322 Rood Ashton, Sc. 
z.e., all who could write their names at Rood Ashton in the year 1604. 
I am sorry to say that out of fifty-three, there were only fifteen who — 
were masters of that useful accomplishment. The rest made their 
marks: and the whole presents an extraordinary display of pen and 
ink ingenuity. One is like those strange characters you see on a 
Chinese or Japanese tea-chest, in a grocer’s window: another like a 
W turned topsy-turvy; and then comes a pair of scissors, out of 
joint. No. 4 is like a gridiron ; the next like a black spider with ever 
so many legs; another must have belonged to a member of an 
archery club, as he signs with a sort of bow and arrow; and so on. 
This record is dated 1604: but the Manor remained Crown pro- 
perty till 1610, for in that year it was one of the many estates set 
apart for the maintenance of Prince Henry, son of King James I. 
The sum total of those estates was £9000 a year; but the Crown 
rents of the Manor of Ashton, by itself, merely amounted to about 
£85 a year. 
This survey of 1604 also confirms the evidence of the other 
documents to which I have alluded—viz., that the Manor of Ashton 
included the tythings of Steeple Ashton, West Ashton, Southwick, 
Semington, Littleton, Lowmead, and lands at Bratton, Bulkington, 
and Tilsit; also Edington, but that manor no longer belonged to 
the Crown as part of Romsey Abbey. Before the Dissolution it had 
been, by a certain arrangement, conceded by the Abbess of Romsey 
to William of Edington, Bishop of Winchester, to endow a Religious 
House at Edington; of which, you have seen the noble old church 
in this day’s excursion. The same survey (of 1604) also gives the 
names of the noblemen and others holding under the Manor of 
Ashton, such as the Lords Mountjoy for Southwick, the Brunkers 
for Semington, Trenchards, Westley, Long, Stillman, Whitaker, 
Horton, Bayley, and other old local names. 
The Crown appears as owner in 1610, but the sheet was passing’ 
out of its hands: for many years before, about 1561, 4 Elizabeth, 
being in want (as even Crowns sometimes are) of money, it had 
mortgaged its Manor of Ashton to the Mayor and Corporation of 
the City of London. In 1578, the Mayor and Corporation of 
London transferred the mortgage of the manor to Walter Long, ~ 
