By the Rev. Canon Eddrup. 277 
leaves and dirt and other pollutions, down to Stanley: the direct 
distance is about two miles, but the length of the aqueduct must 
have been considerably more than this.1 
There are extant very complete and valuable collections of charters 
and other documents relating to Stanley Abbey, some of which have 
been printed in Dugdale and in the History of Bremhill by my 
predecessor, Canon Bowles; and others in the fifteenth volume of 
the Wiltshire Archeological Magazine by Mr. W. de Grey Birch. 
In this volume, pp. 239—807 (No. xlv., December 1875) Mr. Birch 
has collected much interesting information relating to Stanley Abbey 
and its possessions, supplementing the notices given by Canon 
_ Bowles. Copies are given of various seals of the abbey ; one—a 
very fair impression of the common seal (which is also less aecurately 
engraved in Bowles, p. 83), attached to a deed dated in 1363— 
remains in the Augmentation Office (Birch, p. 803). It is round, 
_ and has for its subject the Blessed Virgin and Child on one side, 
and on the other St. John the Baptist ; between the two figures is 
a small tree, which Mr. Birch describes as an olive tree. 
_ As might have been expected from the circumstances of the 
foundation of the abbey, the charters show that it was much 
_ favoured by the early Plantagenet Kings. There are charters of 
Henry II.; one before he became Duke of Normandy and Count of 
Anjou; another, after his accession to these titles; and another 
_ after he became King of England. There is a grant from William, 
Earl of Gloucester, the son of Roger, the illegitimate brother of the 
‘Empress Matilda, and her chief supporter in the contest with 
‘Stephen, in which he grants to the monks of Stanley, near 
‘Chippenham, freedom from toll in his town of Bristol for all 
things that they might buy for the special use of their Church, 
There ‘are various charters and confirmations by Richard I. One 
given at Messina, in Sicily, in 1191, when he was on his way 
* Bowles, in his History of Bremhill, p. 123, says that ‘‘ part of this aque- 
luct: was discovered very lately by a heifer falling into the drain.” This history 
as published 1827—more than sixty years ago—and, as far as I know, no 
further discovery has been recorded. 
