324 Rood Ashton, Se. 
Long” had done nothing in the world but what he had a perfect 
right to do, and that if he had inclosed, he had paid for so domg— 
perhaps a good deal more than he liked. 
The bounds of the Forest are most carefully described by all the 
various witnesses, one. living here another there: all pretending to 
know to a yard where the line ran. We will not follow them in 
detail; but it is sufficient to say, that the Forest came up to Trow- 
bridge town’s end and away to Semington ; and, in point of fact, 
followed the existing limits of what is called the Hundred of 
Whorwellsdown. No less than six of the oldest inhabitants declared 
that all the country from Hag’s Hill, near Semington, as far as 
Frome, was quite open, within memory, and no part thereof was 
impaled, ditched or otherwise enclosed. 
Such, on the face of a district so well known to us, is the difference 
that, 200 years, or so, have made. But now, if the good folks of 
Trowbridge happen to find it rather close, in Back Lane, or the 
Conigre, or Hill Street, or Yerbury Street, or Court Lane, or the 
Ranks, or Brick Plat, or Roundstone Street, or Duke Street, and so 
on, when they want a mouthfull of fresh air and a dry walk for 
themselves, their wives and children, they can get it across Selwood 
Forest. There are none of King Edgar’s wolves; and no deer with 
large horns, to frighten poor little Dicky in his perambulator. Quite 
the contrary: a nice dry broad road, a mile and a quarter or so from 
end to end: pretty pheasants strutting about: nothing to pay for 
the convenience ; but free enjoyment, so long as they will only “ use, 
but not abuse” it, on the private grounds of the Squire of Rood 
Ashton. 
It is, I believe, now quite understood, that the name of Steeple 
Ashton has nothing in the world to do with the steeple of the church. 
It is simply a corruption of the word Staple—i.e., Market. The 
privilege of holding a market there was granted by Royal Charter 
to the Abbess of Romsey in 1387; and in old deeds that I have 
seen it is called “ Market Ashton.” Leland the antiquary came 
that way in A.D. 1540, and he speaks of it thus: “’Tis a praty 
little market town. It hath praty buildings. It standeth much by 
cloathiers. There are still some ancient timber-houses: some of it 
