302 Notes on the History of Great Somerford. 
London. These lands were by them in the following year trans- 
ferred to John Hadnet and Roger Dunn, clothier, of “ Cizciter,’ who, — 
in December of the same year, transferred them to John Yewe, — 
clothier, and John Mayo, yeoman, both of Great Somerford. “The ; 
original grant,” Mr. Demainbray, in 1828, writes, “May be seen at % 
the Rolls Chapel—it is written on a long narrow strip of parchment _ 
many feet in length, containing a great variety of similar grants to 
different persons.” The first original document now in the pos- 
session of the trustees is a lease of the property, described as “all 
that the tenement, garden, backside and close to the same adjoining, 
containing by estimation half an acre of grounde, late in the 
tenure or occupation of Agnes Bayley, widdow, together with two 
acres of arable land in the fields of Somerford aforesayde, commonly 
called or known by the name of ‘Sainte Marye Lande,’ whereof 
one acre is in ‘ Brodefield’ and the other acre in ‘ Westefield,’ and — 
one beaste leaze in the ‘ Newleaze,’” granted in 1586 by John Yewe 
and John Mayo, to John Young for forty-one years on a payment 
of £10, and an annual rent of 6s. 8d. With regard to this “one 
beaste leaze” it appears from an indenture dated 15th Nov. 15 
Eliz. that it was “Sometymes geven and assigned for the fyndinge ~ 
and mayneteynance of a light within the parish Church of Broad 
Somerford.” In 1622 new feoffees were appointed by John Mayo, — 
son of William Mayo, and grandson of John Mayo, the last 
surviving of the feoffees named in the deed of 1575. The new 
feoffees granted in the same year a lease to Robert Young for 
thirty-one years of the property, for which he paid £12 with a 
reserved annual rent, as before, of 6s. 8d. During the term — 
of this lease Robert Young a/ias Cheshire, died, and his widow 
married Thomas Cromwell, who, at the expiration of the lease, — 
refusing to surrender possession, and having sold his pretended — 
right in the estate to George White by his Prochain Ami, instituted 
a suit in Chancery to recover possession. This was in the year 
1656, during the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell. The plea set 
up was that one Thomas Cromwell had purchased the premises of 
the trustees for the sale of the late King Charles’s lands, and, 
further, that the feoffees, who had taken possession, had no right or 
Hes 
