300 On the Old Porch-House at Potlenie. 



and we may conclude^ as the licenses were not again ratified in the 

 succeeding reign^ that they were then acted upon. 



That the Porch- House at Potterne is that identical manor house, 

 for the fortification of which a license was finally granted by the 

 crown in 1377, I do not think any one is rash enough to conjecture. 

 That episcopal residence in all probability soon fell into decay ; for 

 it appears that the bishops'* ancient manor house ceased to be kept 

 up circa 1450 ; though that it was at times at least occupied by the 

 Lord Bishop of Salisbury in person while it existed, we have evidence, 

 in that Bishop Richard Mitford (or Metford) died at Potterne in 

 1407. 



That however this fine old timber house, of too noble a character 

 to be an ordinary residence, might have been one of the many ec- 

 clesiastical residences, after the Bishop ceased to keep up his own 

 manor house, for either the person renting the titles and manor, as 

 agent for the Bishop, or as Vicar for the time being, is a suggestion 

 which has been put forward with no little show of probability. That 

 such may have been the ease is by no means unlikely, but in the 

 absence of any proof in support of it, the archaeologist can only look 

 upon it as conjecture. Others have broached the opinion that it was 

 a Chiu'ch house, where Chm'ch ales were held, and other business or 

 festivities in connection with the Church were carried on : but here 

 again we are simply hazarding a guess, for which we have no positive 

 foundation, while the superior character and elaborate details of the 

 building seem, in my judgment at least, to militate against such a 

 supposition. 



With regard to the actual date of the building, there is the in- 

 ternal evidence of construction and detail, and the external evidence, 

 of style; and some of our best architects have given it as their 

 opinion that it may be attributed to the close of the fifteenth or 

 beginning of the sixteenth centuries, from 1490 to 1510, or during 

 the reign of Henry VII., while others again afiirm it to be Elizabethan, 

 and this is the view taken by the author of the " Glossary of Archi- 

 tecture,''' who says, " Nothing remains at Potterne earlier than the 

 time of Elizabeth, of which period there is a very good and pictu- 

 resque timber house with carved barge-boards and panelling, and 



