228 Rowley alias Wittenham. 
of Somerset. Below, and within a stone’s throw from the Castle, 
runs the river Frome dividing Somerset from Wilts. On going 
down the hill and crossing the county bridge into Wiltshire, you 
immediately set foot upon the ancient parish of Rowley alias Wit- 
tenham. This continues, for a considerable distance, both forwards 
towards Westwood and Bradford along a lane still called Rowley 
Lane, and also along the road to the right hand, in the direction of 
Winfield and Trowbridge. 
The name of Wittenham is not now to be met with anywhere in ° 
the district: but it (and not Rowley) is the name of the parish 
given in the oldest authorities. 
There are two Charters; one of A.D. sei (being No. 658 in the 
Codex Diplomaticus,) and the other of A.D. 1001, (printed in this 
Magazine, vol. v., p. 20,) from which it would seem not unlikely, 
yet not certain, that Wittenham meant the lands that lie along the 
river, on the Wiltshire side, between Farley Bridge and Iford. 
It is mentioned next in Domesday Book, as “ Withenham ” only, 
and assessed at 5 Hides, implying a tract of considerable extent. 
“Wyt’nam” is again named in the “Nomina Villarum,” A.D. 
1315, as a © Vill” in the Hundred of Bradford. 
The name of Rowley, on the other hand, is still preserved, and is 
given to a large portion of the higher ground rising eastward from 
the river Frome, and to many detached fields now scattered about 
the parish of Winfield. The name means perhaps Rough Lea; 
either from the inferior quality of soil, or from its having been for a 
long time, forest imperfectly cleared. In an old Selwood Forest 
document of A.D. 1320, at Longleat, which gives the names of all 
the vills, lands and woods that were included in that Forest before 
temp. Edward I. (showing that it extended as far as Bradford-on- 
Avon), “Winfield, Witenham, Trowle, Westwood and Rowle,” are 
mentioned. In an Inquisition 9 Edw. IV., (1470) Wittenham and 
Rowley are named distinctly as two manors : “ the manor of Witten- 
ham worth 5 marks a year held of the Lord Zouche: and the manor 
of Rowley worth 40 shillings a year, holden of the Abbess of 
Shaftesbury ” (Lady of the Hundred of Bradford). Here are clearly 
two separate properties held under different superiors: but a church 
