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the century the family of Hooper, friends and connections of the 
Gallys. William Hooper had married Dioness, daughter of 
William Harrington, of Kelston, and his father had in 1699 
purchased a large portion of Walcot parish, including the house 
above mentioned, with land in Butt’s Lane. Mutcombe, Sidhill, 
part of Hedgemead—‘ All that Rowles Tenement called by the - 
name of Chitters, containing 124 acres, with Kitt’s barn and the 
lower hall and garden leading to the river, as well as Pooke’s 
Tenement and the land above Sand Pits. 
Sand Pits is now occupied by the Lansdown Grove Hotel, 
nestling in what was once almost waste land. Below Sand Pit 
Field was a narrow strip belonging to John Axford, now bounded 
by the blank wall opposite Ainslie’s Belvedere. These houses are 
built on a piece of ground then belonging to J. Morford. The 
name of the former family is preserved in Axford’s Buildings, 
now 22 to 27, Paragon, and of the latter in Morford Street. 
Hannah Silcock, the daughter of J. Morford, was the last of the 
family, and a Private Act (12 May, 1815) was passed to settle 
her estate, part of which passed to the Hooper family. 
On the upper side of Sand Pit Field was the Lansdown Old 
Road (now Rough Lane), the road by which Charles I. entered 
Bath. It was at the top of this road that the Mayor and 
Corporation met Queen Anne and offered to carry her down the 
hill in a sedan chair. The old road was in a direct line with the 
Lansdown Road but was diverted to the other side of Morford’s 
Tyning, and the point of divergence is distinctly marked in the 
wall on the western side of the lane. 
Of Buce’s Pailing House I can learn nothing, but the property, 
now S. Winifred’s, belonged at one time to the widow Skrine, 
_ whose name remains in Skrine’s Court, but a dwelling house is 
mentioned in a deed of 1753, and the present house, S. Winifred’s, 
was erected by M. J. Ormond about 1803. 
__ Mrs. Skrine also at one time owned the land on which Camden 
_ Crescent stands, and which afterwards belonged to her relation, 
