290 Notes on the History of Great Somerford. 
Alexander was the son of Robert Alexander, of Rodbourne, yeoman. 
His marriages first with Helen, the heiress of John Mayo, then with 
Martha, a daughter of Jonas Lawrence, curate of Somerford, and 
lastly with Joan Vines, seem to have made him a man of considerable 
substance. Before his death, in 1724, ‘‘ Cockerells ”’ was re-built 
and enlarged, the present building being about of the date of Queen 
Anne. Some of the materials must have been brought from 
Malmesbury, as old Norman zig-zag ornament and two stones from 
diaper work in the demolished presbytery are inserted in the walls. 
Mrs. Light has recently given more at large in Wiltshire Notes 
and Queries the connection of the Alexanders and their relatives 
the Mayos and Smiths with Somerford. ‘“Cockerells” is the 
farm-house now occupied by Mr. John Poole. Of the other 
farms one seems to have gone to William Thornburgh, Esq., son 
of Sir John Thornburgh, by whom it was sold in 1671 for £504 
to Nathaniel Aske, then rector, and another ultimately to have 
come into the hands of William Alexander, while a third, held for 
¥ 
a time by Richard Yewe, was sold by him in 1672 also to — 
_ Nathaniel Aske for £110. ‘‘ Fletchers,” evidently the site of the 
old Church House, which would have ceased to be used after the 
Reformation, was, after passing through various hands, purchased 
by Mr. Henry Heath in 1797, who built on this site a house, at — 
first the “Old Volunteer’”’ Inn, afterwards a private residence. 
It was owned and occupied by Mr. Henry Parsloe at the time of 
his death in 1898. 
Tue SomerForD Boties Manor. 
(>) We must now turn to consider the position of the 
Brunings in the parish. Aubrey mentions in one of the chancel 
windows of Somerford Church an inscription to Thomas Drew 
and Agnes his wife. It is probable that the second manor in 
Somerford! had come into the possession of the Drew family and 
that this passed on by marriage to the Brunings and Mompessons. 
A subsidy roll, 1 Ed. III., quoted below, seems to show that at 
that date this manor was in possessson of William Bolle, from whose 
! A portion of this was in Little Somerford. 
