8 HISTORICAL MEMORANDA OP 



that they designed to have left the place ; hut, the quarrel being 

 I made up, Hugh restored to Oliver all his lands, and theirs to the 

 canons, adding, moreover, of his own, to the latter, the church of 

 Wigmore, advancing the prior to the title of an abbot. Notwith- 

 standing all which, he again took from the canons the town of 

 Scobbedon, but sometime after restored it. 



" There being want of water in Scobbedon, the canons moved 

 their habitation to a place called Eye, near the river Lugg, where 

 they had not been long before they again removed to Wigmore, 

 and from thence to Beodune, where they built a monastery, and 

 had a church dedicated to St. James by Robert Foliott, Bishop of 

 Hereford, Hugh Mortimer bestowing on the canons several posses- 

 sions and much plate for the altar. The church of Wigmore given 

 by Hugh Mortimer was the present parish church* which, though 

 mostly of the time of Edward I., exhibits parts much anterior, 

 especially the north wall of the nave, as it is built in what is 

 termed herring-bone fashion. That erected at a place called Beo- 

 dune was the abbey church, which, together with the monastery, 

 was, according to the same authority, founded by Hugh Lord JMor- 

 timer in 1179. It must have been completed and consecrated 

 within six years, as he was buried within it in 1 1 85 ; and in the 

 following year Bishop Foliott died." Leland says, '' the abbey of 

 Wigmore is a mile beyond Wigmore town ; a great abbey of white 

 chanons, within a mile of W^igmore town and castle, in the marche 

 ground towards Shrewsberyshire."t 



In the church of the abbey were buried the greater part of the 

 IMortimer family, the founder and two of his descendants of the 

 same name, Ralph, GeofTry, and John, three Rogers, and two Ed- 

 monds; all whose monuments were destroyed at the dissolution, 

 with the church that contained them, except its walls. J In what 

 is now termed the abbey grange, remained, in Mr. Blount's time, 

 some ancient rooms, as the abbott's council chamber, and one which 

 had a canopy of wainscot, under which the abbot sat ; and a stack 

 of chimnays with the arms of Mortimer thereon. A contiguous 

 alehouse was asserted to have been the abbey prison. This abbey 



• This seems to have hecn ornamented by the munificence of Edward IV. 

 as the reading desk of a line of stalls still remains, carved at that period ; 

 and, in Mr. Blount's time, were, in the windows, the arms of Mortimer, 

 Bohun, Montacute, and Badlesmere, ^ painted glass. 



•♦• Vol. v., p. 10, and iv., p. 176. 



"f. Gough's Additions to Camden. 



