2H6 Potterne. 



times called a " Church House " — a public building in which, before 

 the days of rating-, meetings were held for raising funds for the 

 repair of the church, the relief of the poor, the mending of the roads, 

 &c. On the principle of " business first, pleasure afterwards," as 

 soon as they had attended to the wants of others they had a little 

 care for themselves and had their chui'ch ales, and other festivities. 

 (See Wilts Magazine, ii., 191, on " Ancient Ales in the county of 

 Wilts.") One such house at Bradford, called by Leland " a goodly 

 large chirch house," and said by him to have been built by Horton, 

 a wealthy clothier, has, I rejoice to say, been permanently secured 

 within the last two years, and conveyed to the Trustees of an old 

 endowed school. Potterne is also happy in having the friendly help 

 of one whom she may well be pleased to reckon among her people 

 even though as a wayfarer, whose intuitive love of the beautiful, and 

 reverence for the ancient, has led him to purchase this relic of former 

 days, and, with generous unstinted outlay, to restore it to its pristine 

 beauty. 



It may be mentioned that the old timbered-house was used many 

 years since as an inn bearing the sign of "The White Horse." There 

 was also at the front-door an " upping-stock " (or steps for mounting 

 a horse) cut out of a single block of oak, a very usual appendage to 

 country inns, and especially useful when travellers carried their ap- 

 parel and goods in ponderous saddle-bags. 



As we have spoken of bishoj^s suffragan in Wilts, we may mention 

 in passing that in 1479 one bearing the title of "Episcopus Tinensis," 

 that is I presume " Bishop of Tenos," was Rector of Devizes. 



(A.D. 1500-1600.) — At the commencement of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury many stirring events occurred at "The Devizes,^^ but the farmers 

 and villagers of Potterne went on quietly tilling their fields, and 

 enjoying, perhaps from their very obscurity, an immunity from the 

 troubles which overtook their more aspiring neighbours. Indeed to 

 this obscurity I really believe many of our villages owed the pre- 

 servation of interesting memorials of the past. And so, whilst 

 between the years 1520 and 1530, certain persons named Maundrel 

 and Spicer and Coberley, who seem to have come from Rowde or 

 Keevil, and John Bent, a simple tailor of Erchfont, were martyred 



