166 
The Manor belonged to a John Winchcombe, the unique 
possessor in modern times of three battle fields in England—two 
at Newbury and one here. Sherston and John Chapman had 
agreed (1641) to pay Winchcombe a rent of £400 a year for 
the estate on Lansdown and other property, but under the 
pretence that Winchcombe was a recusant and had removed from 
Newbury to Wales when the King was likely to lose Newbury 
they evaded the payment of the £120 a year rent for the farm 
of Lansdown. But after various delays he petitioned the Protector* 
and it was shown that undue means had been used to bring him 
in as a delinquent, and also that his valuable estate had been so 
managed by Sherston and Chapman that little accrued to the 
State, whereupon Cromwell restored the property. 
On Monday,t August 1, 1659, a party of old Cavaliers and some 
discontented Presbyterians inclining to the Kingship assembled 
on Lansdown on behalf of Charles Stuart but soon dispersed, 
not waiting for the troops sent against them. 
In addition to all these disputes concerning the Chapel and 
the Weston end of the Down, another series of lawsuits, 24, 25, 26, 
27, 31 Eliz.,{ took place between Sir John Seymour, of Frampton 
Cotterell, natural son of the Protector, Somerset, to whom the 
land had been granted at the Dissolution, of the one side, and 
Thos. Lansdowne, Thos. and Wm. Ford and Roderick Llewellyn, 
Rector of Northstoke, concerning the Queen’s Manor of North- 
stoke and the Down called Home Down, Rights of Commons, 
Customs and Tithes, late part of the Monastery of Bath, and 
finally an agreement was arrived at to pay the§ Rector 5 pounds 
per ann. in lieu of all such claims. 
In 1685 Mr. John Sheppard, the then possessor of Lansdown 
* [1656] Domestic State Papers (Green), p. 36. 
+ Cal. State Papers, Dom. series, Green, vol. cciv., p. 87. 
¢ Report Public Records 38, pp. 196, 209, 257. 
§ Northstoke Terrier. 
‘ 
, 
