aes, 
By C. E. Ponting, F.S.A. 31 
1402) Steward of the Principality of Wales, and therefore of the 
manor of Mere, and who died in 1403, directed that his body 
should be buried in the chantry chapel of the Virgin Mary in the 
Church of Mere, but this was not carried out as he was buried in 
the priory of Witham, Co. Somerset.!| John, his son, who was made 
first Lord Stourton in 1448, and who died 1463, was probably 
buried under the altar-tomb above referred to. This John was 
probably the most distinguished of the Stourton family, and served 
his monarchs Henry V. and VI. in their foreign wars with great 
ability, for which services he was created a baron. Leland says he 
built the ancient castle at Stourton “ ex spoliis Gallorum,” and it was 
no doubt from the same source that he greatly contributed to the 
general reconstruction of the Church of Mere, ecirea 1450-60. He 
married Margery, daughter of Sir John Wadham, of Merefield, Co. 
Somerset, Kt., whose arms appear on one of the shields on the 
bridge across the north aisle. 
The second Lord (William) died 1479 and was, like his son John, 
the third Lord, buried in this Church.? The second Lord married 
a “daughter of Sir John Chidiok, of Chidiok, Co. Dorset,” and “ by 
this the family of Stourton acquired the manor of Stourton Caundle, 
Co. Dorset, which was afterwards sold to Henry Hoare, of Stourton, 
Esq., in whose family it now remains.” * 
The third lord married a granddaughter of Sir John Berkeley, 
who married the daughter of Sir John Bettesthorne, builder of the 
south chapel, and died in 1484. 
The widening and raising of this chapel appears to have had a 
similar effect on the parishioners to the similar work in the south 
chapel, for the north aisle was immediately afterwards re-built— 
indeed it is doubtful whether the chapel was roofed in before the 
aisle was begun—the width of the chapel being in each case the 
limit for the width of the aisle, whilst on the north the roof of the 
aisle was a continuation of that of the chapel. As stated on p. 25, 
' Hoare’s Hundred of Mere, p. 44. 
> Ibid, p. 48. 
% Ibid, p. 44. 
