34 The Orders of Shrewton. 
at the “earnest persuasion” of Nicholas Barlowe, the vicar, in 
order to remedy disorders which had arisen in consequence of the 
dismembering of the manor in 1596, and the discontinuance of the 
Courts Baron wherein orders were taken, in former times, for the 
“better government and quiet estate of the parish,” and they 
apparently embody what had been the customs of the manor time 
out of mind. 
The picture of a Salisbury Plain parish at the end of the sixteenth 
century presented by this document is a very pleasant one. Nicholas 
Barlowe, the vicar, was a Shrewton man, according to the first 
entry in the register :— 
‘‘March. 1548. Nicholas the sonne of John Barlowe was Baptised, and 
afterward Ordered and Collated Vicar of Shrewton by Bishop John Jewell 
A°. Di 1570.” 
If we may judge from the way in which he kept the register, 
which is in his own writing till 29th April, 1609 (the year before 
his death), he was a man of scholarly and business-like habits, and 
in 1599 his long incumbency must have given him great weight in 
the councils of the parish. The gentry of the village were men of 
position in the country. Edward Estcourte owned the parish of 
Rolleston and that part of the parish of Shrewton called Nett. 
He was an ancestor of the present Mr. Estcourt, of Estcourt, near 
Tetbury. Thomas Tooker was the brother of Sir Giles Tooker, 
Recorder of Salisbury, and M.P. for Salisbury, 1601—1621, who 
lived at Maddington. Wilham Goldisborough and Robert Wans- 
borowe were owners of considerable estates in the parish—the latter 
lived in the manor house, which is now occupied by Mr. Charles 
Wansborough, his lineal descendant, who possesses whatever rights 
were left to the lord of the manor, after its sale and dismembering 
in 1596. Nicholas and John Gylbert were members of a family 
who for about two centuries owned land in Shrewton and Madding- 
ton. Robert Piercey’s descendants are to this day respectable 
tradespeople in Shrewton. 
inscription on the cover :—“ This old register, which has been in the careful 
keeping of my family for more than two hundred years, I now restore to the 
Church of Shrewton at the request of the Vicar, the Rev. F. Bennett, this 
second day of April, 1860. CHarLEs WaNSBROUGH.” 
