356 A Sketch of the Parish of Tateshury. 



I am also indebted to Canon Jones for the following valuable 

 comments on the above list : " Yatesbury was a sub-deacon prebend : 

 in value it was one of the smallest of all. It was anciently taxed 

 at four marks, — Charminster being taxed at forty, and K-amsbury 

 at sixty marks, — and in 1671 it had to pay ovUy fourteen shillings 

 and sevenpence towards £340 raised from prebendal estates for the 

 repairs of the Cathedral. This will account for the extremely rapid 

 changes in the Yatesbury Prebend, which will have been noticed 

 above. It was evidently oftentimes accepted, and held for a time, in 

 order thereby to carry out some little plan of ecclesiastical arrange- 

 ment; for example, either the voiding of a richer prebend and 

 securing therefrom a ' pension,' or the qualifying for some dignity, 

 or residentiary ship, which could not be held without a prebend. 

 At all events those who held the preferment appear to have been 

 not disinclined to exchange it for something better." 



I should add that a Court was held about thirty years ago, in 

 the time of my predecessor, when Mr. Tuckey was lord of the manor 

 of the prebendal estate (for there were two manors within this 

 parish), when various old-world customs, now obsolete and forgotten, 

 were revived, such as the doing homage, the presenting of a turf by 

 an old man, &c., &c. 



Here seems the place to mention Yatesbury Feast, which is held 

 as near old All Saints Day as possible, viz., the first Sunday after 

 November 13th, and the Monday and Tuesday following it. Like 

 most other country feasts it has dwindled down even within my 

 recollection to a shadow of its former greatness, and though still 

 looked forward to by the children of the parish, and still in some 

 degree the occasion of family gatherings, when young men and 

 women return home from service for the two days, it is but the 

 expiring remnant of a village feast, and the one solitary booth erected 



