By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. 321 
Most of these names are lost, but enough remains to shew that the 
general outline was probably this:—from Semington round by 
Keevil ; Edington to the river Biss; then by Merebrook, Southwick 
(in North Bradley) ; then across to Trowbridge, Hilperton Moor, 
and back to Semington. 
According to the next notice, which is Domesday Book a.p. 1084, 
the Abbess of Romsey was Lady of the whole manor, and held about 
one-fourth in her own hands; and that part, I think, was on the 
side towards Edington. The rest, in various sub-divisions, belonged 
to different owners, who paid merely a certain head-rent to the Lady 
of the Manor. 
Ashton Manor remained Abbey property for 578 years, until the 
Dissolution of Religious Houses, when it fell, of course, into the 
hands of the Crown. Sir John Thynne, the builder of Longleat, 
was the Chief-Officer under the Crown in charge of it. From a vol. of 
the accounts, now at Longleat, it appears that the manorial rights ex- 
tended not only over the several Ashtons,of which I shall have to speak, 
but over the tythings of Southwick, Semington, Littleton, Lowmead 
in Trowbridge, and certain parts of Bulkington, Tilsit, and Bratton. 
In 1538, King Henry VIII. granted the whole Manor, and that 
of Edington, to Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley, brother of the 
Protector Somerset. Sir Thomas only held them 12 years, until 
his execution in 1550. 
Some years ago, Mr. J. Moore, of West Coker, was so kind as to 
let me look at a volume of Court Rolls of the Manor while it was 
Sir Thomas Seymour’s. The volume was rather imperfect, but very 
legible. It contained minute particulars of the tenants, names of 
fields, a curious long lease, in Latin, of the Manor of Edington, by 
Elizabeth Ryprose, Abbess of Romsey, to Meyrick Apprice. At 
Longleat also there are two or three vols. of Court Rolls of this. 
period. 
A few years ago I was also fortunate enough to find at Rood 
Ashton itself, a Survey of the year 1604, which supplied a good 
deal of information about the great original Manor of Ashton. 
In this volume there are certain agreements and holdings described, 
and several tenants have written their names to those agreements— 
