By J. E. Nightingale, F.S.A. 353 



epitomised form from the original Latin, are now preserved at Wilton 

 House. The additions are, one charter from the Harleian coll. in 

 the British IMuseum, to which the seal o£ the Abbess Matilda de 

 Bokeland is attached, and two other documents bearing different 

 seals of the Mayors of Wilton, which form part of the archives of 

 the Corporation. The Hospital of S. Giles, near Wilton, to which 

 the first document relates, was established originally for the support 

 of lepers by Adelicia, queen of Henry II. It was from an early 

 period under the control of the Corporation of Wilton, it was pre- 

 served at the dissolution, and re-built by the Mayor and Corporation 

 in 1624). It remained on its original site in the adjoining parish o£ 

 Fuggleston S. Peter until about fifty years ago, when it was pulled 

 down, and its locality taken into Wilton Park. The hospital was 

 again re-built some few hundred yards to the west. It still retains 

 a prior, but without a chapel, as well as the old number of inmates 

 supported from the original grant, which is still administered by the 

 Corporation of Wilton. The position of the two acres of land 

 mentioned in the charter can be pretty well ascertained. The ancient 

 manor of Washerne was situated on the right bank of the Nadder, 

 near the abbey. This identical field of " Two acres of arable land 

 situated in the field called Washerne/' is found again mentioned 

 amongst the property belonging to the hospital at the time of the 

 dissolution, in the " Certificate of the State of Colleges, Hospitals, 

 &c.,'' preserved in the Augmentation OflSce, dated thirty-seventh 

 Henry VIII. — 1545, and printed in Hoare's Branch and Dole, p. 

 130. In the twenty-fourth of Edw, I. allusion is made to "the Friars 

 lepers of S. Giles' without Wilton," and in the fifth of Edw. III. 

 occurs a confirmation of Richard Holdych as prior or custodian of 

 SS. Giles and Anthony, near Wilton. The mutilated seal attached 

 to this document (plate, No. 10) is no doubt the original seal of the 

 hospital. That in present use is probably early in the fifteenth 

 century; it bears the figure of S. Giles under a Gothic canopy, 

 with the legend " S^ donus elimosinare Sci egedi iuxta WUton." It 

 is engraved in Hoare's account of Wilton. 



1. Grant by John [ ] called guardian [dictus custos] of the Hospital 



of St. Giles without Wilton, and the Brethren and Sisters of the same Hospital 



