By J. U. Powell, M.A. 129 
























4 neighbourhood, for Ludlow, of Maiden Bradley, and Wansey, of 
_ Warminster, were strong Parliament men. There was a skirmish 
~ at Crockerton, and it would have been possible to hear the guns at 
the siege of Wardour Castle in 1642-3. From Mr. Ruddle’s 
— ealeulations in Wilts Notes and Queries, No. 36, p.537, we may take 
_ the population of the Deverills in 1676 to have been approximately 
“as follows :—Brixton, 121; Kingston, 320; Monkton, 96; Long- 
bridge (which probably includes Crockerton), 480. Hill, Tyther- 
ington, Knook, and Heytesbury, which are all ecclesiastically con- 
nected, do not appear in this voluntary census return, which had 
a special purpose. It was set on foot by the Bishop of London, in 
order to ascertain the numbers of Church people, Roman Catholics, 
and Nonconformists, above the age of 16, and the figures in the re- 
turn have a suspicious way of reaching round numbers in tens. The 
numbers above are reached by adding 60 per cent. for children 
under 16.1. Four Roman Catholic families are found at Monkton, 
and three at Kingston. This is probably to be attributed to their 
connection with the district of Donhead, Semley, Tisbury, 
and the Deanery of Chalke generally, of which Wardour was the 
centre, where there is a considerable number of Roman Catholics 
recorded. 
_ Passing on to the eighteenth century, we find a few signs left of 
the various trades which at that time made each village fairly 
self-sufficing, the weavers, tanners, potters, candle-makers. In the 
West, many rural districts of Devon, Somerset, Wilts, Dorset, were 
prosperous by cottage industries; indeed the prosperity of the rural 
lasses depended more on these by-industries than upon agricultural 
wages (Social England, v., 132,133). A few large windows where 
looms stood and “went hickety-snackety,” as an old man who 
zmembered them said, can still be seen, especially at Crockerton, 
eytesbury, and Tytherington, for Heytesbury was a seat of cloth 
ng, and Five Ash Lane, in Sutton, was the road by which 
. who had taken out work to do in their homes went to and 
For the increase of the population during the period between 1760 and 
see ©. Simpson’s ‘*A Census of Wilts,” in 1676, in Wilts Notes and 
ies, No. 36, p. 584. 
