, we are still very far from knowing the real history of our most perplexing Wiltshire antiquities ; but the world is not yet exhausted, enormous tracts of country, hundreds of islands, are yet absolutely unexplored. It is impossible to say what in these days of fresh emigration and ransacking of the’ globe may not come to light. Perhaps in some cannibal island, eight thousand miles under our feet, may yet turn up the key to that other great riddle on Salisbury Plain— Stonehenge.
White Borse Aottings.
By the Rev. W. C. PLENDERLEATH.
( SHE following paper contains the substance of sundry jottings ay je as to the White Horses of our county which I have put together since I addressed the Society upon the subject at Trowbridge, in 1872.1
We are all acquainted with the venerable Wiltshire tradition which asserts that the Westbury Horse, as it existed up to the year 1778, was cut out by King Alfred in Easter, 878, on the morrow of the victory of Ethandune. I know that this tradition is now discredited : I should be astonished if it were not so. For finality is a thing which cannot I fear, be predicated of any branch of human know- ledge. And I have even heard of persons so depraved as to say that whenever an unusually positive assertion is made by scientists of any description the one only thing of which we may be sure is that the exact reverse will be asserted with equal positiveness a little later. I remember that a great many years ago when large exca- vations were going on upon the Palatine Hill, at Rome, the then
1 Wiltshire Archeological Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 12,
58 White Horse Jottings.
Minister of Public Works thought that it would be an excellent plan to put up notice-boards to give visitors some information as to the various buildings that were being unearthed. Only it happened unluckily that he could not quite make up his mind to which of the conflicting schools of topography he would give his credence. And so it came to pass that you would one day pass along a road, and read to the right, “ This is the Temple of Apollo,” and to the left, ** This is the House of the Slaves of Tiberius.” And the next day you would find these boards removed, and other boards put in their place, assuring you with equal dogmatism, “ These are the Baths of Livia”: “These are the Cexnacula of the Palace of Augustus |”
Well now, as regards our Westbury White Horse. Honestly, I do not see why the traditional history of its origin should not be the true one. And my idea is that, wherever a definite tradition exists as to the occurrence of any historical event, such tradition ought to be upheld; unless, on the one hand, there is some inherent evidence of its impossibility ; or, on the other hand, some fresh facts have come to light establishing, beyond all reasonable doubt, the greater probability of some rival theory. Furthermore, that, in holding the balance between two conflicting i arn tae > should be allowed considerable weight.
You will remember that King Alfred had come to the throne eight years previously, on the death of his brother Ethelred, and that he had for some time been dogged persistently by an evil fate. He had in the first year of his reign been worsted by the Danes in no less than eight or nine encounters, and had eventually been driven to compound with them by a money payment for their departure from Wessex. From this time he seems to have remained quiet, recruiting his forces, until in 875 he felt himself strong enough to resume hostilities. For a long time fortune was still adverse, and at the beginning of 878 we find the Danes encamped in force at Chippenham, and Alfred reduced to flight. ‘Then came the period of his residence at Athelney, during which he was alternately occu- pied in raising troops and (as a certain time-honoured legend informs us) toasting cakes, and occasionally letting them burn; until in May, he determined to make another bold stroke for the kingdom,
By the Rev. W. ©. Plenderleath. 59
and, as his faithful chronicler informs us, “rode to the stone Aebryhta, which is the eastern part of the forest that is called Selwood, but in Latin Petra Magna, in British Coit-maur.”
And now comes the difficulty. We have accepted the cakes, but some of our greatest authorities find it difficult to digest the stone, or at any rate to convert it into such good honest historical pabulum as to be able to say exactly where it stood, or perhaps still stands. For a long time it was largely believed that the name of Brixton Deverell indicated its position, Brixton seeming a very probable corruption of Ecbyrt’s stone. But, as all philologers know, there is no such conclusive argument against a derivation as its primd facie probability, even as you know that the one thimble upon the race- course table under which the pea is not, is the one under which you thought that with your own eyes you saw it placed! And a learned member of this Society, in an article published in the Wiltshire Archaological Magazine some fifteen years ago, suggested as a more probable site for this Petra Echryghti that whereupon stands an ancient stone called in Andrews and Dury’s Map of Wilts “ Redbridge Stone,” on the Fairford estate. This stone may be seen in a small plantation on the left hand of the railway cutting, about a mile from the Westbury Station, on the way towards Frome, and projecting somewhere about two or three feet from the ground.
After describing the enthusiasm with which King Alfred was received at this trysting-place, the Chronicle proceeds to tell us that he there encamped for one night: then went on at dawn of the next day to a place called Ficglea, where he spent another night.
Now where was Aicglea? It has been variously conjectured to have been either Cley Hill, or else Buckley (now generally spelled Bugley), which are respectively a mile and a half and one mile to the west of Warminster; or, on the other hand, to have been somewhere on the borders of Berkshire, in a place subsequently known as the Hundred of Aieglei, some thirty miles from Westbury. And it has been suggested as against the claims of the two former sites that they are too near to the place of encampment of the pre-
1Vol. xiii., pp. 108, 9.
60 White Horse Jottings.
vious night, which was only some four or five miles off (as the crow flies), if we identify it with Brixton, or a mile further if we take it to have been at the Redbridge Stone. It has been also pointed out on very high authority that one great secret of King Alfred’s success, like that of Napoleon and of many other distinguished generals, lay in the rapidity of his forced marches. There is no doubt some force in this objection : still I cannot think that it is conclusive. It must be remembered that there were no telegraphs or war correspondents in those days to tell generals the exact whereabouts of the opposing armies, and it may not have been until he got to Ecbyrt’s stone that the King found that he had fixed upon a place of rendezvous so very near to the encampment of the enemy upon Bratton Hill.
For now comes a very noteworthy part of the history. On the morrow after the encampment at Aicglea, King Alfred “ came at dawn,” says the chronicler, “ to a place that is called Ethandunum, where fiercely warring against the whole army of the Pagans, he at last gained the victory, overthrew them with very great slaughter, and pursued them even to their stronghold, where he boldly en- camped with all his army.”
And now you see the importance of this question of the position of Aieglea. If Acglea be in Berkshire, Ethandunum cannot be Edington, in Wiltshire, as we have all been accustomed to believe it to be, but another place, not far from Hungerford, which bears the same name, or perchance Yattendon, near East Ilsley, in the same county. Let me hasten to assure you that there does appear to me to be very strong testimony in favour of our Edington ; and that notwithstanding a conflicting tradition, of which I was told some years ago by a learned Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, who had come down some while previously to visit our White Horse. This gentleman informed me that when first he visited Bratton he was accompanied by a local guide, who informed him that the Battle of Waterloo had been fought in that place, and that on that occasion the cart tracks had “ run down full of blood!”
Putting aside, however, this counter-tradition, notwithstanding its element of circumstantiality, I will venture to assume that it was on Bratton Down that Alfred sat down to besiege the Danes, who
By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath, 61
were entrenched in that long encampment with double ramparts, of which we can still see traces on the top of the hill. The siege is said to have lasted for fourteen days, at the end of which time the Danes surrendered at discretion. And then, doubtless, the question arose of placing some monument to commemorate so important a victory.
Now, seven years previously, Alfred, who was then Commander- in-Chief under his brother, Ethelred, had defeated the Danes in the great battle of Ashdown, and had (if our traditions be trustworthy) commemorated that event by cutting the first of the white horses on the side of Uffington Hill, in Berkshire. What more likely than that he should now proceed to mark this still more signal and im- portant victory in a similar manner,—or, I may add, that the icono- graphic powers of his artists should have so increased as you may judge by looking “on this picture and on that”? [See figs. 1 and 2, pp. 66 and 67]. For this second animal is, I think we may venture to say, a good deal more like a horse and a good deal less like a crocodile than the former. And it is indeed possible, for a reason which I shall presently proceed to shew you, that his pro- portions may have approached originally even nearer to such as would commend themselves to General FitzWygram or to the Master of the Beaufort Hunt.
But more than a century, alas! has passed away since mortal eye has looked upon this memorial of Alfred’s victory. For in 1778 a wretch of the name of Gee, who was steward to Lord Abingdon, came down to survey that nobleman’s estates in the parish of Westbury, and conceived the idea of immortalizing his name by “re-modelling ” the White Horse—much as some of our restorers have in times past “ re-modelled” those dingy old Raffaelles and Lionardos and Guercinos in too many English galleries, and given them such nice clean flesh tints and such beautiful black eyebrows, and such charming pink lips !
The drawing upon p. 67 is enlarged from one given in Gough’s Camden, which was made only six years before its destruction. It faces, as you will see, to what heralds and numismatologists would call the sinister side, whereas Mr. Gee’s horse faces to dexter. And
62 White Horse Jottings.
considering that in the vast majority of ancient coins the former is the position shewn, I was at first inclined to fancy that this ir- responsible individual must have absolutely destroyed the old horse before beginning to cut the new one. I had, indeed, ventured to state the question even more strongly than this, and in my paper at Trowbridge I said that in zo British coin did a horse ever face to dexter. Butit was pointed out to me some years ago that this was a mistake, and I have subsequently seen in the British Museum several coins showing horses thus facing, though they are in an exceedingly small minority.
I imagine, therefore, that King Alfred did, for some reason or other, cut his horse in this unusual position ; and that the fact of its being shewn in the normal one in Gough’s plate is due to the carelessness of the engraver, who simply re-produced upon his block the drawing sent to him, not thinking that such a detail as the right or left facing of a turf figure was a matter of the least moment. And I am the. more inclined to this view as I have, over and over again, in engravings both old and new, seen drivers represented with the reins iv their right hands and the whips in their left; or a troop of cavalry boldly sweeping on in line, every one of whom held his weapon after the fashion of that renowned warrior, Caius Mutius the left-handed,
Nor, indeed, are engravers the only folk that seem to be unable to distinguish between their right hands and their left. There is a remarkably pretty picture in one of the art exhibitions in London this year representing a medieval company of ladies and gentlemen going out a-hawking, and all of them without exception carrying their hawks on the right wrist! Now this is, unfortunately, an absolutely impossible position, for the left wrist, being protected by a gauntlet, while the right is not, is the only one upon which the hawk could possibly be carried. A wrist less strongly guarded would be scratched and torn by the bird’s talons to the very bone. And accordingly you may have noted that amongst the innumerable instances in which we find a human hand or arm represented in heraldry, the solitary exception to the rule that this must be the right limb is when a hawk is shewn to be thereon carried. I presume,
By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath. 63
therefore, that the artist, who has taken so great pains to represent this gay cavalcade, has simply failed to take the small additional trouble of enquiring of some practical falconer upon which wrist the hawk was carried; or else has considered this question entirely unworthy of consideration.
Apropos of heraldry, I may give you one more instance of incuria, derived from this science. Not only is the right arm, with the above-named exception, the only one borne single in heraldry, but beasts are always represented as walking, and birds flying, and fish swimming to dexter. On a shield, however, under the roof of the Bayntun Chapel, in Bromham Church the roaches in the arms of the old Wiltshire family of Roches are represented as naiant to sinister—and that by a sculptor who must have been in other respects a remarkably careful and painstaking person.
To return, however, to our White Horse. You will notice in my drawings that the new horse (Fig. 3, p. 67) is represented as very much taller in proportion to his length than the old one. But this is accounted for by the fact that my horse is drawn in plane pro- jection, whereas that of Gough is shewn fureshortened by perspective, as we gather from his letterpress, in which he says that the figure measures 100ft. in length by nearly as much in height. Allowing for these diversities in the mode of delineation, it would have been by no means difficult to evolve the one figure out of the other without any undue expenditure of trouble on the part of the ignorant destroyer.
Mr Gee’s horse, I may add, was repaired, and the outlines practically re-cut, about the year 1853. My drawing was made from a survey in 1870, since which time some further re-formations have, I believe, taken place. I remember that before the latter works were begun some one was good enough to write and ask me, as he knew that I was interested in the horses, whether there was any objection to the outlining of the figure witb kerb stones—much in the same way as (I am informed) the long man of Wilmington has been with white bricks. Iam afraid that my reply was con- ceived in somewhat the spirit of Dr. Abernethy, who, when a hypochondriac patient asked him whether she “ might eat an oyster,”
64 White Horse Jottings.
replied “Oh, yes, Madam, by all means, shells and all!” Mr. Gee’s horse appeared to me to enjoy the same security against injury causable by restoration as did Juvenal’s traveller against loss by robbers when his purse was already empty !
But now I must proceed to give you two or three short jottings which I have made with regard to the other horses of our county since I last addressed the Society upon the subject. The Broad Hinton horse I have discovered to have been cut in 1838, with a view of commemorating the coronation of our present Queen, and not three years earlier, as I had been previously informed. Its architect, Mr. Robert Eatwell, only died as recently as 1854.
The name of the author of the Broadtown horse has also come to light, and with it a very remarkable theory of his as to the genesis of turf-horses generally, which is deserving of record. Mr. William Simmonds, who in 1864 was resident at Littleton Farm, cut it out in some of the grass-land attached to that property, but told my informant a few years ago that he never meant it to remain in its present size. His intention was, he said, to enlarge it by degrees, as that was the way that all horses were made! It certainly is the way in which Nature makes horses: but there do appear to be difficulties in the way of applying a similar rule to any turf figures, save rectilinear ones, which Mr. Simmonds does not seem to have contemplated.
Another piece of information I have obtained which had previously eluded me in the most curious manner. I had long known that a horse had been cut out on Roundway Hill in the year 1845, but, although the date was so recent, I had never by any of my numerous enquiries been able to ascertain exactly where it was situated, or any of the circumstances of its construction. At last, about four or five years ago, I got a letter from a gentleman of the name of Barrey, then resident in Hampshire, informing me that this horse was cut by the shoemakers of Devizes at Whitsuntide, 1845, and that it was for years afterwards known as the “ Snob’s Horse.” The word snob, 1 may add, is used in more than one provincial dialect for a shoemaker’s journeyman, and appears in the form of suad in Lowland Scotch for an apprentice to that trade. It must, I have no doubt,
By the Rev. W.-C. Plenderleath. 65
be connected with the modern verb to snub, which comes from a very old English word sneap, apparently of Scandinavian origin, and meaning to pinch or nip. But why the junior members of this particular calling should be supposed to be more pinched, nipped, or snubbed, than those of other like callings, I am unable to say.
I will conclude my jottings by adverting briefly to the well-known animal mounds in America, which may be said to bear a certain sort of analogy to our various incised figures, though not a very close one. These are of considerable number, and occur chiefly (though by no means exclusively) in the States of Wisconsin and Ohio. They vary in height above the soil from 2ft. to 6ft., and the largest of them is stated to be 300ft. in length. They represent not only alligators, buffaloes, beavers, &c., but also men, birds, and other objects, one of which looks exactly like a barbed arrow-head. Mr, Lapham, to whose work on the Antiquities of Wisconsin I am indebted for the outlines of Figs. 5 and 6, does not doubt but that they were all constructed by the Indians, and are of the character of totems. Dr. Phené, however, who has carefully investigated the subject, is of opinion that some of them were meant to represent deities, while others were sepulchral, and some, again, intended as landmarks. A few typical forms are given onp. 68. Of these the alligator mound (Fig. 4) measures 250ft. x 120ft., not including the heap of calcined stones projecting from the body. The beaver
_ mound (Fig. 5), 140ft. x 45ft. And the buffalo mound (Fig. 6),
:
108ft. x 52ft. I may add that these mounds are represented as white upon black in my woodcuts for clearness’ sake, but that it is not intended to convey thereby the idea that they are differentiated in point of colour from the surrounding surface in the way that our white horses are, this not being, so far as I am aware, the case.
: VOL. XXV.-——-NO. LXXII. F
White Horse Jottings.
66
‘oslo U0ySuy YL—'T “ST
By the Rev. W. C. Plenderleath.
Fig. 3.—The Modern Westbury Horse.
67
68 White Horse Jottings.
Fig. 4.—The Alligator Mound, Granville, Ohio, U.S.A.
Fig. 5.—The Beaver Mound, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
Fig. 6.—The Buffalo Mound, Honey Creek, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
69
Some Western Circuit Assize Aecords of the ~~ Seventeenth Centurp.
By_W. W..Ravenui.t.
the Toor of our Aaah and I was able to give several extracts from them which attracted some interest. It may be remembered that these consisted, not only of commissions, precepts, calendars, and indictments, but also of four volumes of the orders of the Judges of Assize extending from A.D. 1629 to A.D. 1688, useful to those who would study the history of our county in the seventeenth century, and very illustrative of the country life of that period.
The paper I then read was published in our Magazine, vol. xviii., p- 136, and to thatels beg leave to refer you.
To-night wt propose to give you some further extracts from these order books. They, even now, can only be specimens culled from a large number of similar materials.
I go at once to the year of grace 1646. Such scanty crops as there were, here and there, were ripening; and it seemed as if there might be the blessings of harvest for some at any rate, as the fighting had ceased, Even the forts still held for the King were surrendering to the Parliament. The last, perhaps, of these, the westernmost of the western circuit, Pendennis Castle, the guardian of Falmouth, saw her gallant governor, Arundell, march forth with honours on the 17th of August.
For some time past those practical souls still left in the House of Commons had’ been turning their attention to “ the settlement of these kingdoms.” The lawyers of influence amongst them knew the value of an Assize for such a purpose. “ Let there be one. There has been none for more than three years. The commissions shall be sealed with our own great seal. Our powers as to this
70 Some Western Circuit Assize Records
have been secured by the breaking of Charles Stewart’s great seal on the 11th of August, when we gave the pieces of silver, of which it was in part composed, to the Speakers of both Houses, interesting mementoes of past Royalty! Let there be an assize.”
And the Judges “ going ” Circuit were advised, or advised them- selves, to search out and report on the general condition of the country —to take heed that the Grand Juries (who had been summoned by “ Parliament-appointed High Sheriffs”) weve not hindered in making presentments with regard to the prospect of affairs in their own neighbourhoods—their men and manners.
In the Western Circuit Order Book of the period we read what happened in Dorset. It is of historic value, so given in full, for I have only drawn attention to it hitherto.
Western Crrecuit Orper Book.
Dorset Summer Assize, 1646.
“ Alo houses. Upon the greate complaynt of the Gentlemen of the Grand Inquest of this County made to this Court at this p’sent Assizes against the multiplicity of ale houses win this County and the dayly abuses and disorders kept and suffered in such ale houses
' especially on the Sabboth dayes, whereby the service of Allmighty
This order to God is much hindered. Ffor reforminge whereof this Court be observed doth thinke fitt and declare that the Justices of the peace within through the the. several divisions and libities of this County shall with all whole Cireuite. convenient speede informe themselves by the best wayes and meanes that possibly they can, concerninge the said abuses com-
mitted and suffered by such ale house keepers and not to suffer
or licence any to sell ale or beer but such as can bringe their
certificate under the hands of the most sufficient and best In-
habitants of the several places and parishes where they dwell,
concerninge their good behaviour and carriage, and the con-
veniency of the places fitt for such alehouses to be kept. And
to take speedy course for the punishinge and supp'ssinge of all
Ex‘. other ale houses also accordinge to the Statute in that case made
Lords day and and provided. Whereas this Court is informed that the last
fast day to Wednesday in the month w® is appoynted a day for solemne be observed. fastinge and humiliation over the whole kingdom is not observed and kept as it ought to be by divers persons and in many places w'tin this County, and alsoe that the Lords day likewise ap- This order to poynted to be kept holy is profaned by many lewde people and be observed not kept and observed in many places as it ought to be, it is through the therefore ordered by this Court that if any p'son or p‘ssons whole Circuite. hereafter shall not observe and keep the said ffast day, or shall
of the Seventeenth Century. 71
profane the said Lords day, that then the next Justice of the Peace upon complaynte to him made shall bind over the said person or persons soe offendinge to the next Assizes to answere his contempt. “
And all constables and other officers are hereby required to take especial care to see this order p'formed as they will answere the contrary and from whome this Court will expect a good account of the performatice thereof.
Watchinge and It is ordered by this Court that watches and wards be dayly Wardinge. observed and kept in parishes and tythings win this County
accordinge to the Statute in that case made and provided. And
This order to if any p'son or p"sons refuse to watch and ward as aforesaid the be observed next Justice of the peace upon complaynte thereof to him made through the _ shall bind such p'son or p'sons soe refusinge to the next Assizes whole Circuite. to answere his or their contempt. And all constables and other
officers are hereby required to see this order p'formed as they will answere the contrary.
Persons p'sented It is ordered by this Court that mo pson or psons whatsoever not to be dis- which stand presented at this present Assizes or shal be p'sented charged wout at any Assizes hereafter by the Grand Inquest or constable of certificate. any hundred or libitie for any misdemean’ or offence whatsoever
punishable in this Court shal be discharged of the said p'sentment unless they shall make oath in open Court or bringe a certificate
This order to under the hand of some Justice of the Peace of the County the be observed Minister of the p'sh where the offence was committed or under
through the the hands: of the constables that p'sented them that the said whole circuite. offences and misdemeanors are reformed, and that there will be
noe prosecution thereupon or otherwise shall acquitt themselves by traversinge the same. And this order is to extend into the several Counties of this Westerne Circuite And to be taken
Ex‘. notice of and observed by the officers of this Court.”
It will be noticed that these important orders, though made on the complaint of the men of Dorset for dwellers in that county only, were to be observed throughout the eircuit. Noisy alehouses to be reformed or abolished. Fasts and “ Sabboths” to be kept together with watch and ward; “and it will be the worse for thee, O constable, if thou bringest not prisoners to the next assizes. There must be malignants near you in these times—Godless Cavaliers— whom it will be best to bind over, if not lock up.”
But this “ general order” is no stranger to modern ears than the particular orders applying in individual counties. We find orders (A.D. 1655) for moving the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal to “ amove ” two coroners of Wilts, and elect others,—“ a desire ”
72 Some Western Circuit Assize Records
to the Justices of Devon “att their next Quarter Sessions to take some speedy course for the re-payment to the High Sheriffe of the County of Devon a some of [money left in blank] or upwards, disbursed by him for to prepare a halle in the Castle of Exeter and fittings for the Assizes and Quarter Sessions to be kept.” These duties have long disappeared from the Assize.
Then follows an order interesting to lawyers, as shewing the old procedure in pauper settlement appeals. Under the statutes of Elizabeth, and of Philip and Mary three years’ residence in a parish gave a right of irremoveability to paupers. This order tells us “that the Court [of Assize] is informed that there is a difference betweene the inhabitants of Upton Pyne and St. Giles’, neere Torrington, both in this county [Devon], about the settlement of one John ffurseman a poore and impotent man att Upton Pyne aforesaid. This Court doth therefore desire the justices of the peace att the next quarter sessions to examine the said difference and end it if they cann. Butt iff they cannott compose it then to state the case and certifie the same to the judges at the next assizes to be holden for this county for their resolucion therein. Att which tyme the inhabitants of both places must attend that a fynall order may be made therein. And this Courte doth thinke fitt That ye p'rish on which the said settlement shall happen to be should reimburse all surcharges thatt th’ other parish hath been att about ye same.” The trial of these appeals has long since ceased to weary the Judges of Assize. They are decided at the Quarter Sessions, with the right of appeal to the Queen’s Bench, but only on points of law,
And now I find an order which tells us that Wiltshire was not, in the opinion of some, as well-behaved as it should be :—
“Wittrs. Att the Assizes and Generall Gaole delivery of the County Afore- said holden at New Sarum in the same County the one and twentieth day of July in the yeare of the Lord 1656 before William Steele Cheife Barron of the Publique Exchequer.
“Onthe fforasmuch as it appeareth to this Cort by the Grand Inquest att
Grand this Assizes. Juries That the constables of hundreds doe neglect theire duties in p'sentinge protm*. offences comitted w'*in theire hundreds, in regard That the petty Constables and Tything men doe make noe pr'sentmts unto them,
of the Seventeenth Century. 73
before the Assizes as anciently they have done and of right ought to doe, by meanes whereof many offenders oftn escape unpunished. It is therefore nowe ordered by this Court That all petty constables and Tythingmen w'in the sev’rall hundreds and lib'ties of this County shall from henceforth a ffortnight at least before any Assizes make their prsentments in writinge of all misdemean™ and offences comitted and done w'Yin their libties and tythinges w* are not punished, and carry the same prsentmts before the next Justice of the peace to be sworne unto it. And afterwards the said petty conbles and Tything men are to deliver the same present™* to the Constables of their hundreds before every Assizes, who are to deliver the same into the Gort with their owne presentmts, That proces may goe forth to call in the offenders to answere to their offences. And coppies of this order are to be sent to the Con of every hundred w'*in this County who are to publish the same in their hundreds before the next Assizes that p'sentments may be made accordingly.”
Penruddock and Grove had fallen, the fourteen Major-Generals, “those Dragons,” were out harrying the land. The above looks like a whisper of one of them dropped into the ear of the Chief Baron, and passed on by him to the Grand Jury. Such an order would increase the prevailing discontent, and may, amongst other things, have induced “ His Highness” once more to summon “ His Parliament,” which assembled “ for grievances ” on the 17th of September following.
Then at the same Assizes “ John Parker of Leigh, upon hearing of the matter in open court, it is ordered by his consent (?) that he shall take the apprentice, Edward Lewis, placed with him by the churchwardens and overseers of the poore with the consent of the Justices of the Place.”
Judges of assize have ceased to act in such matters, and also in the following.
Somerset Assizes, Chard,28th July,1656,before ChiefBaron Steele :
« fforasmuch as many useful lawes have been and are in force for the preservation of tymber notwithstandinge which many persons mindinge theire private lucre doe win the county distroy and grubb upp their woods w‘*out leavinge standolls _accordinge to Lawe and otherwise offende in destroyinge the same w® being
taken notice of and p'sented by the Grand Inquest for this County att this Assizes—This Cort doth refer and recomend a business of soe publique concern- ment to the Justices of peace att their next publique Q'. Sessions to consider how by such waies as they shall find just to encourage some ffitt p'sons to inquire out and prosecute accordinge to Lawe and Justice such as doe or shall offend in the p'misses.”
74 Some Western Circuit Assize Records
We remember that Somerset wsa Admiral Blake’s county. Can timber for the navy be wanted? If so, some two months after this there would be further interest in the matter; when news came of his capturing the Spanish treasure-fleet off Cadiz on the 9th of September, and the arrival of the Spanish plate at Portsmouth on its way to London. The Justices might fear that the whole county would be denuded in those days of Puritan simplicity. However that may be, the order does not relate to what we would have described as timber-trees, but only to pollards.
Then there is an order to enable “ the nowe-waymen” of War- minster to be reimbursed for monies expended by them in repairing their highways.
At Dorchester, March 18th, 1657, it appears that Thomas Erlebridge and William Ogle “ nowe remaininge in the gaole were very dangerous and suspicious people, this Cort [Mr. Justice Hugh Wyndham] orders that they be by the Sheriffe of this County carried from hence to Shaston [Shaftesbury] and there be whipt on their naked backes untill they bleede and from thence be sent from tything to tything by passes to the severall places of their birthes.”
At Chard (Somerset Assize) the Grand Jury present to John, Lord Glynne (Penruddock’s judge), “a great scarcity of corn, that there are so many maltsters that the barley in the market is so soon bought up, that the poor cannot but at extraordinary prices have any to serve their occasions, by reason whereof they are much damnified. The Cort refers the matter to the justices of peace of this County, and desires them to meet with all convenient speed ; and take such course for the suppressinge the multiplicity of those malsters and supplying the occasions of the poor as shall be agreeable to Jaw and justice.”” This old and widespread grievance, was ag gra- vated much by the Civil War, bad seasons, and perhaps now again by increase in population in certain districts where land transport was diffleult. I find from Mr. Hamilton’s book on Devon Quarter Sessions, that in Devon in 1630 malting was altogether prohibited by their Quarter Sessions, and I mentioned in my previous paper that this occurred also in Cornwall A.D. 1648. And at Easter Devon Sessions, 1649, a similar order was made which mentions a
of the Seventeenth. Century. 75
hard long winter, the necessities of the poor, all sober people abhorring the multitude of ale-houses and protesting against the unreasonable quantity of barley turned into malt which is wantonly and wickedly spent in such houses. Puritan justices would be ready to cut off the supplies of hostels where Cavaliers drank the King’s health and speedy return. But the Restoration put these matters on a different footing ; and at the summer assize, 15th September, 1660, at Salisbury, we find the judges—Sir Robert Foster and Sir Thomas Tyrrell—granting licenses for ale-houses to Phineas Haines, at Quarr House, Donhead; and to Francis Yerbury, at his house at Bradford. On the petition supporting the first I find the names of William and Richard Lush, so well known in that district.
It should be mentioned, too, that the orders, which had been written in English during the Commonwealth, are in Latin after the Restoration.
Then in the same assize at Dorchester, September 10th, 1660,
it is ordered that Sir John ffitzJames, Knight, Robert Coker, Esq., Thomas Moore, Esq., Walter ffoy, Esq., and Whiston Churchill, Esq., five of the Justices for the County, or any two of them, doe take care that ‘“‘The business concerninge the witchcraft and con- sultation with the Devill and Evill Spiritts in Sherborne bee with all speede examined,” and all concerned, and witnesses, to be bound over to appear at the next assize. - In 1662, July 15th, at Exeter, Sir Peter Prideaux, High Sheriff, informs the Court that the Lord Treasurer of England complains that the County is slow about paying the King’s contribution from the County—£12,060. The Commissioners, appointed by the Act for enabling the collection of the grant, are to meet in their several divisions and collect, or fine defaulters, and get all in by Ist September following.
16th August (no year, but next in book, probably same <Assize). Order to Mayor of Launceston to appear at the next Quarter Sessions to show cause why he should not apply some of the funds of St. Leonard’s Hospital, near Launceston, to the inmates of St. Lawrence Hospital. He is to bring his charter with him.
How changed is all this. Modern Courts of Assize would stare to
76 Some Western Circuit Assize Records
have such matters before them. And what would the Court of Chancery or the Charity Commissioners say ?
The Judges at Winchester, 1664, July 28th—Sir Matthew Hale one of them—are informed that Mr. Cromwell, lord of the manor of Merdon, Hants, upon the apprehension of one Rd. Wasteridge, seized some of his goods and ehattels. As Wasteridge is going to foreign plantations, Cromwell is ordered to give them up to him. This may be the quondam Lord Protector Richard Cromwell.
In Devon, at St. Thomas the Apostle (Exeter ?), the ale-house of John Mountstephen is suppressed, as Richard Penstone was convicted at the Assize, for the manslaughter of one Gilbert, the death occasioned by wrestling, the challenge for it made whilst they sat drinking there.
At the Summer Assize, Salisbury, July 8th, 1665, the High Sheriff is ordered to seize a black mare for the use of the King as a waif upon the flight of felony, Samuell Hooker and Charles Howe having been acquitted of the charge of highway robbery in stealing from John Harris the mare and 9s. Perhaps the mare was Harris’s after all! He might re-purchase it of the King! Now-a- days, on good cause shewn, the undivided half part might go to both Hooker and Howe!
At Wells two men are sent to gaol until they provide themselves with masters, or procure themselves to be sent to Jamaica!
Then appears again that dire calamity of those times—“ the Plague.” I have previously alluded to its occurrence in 1646, when it was at Salisbury and other places. An entry of 8th March, 1666, Winchester Assize, tells us that “Sir John Keelinge and Sir John Archer (complaint being made of the inhabitants of Alverstoke and Borough of Gosport being visited with it are unable to relieve the poor infected persons and others and are now fallen into great want by means thereof) do therefore desire Sir Thos Budd and Sir Humfrey Bennett Knights, Richard Norton, Bartholomew Price, John Stewkley, and William Collins, the Mayor and Justices of the Borough of Portsmouth or any two or more of them, forthwth to take care for their reliefe by rating the adjacent inhabitants according to the statute in that case made and provided. And also to
of the Seventeenth Century. 17
take care that a convenient place be had for the burying of the dead, it being alledged unto this Cort that the Churchyard is alwayes filled and also that watch and ward be duly kept for securing the neighbouring inhabitants and country round about them,” &c.
In the previous September, in London, ten thousand people were said to have died in one week.
In the following year (1667) there was no Spring Assize for Hants, but on the 1st March and July 20th I find an order at Salisbury Assize relating to the collecting of the rate for the relief of the poor infected persons in thatcity in the time of the late plague there.
At the Summer Assize, August, 1672, there is bitter complaint against one John Thorpe, Gaoler of Fisherton Anger, by the prisoners for debt, for “ preventing the use of the great courtyard of the prison in daytime; charging excessive rates for lodging in the common room, and not allowing their friends to relieve them, contrary to His Majesty’s late gracious Act of Parliament ; had exacted 2s. a week from those who sleep on the boards in the said greate roome; kept messengers with provisions waiting two and three hours at one time at the gate; stopped up a window whereby provisions have heretore been conveyed to your petitioners with much ease; destroyed the hearth of the prison rooms whereby no fire may be made; and by many other practices contrived subtily to distresse ye poore pe- titioners whose estates are consumed and health impaired so that for want of ayer and necessaries they must perish unlesse relieved by yr. Lordships.” They desire the above matters to be put to rights. Thomas Mompesson, Esq., Sir Richard How, Knight, William Swanston, and Alexander Thistlethwayte, Justices of peace of this County, or any two of them, have it referred to them to examine and to certify.
‘The next extract is one of interest. It tells of the abduction of an heiress named Johanna Mortimore. At present I have not been able to identify her or connect her family name with Compton Cumberwell, which is a property in the parish of Compton Bassett,
near Calne.!
1 See Aubrey and Jackson’s Wiltshire Collections, p. 42, and Rev. A.C. Smith’s Wiltshire Antiquities, p. 49.
78
Some Western Circuit Assize Records
It will be remembered that under the feudal law heiresses came of age and could marry on attaining fourteen years.
WILTES. Richard
Assizes New Sarum March 13 26 Car. II. Whereas Robert Maundrell of Compton Cumberwell in this’
Raynsford & County Gent was at the last Assizes held at the Cittie of New
William Swanston Esqs.
Sarum in and for this County indicted for the unlawfull taking away of one Johannz Mortimore about the age of twelve years in the highway shee being a person of a very considerable ffortune against the goodwill and consent of her the said Johanna Mortimore w said Indictment att this present Assizes came to bee tryed This Cort on Ex ,,.aination of Witnesses to prove the said Indictment and hear Counsell on both sides concerning the premisses after a long debate by consent of Parties on either side doth order that the said Robert Maundrell shall presently enter into a recognizance: of eight hundred pounds with this condition followeing, That the said Robert Maundrell shall and doe bring Johanna Mortimore before Thomas Bennett,Thomas Chamberlayne,and Jeffery Daniells Esquires Justices of the peace of this County on Wednesday in Easter weeke att the signe of the Bear in Marlborough or att anie other tyme as they the said Justices shall appointe and not en- deavour to marry or permit her to bee married in the meane tyme before whome she shall or may freely declare wth. whome and where (she) shall continue untill shee attaine the age of ffourteen years and that shee shall or may dispose of herself accordingly without the interruption or hindrance of him the said Robert Maundrell or by his meanes or Procurement, And further doe and shall stand to and abide such order for or concerning the charges the said Robert Maundrell hath beene att concerning the maintenance of her the said Johanna Mortimore as by the said Justices of the peace shall be then and there made weh. accordingly hee hath donne. And what charges hee the said Robert Maundrell shall make appeare to the said Justices that he hath really dis- bursed for and towards the maintenance schooling and education and other necessary conveniences of and for the said Johanna Mortimore they the said Justices are to allow him the said Robert Maundrell in such order as they the said Justices pursuant to the said Recognizance shall make and settle to be paid in such manner, and forme as they shall direct andappointe. And they are hereby desired to [report to] this Cort att the next Assizes what they have donne in and about the Premisses.”
There may be, perhaps, some romance about the custody of the fair Johanna, as she was “ taken ” in the highway. Eight hundred pounds was a large sum for bail in those days.
The next is a sentence to death for poisoning. A similar burning’
LE ——_——
of the Seventeenth Century. 79
of the body after execution at Dorchester, A.D. 1705, may be re- membered, when ten thousand people are said to have assembled to witness it in the Amphitheatre at that place. There is a distinction made between the principal felon and the accessory ; the body of the
latter is not to be burnt.
“ DEVON. Exeter Assizes, March 10th, 1676. Ann Evans an apprentice indicted and conved. of poisoning her Master’s wife and daughter, one Phillippa Carey wife of Robert Carey being conved. of being accessory before and after ye fact at Plymouth a populous towne, and Exen. there will be of publique example That they bee excd. in some convenient place in the towne neare where the sd. psons were poisoned and murdered Ann Evans to be drawne on a hurdle to the place where she shall bee executed and there to bee burnt to death. And the said Phillippa Carey to be hanged on a Jibbett to be set upp for that purpose by yee necke untill shee bee dead. And the Under Sheriffe of this County his deputy is hereby required to see this order punctually performed in every particular as hee will answere the contrary att perill. And *They—Mr. yee day for the same execution to bee Thursday in Easter Weeke Weekes (The being the thirtyeth day of this instant March between ye howers Master) or of tenn and two of the Clock. But if they* shall fayle to undertake the Magis- before Haster to defray the extraordinary expenses thereof the sd. trates of | Execution is to bee donne att the tyme aforesaid in the ordinary Plymouth. place for Execution of malefactors in ye said County of Devon.”
With two more I must conclude. And here, too, we note again the absence of the touch of the vanished hand of a past procedure, whilst several of the descendants of the Justices survive amongst our present Magistracy.
“ SoMERSET. Taunton Wed. March 17th 1676. Upon the psentment of the Grand Inquest for the County aforesaid made att the Assizes concerning an house built at Pawlos Street in Taunton for the meeting of Dissenters from the Church of England to the encouragement of faction and contrary to a late
Act of Parlt. The Cort recommends presnt. to J. P. at next Qr. Sessions to bee holden after the feast of Easter.”
“Wires. New Sarum July 15 1676.—Richard Raynsford and Humfrye Littleton. Complaynts about the Overseers accounts for the Parish of Calne Cort desires St Thomas Estcourte, Thomas Bennett, Thomas Chamberlayne, Robert Drew, Nevill Maskeline, Jeffery Daniell and John Sharpe Seven of his Majesties’ Justices of the Peace for the County aforesaid or any three or more to enquire into the matter.
. Circuit Order Book No. 3, 1652—1679.
80
Che Buried Palwesoic Arocks of CMiltshire. By W. Hewarp Bett, F.G.S,
AN putting together the following few remarks on the more 2 &\ ancient rocks of Wiltshire in the form of a short geological history of the older and newer strata that we have passed over to-day, I remember that we are a Natural History as well as an Archeological Society, so that a geological discourse—although, perhaps, rather dry—will not be altogether out of place, for archw- ology really begins where geology ends.
A remarkable instance of this merging of the one into the other occurs in our own county in the drifts near Salisbury. And although the geological record is necessarily very imperfect, still the history of the rocks is written in very clear language for those who are able and willing to read it. Though not written in such accurate details as the history of those interesting buildings we have visited to-day, and which has been read to us by Mr. Ponting from the stones of which they are built, this is an attempt to interpret the still older and not less interesting history of the formation of the various rocks that lie under our feet, and to discuss the probability of that most valuable of the “ buried rocks ”—coal —being found below those newer rocks upon which we stand; a subject which must, I think, be of considerable interest to all of us.
In the first place an explanation of the accompanying maps and diagrams will probably lead to an easier understanding of the remarks that follow.
Section A. is a vertical section of the rocks that would be passed through if a well was sunk in the neighbourhood of Westbury, with the names of the different formations belonging to what is called the newer or neozoic series. Section B. is a rather more problematic section, but it shows the succession of the older palzozoic rocks below the newer or upper series—in fact the buried rocks; this
™ M
“0a A
fy il
me
14
ii
D
UF
_MAP II.—Gerocrarny or Tue Liss anv Inrertor Oouire.
a aa
erie
;
A
iin,
(ai)
AN
MAP II1.—Creraczous Grocraray (SHOWING THE PROBABLE COASI
LINE DURING THE FORMATION or THE Uprer Green SAND).
The Buried Paleozoic Rocks of Wiltshire. 81
however, is not such plain sailing, and you will see that although Section B is placed under Section A., and although the rocks really do underlie those of the upper section, yet the beds are differently inclined, and do not follow the upper rocks or each other in the same regular way. To this point I want particularly to call your attention, since it has an important bearing on the position of the coal measures and their relations to the overlying strata, as also to probability of their being found under Westbury or not. The inclination, or dip, and succession of the upper rocks in Section A. we know from finding them at the surface, and from the evidence of wells, bore-holes, &c., which have been made in them from time to time. But the relative position and inclination of the beds in Section B. are matters of inference, not of observation, and conse- quently are far less certain. Of their existence before the newer rocks were laid over them there is no doubt, but which of them occur under any particular spot, aud how much of them remain, is quite another matter.
C. is a section across the country from Westbury to Vallis Vale, near Frome, and represents the structure that might be made visible if a long and deep trench could be cut through the earth’s crust along this line. Here the upper rocks (neozoic) are seen deposited in regular order and sequence, all with the same inclination, or dip, while the lower (palzeozoic) show a different inclination and are very irrevular. These upper and lower beds having no regular sequence and apparently no relative connection with each other, are said, in geological language, to be unconformable.
The three maps, marked respectively I., II., and III. (which Mr. Jukes Brown, F.G.S., of the Geological Survey, has kindly placed at my disposal, being taken from his work, “The Building of the British Isles”), are intended to show the geography of the British Islands at the different geological periods named on the maps; the part coloured with blue lines being the ancient seas, the uncoloured portions the then existing land; while the faint red lines show the _ present outline of the land.
- I must now go back to the close of paleozoic time—to that period which is called Triassic or Permian. ‘This commenced after a long VoL. XXV.—NO, LXXIIL G
82 The Buried Paleozoic Rocks of Wiltshire.
period of quiescence, when by a gradual and quiet subsidence with occasional periods of rest the paleozoic rocks, the lowest series on Section C., were deposited ; the last of them to be deposited being the carboniferous or coal measures. The Triassic period, which immediately followed, was one of disturbance and change; the carboniferous lands were broken up, some parts being converted into sea, others into land surfaces; and one of these Triassic land tracts seems to have run through Wiltshire, for no Triassic roeks have been found either in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, or Somersetshire. In the northern part of England large inland salt lakes or seas were formed, and over the intervening ridges and watersheds rain and rivers cut their way and carved out hills and valleys in the carbon- iferous strata. How long this state of things lasted we cannot say, but at any rate long enough for the removal of immense quantities of rock material.
Towards the end of this period a fresh set of disturbances began, resulting in upheavals and dislocations of the older strata, bending them into curves, and forming those great troughs and basins we find in the coal measures at the present time, represented by the curved appearance of the beds of the lower series of rocks on Section C. These movements quite altered the configuration of the older rocks at the surface, and especially led to the formation of a large continent extending over all the northern, central, and western portions of Europe. This was the Triassic continent, and it was during this long land or continental period that the older rocks assumed the shape and form that is roughly represented in Section C. They were wasted and washed away by the continued action of the atmosphere, rivers, and other forces of Nature until they finally assumed the forms (problematic of course) shown on Section C., after which they became the bottom of an ocean and had the newer rocks, or upper series, as shown on the same section, deposited on them. And this long period of time when these various agencies were at work removing the old land surfaces, and re-depositing the débris elsewhere explains clearly, I trust, the great break both in time and in the continuity of life which is denoted by the un- comformability of the strata.
23
ee Section A Chalk AS A CRETACEOUS : : ROCKS i C. JURASSIC ROCKS D. E
Whiteman & Bass Zithe London.
ae eee eS ee eee, lee
A. Section B
Limestone Millstone Coal Grit Measures
1 i 1 1 1 i] ! ' f {
1
SECT DON ROM VANES VALE NEAR FROME TO WESTBURY.
Ww Alice River 7 Vale near Frome
by Dilton. Marsh LE Road E f Sof Westbury
LLL
Carbonvferous Limestone
dN5 B. C D. E os . [| ] 3 Chalk Gault & Fullers Barth Trias Greensand Clays & Great Ool.
Witesas & Bane lithe London,
By W. Heward Bell, P.GS. 83
I will now try to trace the events which led to the covering up of these older rocks, and resulted in their becoming “ the Buried Rocks of Wiltshire” (shown in Section C.).
Eventually in that part of the Continent, where our Islands now stand, several large salt lakes were formed, which were gradually enlarged until they became inland seas, like the Caspian; at the bottom of these seas or lakes were laid down the great beds of salt, which we find to this day in Cheshire and Worcestershire; but no salt is found in Wilts or Somerset. The Mendips stood out as
-an island in this lake or sea, and round their flanks the shores of the sea formed shingle beaches, which, during the lapse of ages, becoming conglomerates, still bear silent witness to the very different aspect they bore in that bye-gone time, while further from those shores sand and marl were deposited which are now the lowest neozoic strata in Wilts and Somerset, and are represented by the lowest beds in the series on the Sections A. and C. The geographical conditions are shown in Map L.,, a large salt lake or inland sea lying over the greater portion of England with the Mendips standing out as an island.
These deposits, formed at the bottom of this sea or lake, are, as
said before, the beginning of the secondary, or Neozoic period, and are called the Triassic Rocks. It is in these newer or Triassic rocks that the break referred to occurs.
These Triassic rocks are also extremely interesting from the fact that the first relics of mammalian life are found in them, being the fossil remains of small marsupials.
Continuing the history of the burial of the paleozoic strata we come to the Jurassic series, consisting of lias, oolite, and Oxford clays. By reference to maps I. and II. it will be seen that a
_ gradual subsidence of the land surfaces had taken place, leading to a connection between these inland seas and the open sea lying _ to the south; consequently oceanic and marine forms of life now _ appear, at least we now find their fossilized remains; but there ig no break, as in the previous change, from one series of rockg to another, the change from the Triassic to the Jurassic being ~ gradual. . G 2 a
r
84 The Buried Paieozoie Rocks of Wiltshire.
In these formations we find thick clays, shales, great masses of marine corals, limestone, and sandstone, some of which are well known from their commercial value all over the world as Bath, Bradford, Box, and Corsham building-stones, and are found and largely worked in the neighbourhood.
After probably a very long period of further subsidence, termi- nating in the laying down of the Kimmeridge Clay, a reverse movement set in. A large amount of land began to appear with small lakes in the north, while in a deep sea to the south the Portland Limestone (so well known as a building stone), was being deposited, and the materials brought down by the river system of the northern continent were being laid down as the Purbeck and Wealden formations, containing the remains of land animals, fresh water shells, &c.
At the end of this continental period another great subsidence took place, resulting in the conditions shown in map III., which shows the probable line of the sea-coast during the formation of the green sand. The great mass of clay, which we know as gault, must have been formed from the débris of the carboniferous rocks of Wales, probably brought down by rivers flowing into an estuary on the west and distributed on the floor of the ocean at its mouth. The shores and bottom of this sea gradually sank and the sea gained on the land until it probably reached Ireland, and only the largest mountains of Wales were uncovered, standing out as small islands in the great “ Chalk Ocean,” in the deep quiet waters of which the countless remains of small animals falling on the bottom gradually built up those enormous masses of chalk, which extend so far, and of which our well-known downs are the remains. To complete the history I ought, perhaps, to tell you something of the processes by which the palzozoic rocks of the Mendips have been uncovered again by the removal of the chalk which so long overspread them, but it is too long a story to enter upon now.
Having thus roughly, and I fear in no very scientific manner, traced the history of the rocks from the old Palzozoic continent to those we now stand on, I should like to say a word or two on the important bearing these old rocks have upon us now in the present
—— ee
ee a or
By W. Heward Bell, #.G.8. 85
or future. The most important point I wish to bring under your notice is the question as to whetber or not coal is to be found in the neighbourhood of Westbury. Of the existence of the older, or Paleozoic, rocks under our feet there can be no doubt, but as to: the existence of coal that is another matter. The central axis of the Mendips, shows an inclination to trend round to the north through Frome; and if the high dips west of Frome continue there is a probability that the millstone grits and lower coal measures may roll in under Westbury, but, as I have before ex- plained, a doubt as to their position must remain, which can only be settled by actual boring or trial. Such a trial bore was made some time ago at Witham Hole, four miles south of Frome, which passed through the Oxford Clay, cornbrash, and forest marble, to the depth of 600ft., when it was stopped; had they bored twice that depth, or even to 1000ft., the coal measures might have been reached. Nor is this the only trial that has been made in the past ; a boring was commenced at Trowbridge, but abandoned on account of water ; another attempt, as far back as 1815, was made to sink to the lower rocks at Melksham, but this was also defeated by water at a depth of some 351ft. or thereabouts, after the cornbrash, or Kelloway Rocks, had been reached. But when the near exhaustion of our present coal-fields becomes imminent, more effectual trials no doubt will be made to find workable coal seams below the newer rocks.
In conclusion may I add that, apart from the economic side of the question, the study of geology is worth following for its own sake, giving a new interest to those who live in the country and care to observe the things around them,
It is anything but a dry subject, although 1 fear that my discourse may itself have been rather of that nature.
86
dames Hey, Garl of Atarlborongh.
By the Rev. W. P. S. Binenam.
N looking over the Church this afternoon, we must all have observed in the south transept the monument erected to the memory of James, first Earl of Marlborough, with effigies of himself and his first wife. It is a stately tomb, and the question invariably asked by strangers is:—‘ What relation was that Earl to the Dukes of Marlborough?” The most usual answer is:— “None at all;” but this is not strictly true, as this Harl was great ‘uncle by marriage to the Hero of Blenheim ; and the earldom had become extinct by the death of the fourth earl without issue, just ten years before the future duke was created Earl of Marlborough, There can, therefore, be but little doubt that Churchill chose this this title to perpetuate the memory of the “ Good Earl” who is buried in Westbury Church. This monument, erected by Henry, the second Earl, bears an inscription! which tells us more about the occupant of that tomb
1 Inscription of monument in Westbury Church :— “D.0.MS.
“Hic in pace requiescunt ossa et cineres D! Jacosr Ley, Equestris ordinis viri, et Baronetti, Filii Henrici Ley de Teffont Evias Ar: natu sexti, qui juvenis, Jurisprudentiz studiis mancipatus, virtute meruit ut per omnes gradus ad summum togate laudis fastigium ascenderet. Regii in Hibernia Banci Justiciarius sufficitur capitalis, et in Angliam revocatus, fit Pupillorum Procurator Regius. Dein Primarius in Tribunali Regio Justitiarius, que munia postquam magnd cum integritatis laude administrasset, illum Jacobus Rex Baronis Ley de Ley, (su familie in agro Devon. antiqua sede,) titulo ornavit, in sanctius adscivit concilium, Summumque Anglie Thesaurarium constituit, et Rex Carolus Marzipricit Comitis Auctario honoravit Regisque concilii instituit Preesidem.
“Uxorem duxit Mariam filiam Johannis Perrry, de Stock Talmage, Oxon. Com., Ar. (cujus corpus juxta ponitur) ex qua numerosam prolem procreavit, Henricum nune Marlbrigii Comitem, Jacobum, Gulielmum, Elizabetham,Annam, Mariam, Dionysiam, Margaretam, Hesteram, Martham, Pheben ; qua conjuge fato functé Mariam despondit Gul. Bowrer Equitis Aurati viduam, post cujus obitum Janz, Domini Botteler filie enupsit, ex quibus nullam prolem suscepit.
“lta Vir iste quem ad gravem prudentiam finxit natura, et doctrina excoluit,
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James Ley, Earl of Marlborough,=1. Mary, daughter of 2. Mary, widow of 3. Jane, daughter d. 1628.
John Pettey, of Sir William Bow- of John, Lord Stoke Talmage. yer. Butler.
] ] | | ] i > ] | | Henry,=Mary, James, d, William, 4th =—— Hewett. Kliz.=Morice Casant, Aun.=Sir Walter Long, Mary.=R. Enery, Dionysia.=John Harrington, Margaret.=Capt. Hobson. Hsther.=Arthur Fuller, Martha, Phabe.———Biggs, 2nd > dau.of unmar., Earl, d.s.p. of Toomer, of Drayeot. of Enery, of Kilmington. of Bradfield. d. un- of Hearne, Earl, Sir A, 1618. 1679. Somerset. Cornwall. mar. Bucks. 4.1638. | Capel.
James, 3rd Earl, killed June 8rd,
1665, unmar,
Extract From Prpicrer or Ley anp Cuurcuitt.
Lord Butler, of Bramfield.
| I James, Earl of Marlborough.=Jane. Ellen.=Sir J. Drake, of Ash.
Sir Winslow Churchill.= Elizabeth.
John, Duke of Marlborough.
James Ley, Larl of Marlborough. 87
than it is the custom to do in these days, and I must say that I think the archeologist of two hundred years hence will regret the banishment from our Churches of epitaphs and heraldic devices. They are contributions to history which will be much missed in coming generations. This epitaph records that James Ley was the sixth son of Henry Ley, of Teffont Evias, who, having in his youth applied himself to the study of the law, by the greatness of his merits passed through all its stages until he reached its highest rank. After having served as Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench in Ireland, he was made Attorney-General of the Court of Wards and Liveries, from which he was promoted to the office of Lord Chief Justice of England. He wasa knight and baronet. James I. made him Baron Ley, of Ley, in Devonshire, and Lord Treasurer, and by Charles I. he was advanced to the earldom of Marlborough, and made Lord President of the Council. He was three times married. His first wife was Mary, daughter of John Petty, of Stoke Talmage, in Oxfordshire. and by her he had issue three sons and eight daughters. After her death he married Mary, widow of Sir William Bowyer; and lastly Jane, daughter of Lord Butler, of Bramfield, by neither of whom he had any issue. He died at Lincolns Inn, the place he loved the most, on the 14th of March, 1628.
The outline of his life is thus recorded on his tomb, and if all epitaphs were as explicit, it would be more easy than it often is to write the histories of great men of former generations. His father, Henry Ley, belonged to an ancient Devonshire family, the Leys of Canon’s Ley, in Bere Ferrers, but he appears to have removed from his native county, and established himself at Teffont Evias. He must have been a man of considerable means, since he fought at the head of his own men at the siege of Boulogne. James was his
(sam ifn allies ai Mies
_ (publicis usque ad declivem «etatem Magistratibus bene functis) senio confectus, - animam de patrid optime meritam placidé morte Deo reddidit, Londini, in Hospitio Lincoln. sibi ante omnia dilectissimo, Mart. xiiii. Anno Salutis M.DC.XXVIII.
“Henricus, Marlbrigii Comes, optimis Parentibus hoc, pro munere extremo, - monumentum uberibus lacrimis consecravit.
88 James Ley, Earl of Marlborough.
youngest son. We do not know where he received the rudiments of his education, but in 1569, when he was about seventeen, he matriculated at B. N. C. at Oxford. It is probable that he was intended for the clerical profession, for his father was patron of Teffont Evias, to which, when it became vacant in 1569, he nomi- nated his son, James, who held the living until he resigned it in 1576.1
Aubrey mentions this, and says that Mr. Ash, of Teffont, has his institution and induction, and supposes that the butler mast have read the prayers whilst the Vicar was studying, first at Oxford, and then at Lincolns Inn. Canon Jackson cannot understand how such an abuse as the presentation of a youth of seventeen, who, of course, was not in holy orders, could have happened. Such abuses were common before the Reformation. William of Wykeham successively held three prebendal stalls in Salisbury Cathedral, besides other preferment, whilst he was only an acolyte; and Henry VIII. pro- vided for the education of Reginald Pole, afterwards Cardinal and Archbishop of Canterbury, by making him Dean of Exeter whilst still a youth. That the Reformation did not at once correct all these abuses appears from a sermon preached by Bishop Jewel, in which he denounces the misuse of Church patronage which was frequently made; “A gentleman,” he says, “ cannot keep a house unless he have a parsonage or two to farm in his possession.” Minutes of a license are in existence in Archbishop Laud’s handwriting, em- powering a youth, who bore the title of Dr. Tucker and Vicar of Old Windsor, to read divine service, although he was not in deacon’s orders nor twenty years of age. There is some doubt whether George Herbert was even a deacon when he was appointed to the Vicarage
1That such abuses were connived at by dispensations in the reign of Queen Elizabeth is evident from Archbishop Grindal’s account of his Court of Faculties made to the Queen and Council, in which it is observed : —“ Dispensations for a minor (as he is termed, that is, for one whose age forbids ordination) are not granted to any, but to those who at the least are sixteen years old and are resident students in the Universities.” The Archbishop proposed to abolish dispensations for children and young men under age to take ecclesiastical promotions. Strype Grind , p. 302. Remains of Abp. Grindal, Parker Society, p. 450.
By the Rev. W. P. 8. Bingham. 89
of Bemerton—certainly he was not a priest. It is, therefore, possible that the patron of Teffont may have appointed his son to the vacant vicarage to defray the cost of his education, and employed some neighbouring curate to perform the service. It may have been done in the dond fidé belief that James Ley would enter holy orders, and himself in time fulfil the duties of his office, but when this course was abandoned, and his son turned his attention to the law, the living of Teffont was conscientiously resigned in 1576.
From Oxford James Ley went to Lincolns Inn, where he was called to the bar, and served the office of Lent Reader. Lord Campbell, in his “ Lives of the Chief Justices,” speaks rather disparagingly of his legal attainments, and intimates that his promotion was rather due to his courtly manners than his learning, and that he became serjeant-at-law in 1603, with a view to increasing his practice, but that still his briefs were few. It was Lord Campbell who said that he never went the Western Circuit without strengthening his persuasion that the wise men came from the East, and therefore we ean scarcely expect that he would write the life of a Wiltshireman, whose ancestors came from Devonshire, without a strong and un- favourable prejudice. There are some facts which do not look as if he was a briefless barrister. He had been six years in Parliament, representing the Borough of Westbury, when he became a serjeant, and in the same year he was knighted. We must remember that he was a younger son, and did not succeed to his patrimony by the death of all his elder brothers until four years after this. Moreover he must have had a residence here in Westbury as well as in London, for he was married, and his eldest son, the second earl, was baptised in Westbury Church in 1595.
His colleague in the representation of Westbury was Matthew Ley, his elder brother, who presented the seal of the borough to the corporation in 1574, By the time the two brothers sat together for Westbury, one at least must have been a man of considerable local influence. Heywood had been bought. It is said that the house was built by James, but it may been commenced by the elder brother, Matthew, and only completed by him. Sir R. C. Hoare thinks that it was purchased either from the St. Maurs or from the
90 James Ley, Earl of Marlborough.
family of William of hint a former Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
In 1605, two years after he had become a serjeant, Sir James vacated his seat for Westbury on his being appointed Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in Ireland. Lord Campbell says that this was nothing better than the office of Chief Justice of Jamaica would be at the present time, but in saying this he takes no account of the exceptional circumstances under which Sir James Ley was sent to Ireland. King James had determined to civilize Ireland by the introduction of English law. Hitherto the laws of England . had no force beyond the English pale. Beyond this, ancient custom took the place of law, and amongst the ancient customs were many which prevented the progress of the nation. There was one especially which destroyed all fixity of tenure. The land of a Sept was held to be the common property of its members, and was allotted to each by its chieftain, and whenever one died the land was thrown into common again and a fresh allotment made. No one, therefore, was interested in improving land which any day might pass to another member of the Sept. The introduction of a law of in- heritance would give plenty of employment to law courts, which would have to decide between rival claims. Vast estates in Ulster had been confiscated after the rebellion of Desmond, Earl of Tyrone, and although Royal grants were freely made, some other claims arose, especially respecting lands which had formerly belonged to the Church. Naturally, therefore, would King James look out not only for a sound lawyer, but for a man whose high principle would enforce respect for his decisions ; and such a man was found in Sir James Ley.
The King seems to have been very desirous that the Lord Chief Justice of Ireland should be a man of the highest character, for on his going over he charged him “ not to build an estate on the ruins of a miserable nation; but by the impartial execution of justice, not to enrich himself, but to civilize the people.” Sir James Ley might have found ample opportunity of founding an estate for himself, as most other English emigrants did at this time, but he faithfully kept the King’s charge, which was endorsed by his own conscience.
By the Rev. W. P. 8. Bingham. 91
Whilst he was in Ireland the administration of justice was not the only thing which engaged his attention. As a true archzologist he studied the history of the past with a view to the advancement of the future. He collected the annals of John Clynne, a friar minor of Kilkenny, and the annals of Rosse and Clonmell. All these he caused to be transcribed, but his professional engagements prevented their preparation for the press. They afterwards fell into the hands of Henry, Earl of Bath. Extracts from them are in the Dublin College Library, but the original will probably be found at Longleat. Sir James Ley also wrote some treatises on heraldry and antiquarian subjects, which are included in Hearue’s Collections in the Bodleian Library. These collections are in one hundred and forty-five MS. volumes, and as selections from them are being published by the Oxford Historical Society, under the editorship of Mr. Doble, of Worcester, it may be hoped that some of them may yet see the light.
Sir James did not long hold the office of Lord Chief Justice of Treland, for the King found that he had need of him at home. The work which he had lent his aid to accomplish was so successful that, according to Sir John Davis, in the space of nine years greater advances were made towards the reformation of Ireland than in the four hundred and forty years, which had elapsed since its first conquest.
The