82 
There is some quaint old glass in the windows, and the 
drawing-room has been modernized into an elegant apartment of 
considerable elevation. The place was a Grange of the Priory of 
Bath, and the Benedictine Monks are said to have been very 
successful here in the cultivation of a vineyard. 
At the dissolution of the Bath Priory, King Henry VIII. 
presented this Grange with Kelston, which belonged to the Abbess 
of Shaftesbury, to his natural daughter, Ethelred Malte, whom he 
married to his valet, John Harington. His son by his second 
wife, Isabella Markham, Sir John Harington, born 1561, had the 
honour of having Queen Elizabeth for a godmother, but the 
expense of entertaining her at Kelston in 1591 caused him to 
dispose of 8. Catherine’s to W. Blanchard. The Court passed 
out of the Blanchard family by the marriage of their heiress to 
James Walters, of Batheaston, and finally came through the Parry 
and Earl families to the Strutts, the present owner being by birth 
of that family, the head of which is Lord Rayleigh, of Terling 
Place, Witham, Essex. 
The Church of 8. Catherine has some Norman remains, but the 
greater part of the Church is the work of Prior Cantlow, whose 
name occurs in the painted East window. A curious font exists 
in the Church, the bowl being Norman, square with interlacing 
circular sculpture. A coloured stone pulpit is attached to the 
North wall of the Nave, which is but 27 feet in length. In the 
Chancel on the North is a grand tomb of William Blanchard, his 
wife, one son and three daughters, of 1631. 
All the figures are in the dress of King Charles’ time. Other 
monumental tablets of Blanchards and Parrys, successively lords 
of the Manor, are on the walls. This little Church was well 
restored in 1847 by the Hon. Emily Ann Strutt, and it is attached to 
the parish of Batheaston. A paved path, locally called the 
Drangway, extends all the way from the Church to the riverside 
Mill at Batheaston, which belonged to the Bath Monks, and into 
the walls of which, overlooking the Avon, are incorporated some 

