By T. H. Baker. 325 
were manufactured in this locality. On one compartment of the 
tomb is inscribed :— 
“In Ccelo quies 
James Ford 
Son of John and Mary Ford 
who died Noy. 6th, 1802 
Aged 58 years, 
and by his will he gave £100 for 
apn organ for the adjoining church 
£10 for the Salisbury Infirmary 
and £10 to the second poor of the 
Hamlet of Zeals.’’ 
This was distributed in bread shortly after his death. 
ZEALs CHURCH. 
In 1220 Dean Wanda’s Inventory mentions a chapel at Seles 
dedicated to St. Martin, and Mr. Batten, in his documentary history 
of Zeals, Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxviii., p. 210, states that in 27 
Elizabeth, 1585, “ All that the Free Chapel with one fourth of an 
acre of land north of the Chapel situate in Zeals Clivedon,”’ was 
granted to Edward Morrice and James Mayland from whom it 
came to the Chafyns. All traces of this chapel have disappeared, 
and there is no tradition as to its site. ; 
The following appeal to the public was made in 1845, and the 
result was that a new Church was erected at Zeals Green. It was, 
like its predecessor, dedicated to St. Martin. 
Proposal for the erection of a Chapel of Ease, Parsonage House, and School 
on Zeals Green, Wilts, estimated cost about £3000. 
* Zeals is a hamlet of Mere, a poor manufacturing town in the south-western 
part of the county of Wilts. The benefice is a vicarage of the small value of 
£200 per annum under the peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean of Salisbury. 
The population of the parish is about 3200, for the most part in great poverty. 
The poor-rate during the last year amounted to more than £2000. In respect of 
Church accommodation it is believed that the parish of Mere, with its hamlets, 
is one of the most destitute in the diocese of Salisbury, affording church room 
for less than one fifth of its inhabitants. 
“The population of the hamlet of Zeals, where it is proposed to erect the 
Chapel of Ease, amounts to nearly 600 souls, distant, for the most part, from 
their parish Church between two and three miles. 
“The Chapel is intended to accommodate 300 persons, the whole of the sittings 
being free and unappropriated, and a gallery may be hereafter added to ac- 
commodate 50 more persons. 
