53 
A Wall: Round the Manor of Forde. By H. D. SERINE 
(Read March 14th, 1882. ) ‘ 
This is a walk I have long desired to take in company with 
the members of the Field Club, but I have thought it best in 
the first place to give them some little explanation of the route 
and a few particulars respecting the history of the Manor and 
the names of the boundary fields. 
The Manor of Forde includes Warleigh, and probably in the 
remote ages of the Saxon Conquest Shockerwick also, but we 
cannot show that for many centuries any connection existed 
beyond the parochial relation, as Shockerwick was a separate 
Lordship at the time of the Conquest. The first authentic 
account of the Manor is in a deed of the 10th century, where it 
is stated that in the reign of King Eadwig, A.D. 957, that King 
granted on the petition of Wulfgar, the Abbot to the Monastery 
of Bath, ‘‘ Decem mansas in loco ubi antiquorum relatu nominatur 
4&t Forda,”* i.e., Ten Farms in the place which by the tradition 
of the Eiders is called “ At the Ford.” These ten farms included 
the whole of the central portion of Bathford parish. Warleigh 
was however afterwards added to the Abbey demesne and included 
in the Manor by John de Villula, Bishop of Bath and Wells. 
The name was given to the Manor on account of the two roads 
by which it was approached from Bath and Bathampton, 
both passing over fords—one over the Box brook or Weaver, the 
other over the Avon. The latter has been entirely disused for 
nearly a century, and the ford over the brook, though still used 
occasionally, is rendered unnecessary by a geod county bridge, 
which existed nearly 300 years ago, as it is mentioned in a survey 
of 1605.+ 
* Dugdale Monasticon Anglicanus, Vol. ii., pp. 256, 262. Warner’s Hist. Bath, 
App. V., Pe. 4 
+ This bridge was either repaired or re-erected in 1665, as appears from an 
inscription which is here given and for which and a photograph of the bridge I 
Von. V., No. 2. 
