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: Collections for x History of Seaguy. 
: By the Rev. H. K. Anxerety (Vicar.) 
(Ae~sHIS is a small village, six miles north-east of Chippenham, 
) ays and five miles south of Malmesbury. It is divided into 
Upper (or Over) Seagry and Lower Seagry. Lower Seagry is 
diocese of Gloucester and Bristol. Population, about one hundred 
and forty-nine; acreage, one thousand and thirty-three. Pastures 
by the side of the river Avon, one hundred and forty-nine acres. The 
present landowners are, Earl Cowley (including late the Earl of 
Radnor’s and Lady Holland’s) Mr. Bayliffe and Mrs. Sevier. 
The name has been, as is usual, variously spelled in old records, 
viz.:—Segry, Segree, Segrey, Seagrey, Seagree, Segerie, Segre, 
Segreth, Seagre. “Vulgd Segary,” says John Aubrey. meaning 
that in his day it was pronounced (as it often is still) as if spelled 
Ségry. The derivation of the word is rather perplexing. There is, 
in the Department of Maire et Loire, in France, a place called 
Segré; but French names not being likely to be found for places in 
North Wilts (except as family names, like Delamere, Tregoz, St. 
Quintin, &e., appended to the old Saxon names, Leigh, Lydiard, 
Stanton, &c.) another origin has been suggested more akin to the 
names of neighbouring villages. The Saxon termination ey, or ea, 
means water, and as Dauntsey is Daunt’s-water (from some old 
- Saxon owner), so Seagry may have been Seager’s-water (Seager is 
still a family name in the neighbourhood) : but as there is no record 
of any such ancient proprietor, we must fall back upon the Saxon 
word “scey,” a sedge: in which case the name would signify, very 
appropriately, sedgewater, the Avon being full of sedge here. 
In a grant of King Edgar’s, A.D. 956,' of the then great manor 
Ce 
-1§ee Mr. J. Y. Akerman’s paper on the possessions of Malmesbury Abbey, 
in ‘ Archologia,” vol. xxxvii., p. 267. 
