546 Stanley Abbey. 



The year following, upon July Isb, Eoyal Commissioners were 

 appointed to visit the smaller houses under orders from the new 

 Court of Augmentation, which came into being in consequence of 

 the act for the suppression of houses of under £200 yearly revenue. 

 These Commissioners^ were a very different set of men from the 

 King's Visitors, and report of Stanley as follows : — 



"Abbey of Stanley. 

 " (A) A hedde house of monkes of thordre of Cisteux, of large stronge 

 buylding, by reporte of all the countre a greate releef. (Former 

 valuation) i'177 Os. 8d.', (present valuation) ;£204 3s. 6^d., with 

 £32 9s. for the demayns and mille of the same. 



" (B) (Religious) ten — viz., preests nine and novesse one. By reporte 

 of honest conversacion, all desyringe contynuance in rehgion. 



" (C) (Servants, &c.) forty-three — viz., scholemaster, one ; wayting 

 servants, four ; officers in the house, ten ; hyndes in divers granges, 

 eighteen ; dayery women, three ; and founden of almes, seven. 



" (D) Church and mansion with all outehouses in a very good state, 

 part newe buylded. The leade and bells esteemed to £65 10s. 



" (E) (Goods) i'260 12*.— viz., jewels and plate £42 9*. 2d. ; orna- 

 ments 113 lls.4(/.; stuffeiM 9*. 2rf. ; stores of cattell i;124 ds.ed.; 

 come not sewed £65 8.?. 8rf. 



" (F) Owyng by the house £285 5s. lid. and owyng to the house 

 112 13s. U. 



" (G) Great woods and copys woods 269 acres. Esteemed to be solde 

 to i'164.'' 



The abbey was suppressed with the lesser monasteries in 1536, 

 and on the 29th of June, the year following, the site and part of 

 the possessions were granted to Sir Edward Baynton, of Bromham, 

 in consideration of the sum of £1200, which was paid by instal- 

 ments.^ This Sir Edward Baynton was building at this time a 

 considerable house at Bromham, for whicli he had license to remove 

 stone from old Corsham House and Devizes Castle,* he apparently 



> The commissioners for Wiltshire were Sir Henry Long, Eichard Poulet, 

 John Pye, and William Berners. 



' P.R.O. Chantry Certificate, 100, m. 2. This and the letters from which 

 the foregoing extracts are made were published by the Eev. W. Gilchrist 

 Clark-Maxwell, M.A., F.S.A., in an excellent Tp&Tper n-pon" 17ie Fall of the 

 Wiltshire Monasteries," in Wilis Arch. Mag., xxviii. 288—319. 



3 Letters and Papers, H. VIII., xii. pt. i. 143. 



* Leland's Itinerary, (ed. 1744), ii., 27. 



