196 Short Notes. E 
Godson, who also in the next year surveyed and valued the parish of 
Lyneham. He afterwards became manager of a bank at Croydon, where 
some of his descendants are now in business. 
“Greenhill Common consisted of about forty acres, and everyone in the 
parish had a right to depasture stock there, and a hayward was appointed 
by the manor court. The cottagers also kept many geese. It was a 
favourite resort of gipsies, whose ‘ pitch’ was generally on the west side of 
the hedge on the left-hand side of the Bushton and Clyffe Road, just over 
the canal bridge called in the ordnance map ‘Greenhill Bridge.’ On Sunday 
the lads and lasses of the lower orders in Wootton Bassett were accustomed 
to congregate there, the former for football and the latter to have their 
fortunes told by these dusky sybils. 
“The late Mr. Abraham Woodward, of Wood Street, Wootton Bassett, 
declared that he had seen in print somewhere that Lady Englefield, on her 
departure from Vastern in 1667, assigned this common to the inhabitants 
for pasturage in lieu of the Lawn (or Lawnd). Of this there is scarcely a 
doubt. 
“The Cripps family had a field in the middle of Greenhill Common, which 
they held as lifehold for many generations. It was popularly supposed to 
have been at some time ‘grabbed’ from the common, and was called 
‘Pinchgut Close.’ 
“ The last time any court of the Manor of Wootton Bassett was held was 
in March, 1834. The writer, whose father was tything-man and hayward, 
remembers summoning some of the inhabitants of Greenhill tything to 
attend. The manor courts were always held in the Town Hall. 
“When the common was enclosed it was apportioned to the owners of the 
adjoining land, according to the quantity in their possession.” 
W. F. Parsons. 
Natural History. 
White-tailed Hagle at Salisbury, The Rev. A. P. Morres, in an interesting 
letter to the Salisbury Journal, February 6th, 1897, describes an enormous 
bird which was seen by several people flying slowly N.W. over the Close, and 
quite low down, on January 31st, mobbed by all the rooks and jackdaws in 
the neighbourhood. From the description given him he feels sure that the 
bird was an immature specimen of the Sea Eagle, Halietus albicilla, which 
has been not unfrequently killed in the neighbourhood of Christchurch. 
Potterne Bird Notes—Kaingfisher, Peregrine, Greater Spotted 
Woodpecker, &c. There was an interesting nest of Kingfishers last 
summer at Eastwell. It was in a hole in the sandstone at the side of a 
small cave, near the pond, and about 25yds. from the house. The curious 
part about this choice of a nesting-place was that the children of the house 
had built a small stove within a few yards of the cave and were continually 
