Alice More was Prioress of Kington in 1431. Aubrey says it belonged to Kington Priory, but in the Schedule of the Estates of that House, only a field or two appear under this name. In 1700 it belonged to a Mr. Chapman; and in 1856 it was bought from the family of Burt by the late Mr. Neeld. LANGLEY, OTHERWISE KINGTON LANGLEY. This hamlet is scattered over the high ground which forms the south east side of the Parish, and is traversed by 30 acres of common forming a pretty village green, skirted by farms, cottages, and gardens, and commanding an extensive view. The name of the Parish is prefixed to that of the hamlet, in order to distinguish it from Langley Burrell adjacent. Sometimes, for the same reason, it was called North Langley. It has been already stated (p. 37,) that 30 households with their land were given here by the Anglo-Saxon King Edmund the Elder, to his officer Wilfric, about A.D. 940. The grant, which is a fair specimen of the style used in old monastic charters, (or at least in documents pretending to be such,) runs thus in translation:— "+0 Cross! that rulest over all Olympus, glorious foundation of the Throne of CHRIST our Lord, my Alpha and Omega, bless with thy mark the beginning, middle, and end of this writing. More brilliant than the stars and holier than all other gifts in the sight of CHRIST, thou hast endowed with largest privileges the Royal House of Edmund King of the Anglo-Saxons. This, Wilfric enriched by Sovereign bounty, is able to proclaim with truth, so that by the characters of this writing to all it may be made known:viz., that the said King, under favour of God, in the nine hundred and fortieth year since the Virgin Mother presented her Divine progeny to the world waiting for the Holy Spirit, and in the second year of his reign, endows the said Wilfric with 30 tenements at Langley to himself and his heirs. . . . Let all therefore now ponder the wise saying of a Christian writer, 'Render O ye rich, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the thing that are God's. Do works of piety and justice and you set an example to the Catholic Church.' Confirmed by King Edmund to Archbishop Wulfhelm at the well known place called Chippenham." By this favourite, on whom Grittleton and Nettleton were also bestowed, Langley was transferred to Glastonbury Abbey. LANGLEY FITZURSE, OR FITZURSE FARM. Under the Abbey a portion of Langley was held at the Conquest by Urso, founder of the Fitzurse family, who also held under the same Lords, Clapcote in Grittleton, and Swinley above mentioned, by service and payment of scutage. In 1221 his descendant Jordan Fitzurse, tired of paying scutage, and wishing to make his estate independent of the Monks, resisted their claim, but finally submitted. Some Deeds (copied by Aubrey) refer to transactions between this family and the Abbey, touching certain mills and ponds; and now and then a quarrel with the neighbouring lord of Langley Burrell about boundaries and rights of feeding. From whatever other amiable qualities the Fitzurse family may have derived its name, a good affection towards Churchmen clearly was not one of them, if it is true, as always has been stated, that Reginald of that ilk was one of the assassins of Thomas á Becket. Their principal tenement here is still recognized in the name of Fitzurse farm, now an ordinary house on the north side of the village green, but formerly one of greater pretension. In Aubrey's time it was an ancient building with a great hall; and a moat, of which there are some traces. In Edward VI. it had passed into the hands of Thomas Montagu, one the Abbot's tenants; and from his representative William Montagu, Esq., it was bought about 1580 by Sir Owen Hopton, Kt., of a Suffolk family, Lieutenant of the Tower. It came to Sir Ralph Hopton of Witham Friary, Co. Som., created, for his loyalty to Charles I., Baron Hopton of Stratton, Co. Cornwall. He died 1 Proceedings in Chancery, vol. II., p. 18. in a suit by Wm. Montagu against Sir Thomas Tasburgh and others, to discover deeds relating to this property, which had been settled (by Thomas Montagu) on him and his brothers. 2 Sir Ralph was nearly blinded by an explosion of gunpowder at Marshfield after the battle of Lansdown; and was carried to Chippenham and thence to Devizes. in 1652 leaving no children; and his uncle Sir Arthur Hopton, on whom the Barony was entailed, having predeceased him, his (Sir Arthur's) four sisters became his coheiresses,' from whom, or from whose representatives, it was bought in the middle of the 17th century by Mr. Bampfield Sydenham. From him it descended to the late Mr. Sydenham Bailey, to whose children it now belongs. The greater part of the Glastonbury lands in Langley, now belong to Mr. Walter Coleman, whose ancestor obtained them by marriage with one of the representatives of one of the three sisters of Sir Charles Snell, the grantee at the Dissolution; as already mentioned. In 1765 an estate in Langley belonging to Mrs. Maynard, who then resided at the old Manor House in Kington, was purchased from her Trustees, Charles Viscount Maynard, Dr. Thomas [Bishop of Winchester], and the Rev. Wm. Butler, by Sir James Long of Draycot. This is now the property of Viscount Wellesley. A property of the Gingells, customary tenants under the Abbey in 1273, was sold in 1664 (being then worth £100 a year) to Samuel Martin. At the Dissolution a large part of Langley, called "The Heath," was unenclosed. It is named in Abbot Beere's Terrier, as measuring 310 acres and was common both to the Abbey tenants and the owner of Fitzurse Farm. ST. PETER'S CHAPEL, KINGTON LANGLEY. This stood about the middle of the village, on the north side of the road: but had been converted into a dwelling before 1670. In Abbot Beere's Terrier (1517), it is stated that the wardens of St. Peter's Chapel at Langley, held of the Abbey for 90 years half an acre of ground, paying 2d. a year. The village Revel used in old times to be kept on the Sunday following St. Peter's Day (29th June), and was, Aubrey says, "one of the eminentest Feasts in those parts. Old John Wastfield of Langley told him that he had been Peterman at St. Peter's Chapel in So the Peerage. But the Wilts Visitation, 1623, (see Mary a daughter of Sir Arthur Hopton, and widow of who married William Butler of Langley, son of Thomas Bremhill. "Butler,") mentions Gurney, of Co. Som., Butler of Hanger, in E the beginning of Q. Elizabeth's reign." The "Peterman" seems to have been the person chosen by the parish at the festival of the Dedication of the Chapel, to collect money for charitable purposes. Such was the primitive custom at the yearly village feast, founded probably on a still more ancient precept: "Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared." [Nehem. viii. 10.] These rural meetings, when dissociated from the religious character, lost one element of respectability; and a Wake or Revel (from the French reveiller, to waken), signifying originally a vigil, or night-fast, observed before the day of Dedication, is now obliged to be defined in our dictionaries, as a feast with loose and noisy jollity. Sometimes it leads to worse, and in the year 1822 Kington Langley Revel was the occasion of, what Aubrey might have called, one of the eminentest riots in those parts. Some offence having been given to the villagers at the feast by a party of young men from Chippenham, several meetings were afterwards held for the purpose of planning revenge, and it was ultimately resolved that a grand attempt should be made on the 7th of September. Accordingly in the course of that evening about 30 or 40 men assembled at Chippenham, and about halfpast 10 o'clock commenced their outrage by appearing in the street armed with bludgeons, and attacking all who came in their way; Mr. Joseph Hall, a saddler, was so severely bruised as to expire within a few hours. Mr. Reynolds, a brazier, died shortly afterwards. Constables were knocked down and beaten, and in short not less than thirty-one men, women, and children were more or less wounded. The hamlet contains a population of about 600 and is a mile and a half from the Parish Church. This distance from Clerical superintendence and the wholesome discipline of Church and School, having been found to produce the usual ill effect of ignorance and irreligion, testified by numerous and increasing cases brought before magistrates and boards of guardians, as well as by Sabbath breaking and irregularities of various kinds, the attention of the neighbourhood was called to the subject in the 1853. By the exertions of some gentlemen, and especially Mr. E. L. year |