By the Rev. Edward Peacock. 33 



on the failure of issue male in his descendant, 1740, it reverted to 

 the Longs of Whaddon, from whom it has passed to its present 

 owner, Walter Long, Esq., of Rood Ashton." 



In speaking of the present state of Southwick Court, I will only- 

 say, that, the chief alteration, since Aubrey saw it, consists of the 

 removal of the chapel, which of late years had been used as a cow- 

 house and calf-stage; it was pulled down about the year 1839, and 

 the timbers of the roof were used in framing the roof of the present 

 stable. On the walls of the house there are in three places stones 

 with dates and initials upon them, two have these figures and letters 



upon them :- 



1567 

 W.B. 



the W.B., I presume, stands for Walter 



Bush, who, at that date, seems to have owned the place in right of 

 his wife, widow of Christopher Bayly, who bought a portion of the 

 property in 1556. The third stone bears the date and initials : — 



1693 



S.W.L 



I am not quite sure as to the first of these letters being 



an S, but the two others are perfectly distinct, and no doubt are the 

 initials of a Long of Whaddon, to which family the property 

 reverted a second time on the failure of a male heir to Sir Philip 

 Parker, in 1740. The old moat round Southwick Court still remains. 

 I cannot dismiss this notice of Southwick Court without alluding 

 to a fire which occurred in the rick-yard some seven or eight years 

 ago, which did much damage. The origin of this fire was un-dis- 

 covered : but it so happened, that two other fires occurred at another 

 farm-house in the same parish, a year or two afterwards, by which 

 the farm-house was entirely destroyed : one of the fires in this case 

 commenced in the interior of the cheese-room, where, at the time, 

 there was no stove, or anything, in fact, which would account for 

 the fire. Mr. Perrett, the tenant of the farm (Pole's Hole) where 

 these two fires occurred, was about the same time, and for a con- 

 siderable time afterwards, much annoyed by voUies of stones being 

 thrown at him, whenever he had occasion to visit his yard after dusk : 

 these sort of attacks were so constant, that, as he told me himself, 

 he did not dare to go into his yard in the evening without holding 

 a milk pail over his head to ward ofi* the stones. 



VOL. XIV. — NO. XL. D 



