President’s Address. 301 
Manor House of the 15th century, and Winsley demands attention 
as having been the scene of one of Alfred’s battles with the Danes. 
Turley House, the birth-place of Edmund Burke, is close by, and 
_Freshford reminds us of the gallant Sir William Napier, who there 
wrote his “ History of the Peninsular War.” We may, in 
imagination, see the Monks of Cluny in their Priory at Monkton 
Farley and the Carthusians at Hinton Charterhouse, while Hinton 
Manor House, built out of the ruins of their Abbey, and now the 
residence of E. T. O. Foxcroft, Esq., will recall the memory of the 
- magnificent Hungerfords. At South Wraxall is a curious old 
medizval Manor House. Over the entrance gate is a little room 
with a pretty oriel window. Some parts of the house are said 
to have been built by Robert Long, M.P. for Wiltshire, 1433. 
The drawing-room has a highly-ornamented plaster ceiling, and a 
splendid chimney-piece with carved figures and quaint inscriptions. 
Walker, in his “ Pugin’s Gothic Architecture,” gives elaborate details 
of this fine old Wiltshire mansion. Ata short distance from it are 
the remains of a small chapel temp. Ed. I., now enclosed in a modern 
house. This chapel might possibly have been a resting-place for pil- 
grims on their way to the shrine of St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glaston- 
bury Abbey, like Chapel Playster, which Aubrey distinctly speaks of 
as a place of entertainment for pilgrims going to Glastonbury. The 
date of Chapel Playster was probably about 1480. The old Wiltshire 
Chronicler speaks of it as “ the chapelle of Playster.” Possibly, it 
might have been built by a person of the name of Plaister, but I 
am more inclined to agree with Mr. Lower, who in his “ Patronimyca 
Britannica says that Playster is a corruption of Playstow—.e., locus 
ludorum—a place of play for the recreation of the inhabitants of a 
parish. White, in his delightful history of Selborne, describes such. 
an open place, which was called Plestor. Near this little chapel 
Playstor stands a small house which was at one time the head- 
quarters of the celebrated Wiltshire highwayman—Thomas Boulter, 
whose father was a miller at Poulshot, near Devizes. It is said 
that he possessed a famous black mare, called “ Black Bess,” which 
was reared by Peter Delmé, Esq., of Erle Stoke, and was a descendant 
of the far-famed Black Bess of Dick Turpin. Before returning to 
