By John Watson- Taylor. 97 



hill, excepting the cliffs that were too steep for cultivation, was 

 arable land in strips, of which the lord owned two hundred and 

 fifty acres, that were subject to the same rights of common pasture 

 when the land was fallow as were those of the tenants, but were 

 probably in a separate block. The cliffs and droves on the hill 

 may be presumed to have been attached to the tenants' holdings 

 for feeding purposes, but the hill-side was a common sheep leaze 

 according to the evidence of the court book, excepting, however, 

 the lord's grove and that portion of the present hill-wood lying 

 near the Coulston boundary and known as Marditch, which was 

 evidently under cultivation in early times, and is included with 

 the arable land of the hill. At the foot of the hill the clay land 

 of the Sands extended across the manor, enclosing in a semi-circle 

 that part of the Sands which at a later date was called the Sharp, 

 and, though it was common field divided into strips, at least two- 

 thirds of it had been bought up by the lords of the manor. The 

 thirty acres of land which were included in the dower of Eleanor 

 Fitz-John were not, like the clay land, subject to any rights of 

 pasture, and therefore probably formed a separate block, such as 

 that bounded by Hope Wood, East Coulston, and the pathway 

 leading thither from Erlestoke, but the remainder of the Sands 

 north of the county road, the Sharp sands of the present Home 

 Farm and private grounds and the West sands or higher levels of 

 the Deer Park lying within the parish, were occupied by the tenants 

 in strips, excepting that part of the Sharp and North sands on 

 which the village and its gardens stood, and excepting, on the 

 West sands, certain closes on the twin hills called the White Hills 

 on one of which the present mansion stands and between which 

 the road to the chief messuage ran from the south-east in earlier 

 times. These closes, with the lower part of the park and the 

 grass fields beyond, were demesne land of the lord. To the south 

 of Pudnell was the Marsh, the greater part of which was the chief 

 common of the manor, bounded on the east by the tithing of 

 Marston and on the west by some arable land of the lord and 

 perhaps of some free tenants, which itself was bounded by East 

 Coulston. The common arable field, Lower Lowfield, occupied the 

 VOL. XXXIV. — NO. cm. H 



