820 Rood Ashton, &e. 
historical notice, known to me, of any proprietor of the Manor of 
Ashton, is that it belonged to the Kings of Wessex. About A.D. 
959 the King was Edgar, of wolf-destroying celebrity, but who did 
a great deal more than that for the settlement of England. He 
was a very liberal founder and promoter of Monastic Houses. In 
Wilts he enriched Wilton Abbey with large gifts of land, and he 
gave the Manors of Ashton and of Edington towards the endow- 
ment of the Nunnery of St. Mary, at Romsey,in Hants. Many of 
you may have seen the fine old Norman Church at Romsey, between 
Salisbury and Southampton. It was partly built by money from 
Ashton Manor, near Trowbridge. Unfortunately the Register 
Book, or Cartulary, and I fear, most of the Records, of Romsey 
Abbey are missing; but the Cartulary of Edington is in the British 
Museum, and it contains a copy of King Edgar’s grant, dated A.D. 
964. It is written in the strange bombastic Latin used in docu- 
ments of that day: very difficult to make any sense of; and that 
sense, when made, sometimes very extraordinary. The particular 
document, giving Ashton to Romsey Abbey, concludes with this 
imprecation upon any one who should hereafter deprive the Abbey 
of the estate: “ If any one shall venture rashly to infringe this my 
grant and refuse to make satisfaction, let him be dragged down 
with heavy chains round his neck among the fire-breathing legions 
of black devils. [Si quis hanc meam donationem infringere certa- 
verit, sit gravibus per colla depressus catenis, inter flammivomas 
tetrorum demonum catervas.”’ | 
This gift included apparently the whole of what at that time was 
the Manor of Ashton. The limits mentioned were as follows :— 
‘* The Metes and Bounds of Ayston.—This is the landmark to Ayston 
First on Semnit [Semington? ]: from Semnit to Kefle [ Keevil ? ], to Milbourne 
then to Frestham and then along to Werefore stone, to Cranmere; on to 
Metoldswill, and then to Clenanstiteh: to Hassocks-more, and Holebrook: then 
to Lechmere, then to Rode-stone. From the stone to Bereburn, and then to 
the Biss. From ‘Biss to Malm and then to Alburn: then to Frome-setinga- 
hazen: thence to Wuntfield and thence to Burgreed's-Rood. From the Rood 
to Marebrook and then to Lambrook and then on to Haram-mere [Ammer- 
acre?.| to Leofed-hazen by Biss. From Biss to Abbenford and then to 
Hulpring-moor [ Hilperton-moor ? ] and then to Hazel-durhill and so by Mark- 
brook to Semnit.’’ 
