Friday, Jiily 7th. 143 



rare and interesting plants, Epipadis palustris from near Wootton 

 Bassett, and Cnicas tuherosvs from near Avebury. 



FRIDAY, JULY 7th. 



The tirst item on the programme of this day's excursion was 

 MILDENHALL CHURCH. Here MR. PONTING read his notes on 

 the architecture, printed in the Maijaziiu some years ago.^ The 

 Church is possibly now an almost unique example of absolutely 

 complete and unaltered oak fittuigs and ornament of 1816 of the 

 most elaborate and costly character, down to dhninutive seats for 

 the small children in the aisles, impossible, it is true, to sit upon, 

 but quite charming in their character. 



The next stoppage was at Axford, where Mr. Wilson, the occupier 

 of the farmhouse, kindly allowed the party to wander over the 

 remains of the chapel now incorporated in it. MR. DORAN WEBB, 

 who met the Society at this point, and took upon himself the 

 oflftee of guide for the remainder of the day, explained the existing 

 remains, and discoursed on the history of the place. There appears 

 to have been a chapel here in the thirteenth centuiy. In 1091 

 it was included in the gift of Eamsbury by Bishop Osmund to his 

 Cathedral at Old Sarum.^ In 1293 the prebend of Axford and 

 Heydone was valued at £5. The existing remains are of the 

 fourteenth century. The east window of the chancel has dis- 

 appeared, but the priest's door and five windows, having their 

 tracery perfect, still remain. Tlie piscina still exists in the south 

 wall, and the old roof — hidden by a plaster ceiling— is still in very 

 fair condition. It was a parochial Church, but seems to have 

 become disused in the 16th century, and there are no further 

 presentations to the living. About the end of the sixteenth century 

 probably, the Pyles, who lived in a large house, believed to have 

 stood to the north of the Church, built on a smaller house to the 

 Church. It was in this house that tlie Western Rising, which 

 cost Hugh Grove and Penruddocke and others their lives, was 



' Wilts Arch. Mag., xxviii., 121. 

 « History of the Hundred of Ramshury, by E. Doran Webb p. 64. 



