541 



^tauleg ^ibeg/ 



By Harold Brakspeae, F.S.A. 

 [Partly read at the Swindon Meeting, July, 1907.] 



The site of the Abbey of Stanley is a wide valley two-and-a-half 

 miles east of Chippenham. It is upon the south bank of the little 

 river Harden, which rises at Calstone, some five miles to the east, 

 and joins the Avon just above Chippenham. 



Stanley owes its origin to one Drogo, a chamberlain of the 

 Empress Maud, at whose instigation her son, Henry, then earl of 

 Anjou, gave a place called Locwell (now Lockswell), in the manor 

 of Chippenham, in perpetual alms to God and St. Mary of Quarr, 

 in the Isle of Wight, for the purpose of founding a new monaster3^^ 

 Prom the founder Drogo this abbey was called dc Drogonis fonte, 

 or Drownfont,^ the second part of the name being derived from 

 the copious springs of pure water which abound on the site and 

 are used at the present time to supply the inhabitants of Corsham 

 and part of Lacock. 



Quarr was originally founded in 1135 by Eichard, earl of Exeter, 

 as an abbey of the order of Savigny. This was one of the reformed 

 branches of the Benedictines that arose in the twelfth century. It 

 was established by one Vitalis, a Norman of good family, who after 

 many vicissitudes settled with a numerous following at Savigny, 



' This paper, in considerably shorter form, is printed in AreJiceologia, LX., 

 pp. 493 — 516 ; and for the loan of the blocks for the illustrations here given 

 our Society is indebted to the kindness of the Society of Antiquaries. 



^ Monasticon Anglicanum (1825), v. 563. 



3 Rev. W. Bowles, History of BremJdll (1828), 96, gives the text of a 

 grant, then in the possession of Edward Baynton, of a pasture near Lacock 

 Bridge by the Empress Maud and her son to the abbey Sanctce JUaricB de 

 Drogonis Fonte, and another grant (95) of a hide of land in Lamburn SanctcB 

 Marice de Drownfont. 



