300 Customs of Wishford and Barf or d in Grovely Forest. 



And also Fould-Shoars * and Wrethers- to be employed within the said 

 Manors, at all times without Controulement, and every one of the said Lords 

 and Tenants, that do use to fetch such, ought to give the Ranger one Hen 

 yearly at Shrovetide,' if he require and send for the same. 



(16th.) Item. The ancient Custom is, that at all Courts holden for 

 Grovely, the Jury or Homage for the said Forest hath ever been made, and 

 in Right ought still to be made of the Freeholders, Tenants, or Inhabitants 

 of Wishford Magna and Barford St. Martin aforesaid, and of none other. 



(17th.) Item. The Lords, Freeholders, Tenants and Inhabitants of the 

 Manor of Great Wishford, or so many of them as would, in ancient time 

 have used to go in a dance to the Cathedral Church of our Blessed Lady in 

 the City of New Sarum on Whit-Tuesday,'' in the said County of Wilts, and 



' Fould-Shoars ; fold-soles: B.; stakes to be pitched for supporting hurdles. 



■i "breathers (or wrethers : H.; " wreaths " : B.) either the long rods 

 for wreathing or twining into hurdles ; or else, more probably, perhaps, the 

 " shackles," or rings, woven or wreathed of wattle, ov frith, whereby the 

 " sails," or uprights, at the extremities of two adjacent hurdles, are coupled 

 at once to the " shore" or stake, between them, and likewise to one another. 

 Such rings I have heard called " raves," both in Wilts and Dorset ; and also 

 " tvrathes." The polite ironmonger will offer a wire '' wreath" as the 

 modern substitute. " Fold soles " (or " fold-shores ") are the wooden stakes 

 to which the hurdles are fastened to form a fold. 



' " Shroftied " : H., " at Shrovetide, one hen even so many as do use to fetch 

 and none others, if the hens be demanded " : B. As cocks were provided by 

 schoolmasters for their scholars to "shy" at on the Shrovetide holiday, so, 

 hens may have come in useful for laying Lenten (and Easter) Eggs. Dr. 

 Straton says " They wisely called for delivering of hens at Shrovetide for 

 economic reasons, but the older reason was the scape goat idea, and was 

 connected with sin shrift." 



■t Hoare's text reads "On Twesdaie " (omitting "Whit"). The 

 " Dance " to the Mother Church of Salisbury may have been con- 

 nected with the procession to pay chimney-money, "smoke-farthings," or 

 Pentecostal oblations. But, after the Restoration of Church and King in 

 1660, the date was changed to the 29th of May in connexion with the 

 annual thanksgiving then instituted. The custom was kept up until the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century. "The last survivor, who took part in 

 it, died in 1871, in her 88th year, and she described it to me [writes Mr. 

 Hill, the Rector in 1885,] as a regular revel, with booths and shows erected 

 in the Close. It was therefore, suppressed, but still two women, as a depu- 

 tation, from the bough- bearers, went in with oak-branches, which they 

 reverently laid on the altar of the Cathedral Church : the last person who 

 performed this ceremony died so lately as 1853." Salisbury Journal (after) 

 31st March, 1885. About March 28th another correspondent, "W. L." 

 [Farquharson] mentioned that the people taking part in the procession used 

 to dress in white, and that they assembled first at " Townsend Tree," at the 

 south end of the village street. They still in 1885 carried oak-boughs in 

 procession but only as far as the rectory, and performed their dance there. (I 



