common story, but the fact is, that the square tower was added to the Church by an Archdeacon Polton, of a family in the parish, as an inscription testifies.

There is a prevailing notion at Wanborough that once upon a time there were a great many churches in it. Some of the more ambitious of the village patriarchs will insist that they once had thirty-two! and as the number, like Falstaff's men in buckram, continues to grow larger and larger, it may be time to enquire upon what this tradition is founded. The number of endowed churches that have been in any parish in this county, during the last 600 years or so, is easily ascertained by simply referring to the records. of the diocese. Now these, within that period, only show Presentations, either to the parish Church, or to a Chapel of St. Katharine. The former is still there, but the latter has been lost sight of for nearly 400 years, and there is much doubt as to where it stood. It is commonly supposed to have been the small projection on the North side of Wanborough Church. But there are reasons for thinking that it must have been a separate Church altogether. St. Katharine's Chapel was a foundation of the Longespée family, to whom the manor belonged. It was augmented with a second endowment by one John de Wambergh, canon of Wells, and the two endowments together were very nearly equal to that of the Vicarage of Wanborough in those days. There were three Priests belonging to it; viz. the chief, called Custos, and two chaplains. There was more than one altar, and it had choir. All this seems to imply a building of more importance than the very small appendage to the church.

St. Katharine's descended with the Longespée property to the Lords Lovell, and in 1483, Francis Lord Lovell, already alluded to, sold it to Bishop Waynflete, who gave it to Magdalen College, Oxon. That College has now a considerable estate in Wanborough. It was evidently a chapel for the use of the Lords of the Manor when residing at Wanborough. Of course, the College not wanting it for such purpose, it went to decay. It probably stood where the house of the Lovells was, at a spot called Court Close.

There was also in Wanborough another Mansion-house, called

Hall-place, where dwelt the family of Archdeacon Polton, who built the church tower. Aubrey was informed that, annexed also to that house had been a Chapel, dedicated to St. Ambrose. I have never met with any other reference to this. But as the site of Hall-place is in a field still called Ambrose field, it is possible that the tradition may have been true. If so, here would be another clergyman. This, with the three at St. Katharine's and the Vicar of the parish, would make five endowed clergymen in Wanborough in former times.

These particulars may, perhaps, help to clear up the tradition about so many Churches.

Near Nythe, or as it used to be called, the Nighs, have been at times discovered a great many marks of Roman occupation. These have been already alluded to. In the year 1689, some men making a ditch on a common near Wanborough, found an earthen vessel, containing nearly 2000 Roman coins, none of them later than Commodus, A.D. 192.

A little to the East of Nythe Bridge is a place called Lot Mead. This is a name for a field, that often occurs in Wiltshire parishes; but at Wanborough, about 200 years ago, it meant something more than a field. There used to be kept on the ground, about mowing time, some kind of village festival, called the Lot Mead, conducted with much ceremony. Aubrey says that "the proprietor appeared in a garland of flowers, and the mowers were entertained with a pound of beef and a head of garlic a-piece (O dura messorum ilia!) and many old customs at the same time kept up. The spot afterwards became famous for revelling and horse-racing." The books that describe our old national ceremonies, do not seem to mention a Lot Mead; and we can only conjecture that it was some ancient parish feast of great antiquity. Land certainly used to be divided by lot, in various proportions, among Saxon settlers. The Chronicle of Simeon of Durham, for instance, particularly mentions that when St. Cuthbert's bones were removed to Durham, which at that time was only a wood, “eradicata itaque silva, et unicuique sorte distributa;" i.e., the first care was to eradicate the forest that covered the land: the next to distribute the clearings by lot.

It is not certain that this was the origin of Wiltshire Lot Meads : but as there is this instance of a village festival connected with them, perhaps it may have been an annual merrymaking, kept up ever since the time of the original settlement.

HANNINGTON.

The name is properly Haningdon: and the Manor before and at the Conquest belonged to the Abbey of Glastonbury. In Domesday Book, under the head of this Manor, there is a curious circumstance noted, which very rarely indeed occurs in that Record, viz.-That in the time of Edward the Confessor the Abbot of Glastonbury had sold one portion of his Manor for the lives of three men. This is a very ancient instance indeed, showing that the custom of leasing for three lives is not by any means a practise of late times in this country, but existed in Saxon days before the Conquest, and more than 1000 years ago. The same thing occurs also under the head of Highway, in the Parish of Hilmarton; and the Record Commissioners, in their preface to Domesday Book, call particular attention to the rarity of that example.

By some means or other Haningdon Manor passed out of the hands of Glastonbury Abbey, and in the year 1317 it is found belonging to the Earldom, afterwards the Duchy, of Lancaster. The Dukes of Lancaster were the founders of a noble collegiate establishment at Leicester, called St. Mary's Novi Operis, or St. Mary's New Work. It consisted of a dean, 12 prebendaries, 12 vicars, clerks and choristers, 50 poor women, 10 nurses, with proper officers and attendants, all plentifully provided for, and greatly patronised by the House of Lancaster. Part of the maintenance came from the rents of Haningdon and Inglesham in Wilts, and Kempsford in Gloucestershire. The College at Leicester also had the advowson of Haningdon. This continued till the Reformation. According to a document in the State Paper Office, the Manor was granted, in the year 1604, to Sir Roger Aston and Edmund Shaw: and the family of Swaine, of Tarrant Gunville and Blandford, in Dorsetshire, were patrons of the vicarage in 1615 and 1630. Very soon after that time, appears the name of Freke, also of Dorsetshire, as owners

and patrons. The date of 1653 is on the Manor House; and an emblem of two pair of hands holding one heart between them is also there, to signify that two brothers, William and Ralph Freke, possessed the estate in partnership, and could enjoy it without quarrelling. The same harmony is further denoted by a Latin inscription, being a quotation from the 133rd Psalm: "Ecce, quam bonum et quam jucundum est habitare fratres in unum."-"Behold," (behold, i.e. in the case of Hannington) "how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren to dwell together in unity."

Hannington

The Church has an ancient Norman doorway. village was the birth-place of the Right Rev. Dr. Narcissus Marsh, who rose to be Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of Ireland. In that country his name is held in the highest respect. He was the founder of a chapel and a noble library in Dublin, and of an almshouse in Drogheda for the widows of clergymen. His baptism is duly entered in Hannington Register as the son of William and Grace Marsh. His father had come from Kent and purchased a little property in the parish, but of the family nothing is now known there. There were some years ago some of his relatives in Ireland, one of whom was a fellow of Trinity College, Dublin. Archbishop Marsh had been, in his earlier days, Vicar of Swindon for one year, 1662.

The Archbishop gave a great many of his Oriental manuscripts to the Bodleian Library at Oxford; and the same library is indebted to Hannington for a donation in the year 1657 of 500 gold and silver coins, with a cabinet to contain them. These were

presented by the two brothers already mentioned, William and Ralph, sons of Sir Thomas Freke, whose filial affection for their Alma Mater is duly recorded by an inscription there.

CRICKLADE.

Cricklade has two Churches and two crosses; the churches are St. Sampson's and St. Mary's. St. Sampson's is a very unusual dedication, and it is not at all unlikely that many persons have lived at Cricklade all their lives, and have gone quietly to the grave, under the innocent conviction that the canonized person,

whose name that church bears, was the celebrated strong man who carried off the gates of Gaza. Saint Sampson was a native of Glamorganshire (and therefore a true Briton), born A.D. 496. He was trained in Ireland to a life of extreme holiness and selfdenial; went over into Continental Britany, then under the same dominion as this country, and there became founder of the Abbey, and Bishop, of Dôl.

How he came to be selected for the Patron Saint of a church in

Wiltshire is quite another question. Perhaps the reason may be this. Among several derivations that have been suggested for the difficult name of the town of Cricklade, one is that it is a corruption of the Welsh words "Kerig-glad," meaning stone country. If this is so, then the place itself may have been of Welsh origin and associations, and under those circumstances nothing would be more natural than that they should select as their Patron Saint, one, of whose kindred, and of whose eminence, they had in those days reason to be proud.

There ought also, but there is not, to be seen at Cricklade, a Hospital of St. John the Baptist; and there ought likewise to be seen, but likewise there is not, a Castle. No work on Wiltshire makes any mention of Cricklade Castle: but that there once was one so called, appears from the ancient history called "The Acts of K. Stephen." Speaking of the wars between Stephen and the Empress Matilda, the latter of whom was chiefly supported by the then Earl of Gloucester, the historian says: "At that time, 1142, William of Dover, à skilful soldier, and an active partisan of the Earl of Gloucester, took possession of Cricklade, a village delightfully situated in a rich and fertile neighbourhood. He built a castle for himself with great diligence, on a spot which, being surrounded on all sides by waters and marshes, was very inaccessible."

This description suits the local geography pretty well, but whereabouts the castle stood in Cricklade is not clear. It may, perhaps, have been not exactly at Cricklade, but at Castle Eaton, which is not very far off, and as Eaton means the inclosure within waters, that site would answer the historian's description equally well. In Leland's time some remains of Eaton Castle were still standing.

VOL. VII.-NO. XX.

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