Communicated by Mr. James Waylen, 337 
which was that his elder brother John had, eight years back, by his 
will in 1688, levied on three of the above farms the sum of £1000 
for the establishment of some charitable institution as should seem 
good to the trustees, to continue for ever, either in the County of 
Wilts or in the University of Oxford. The trustees were Sir Henry 
Ludlow, Dr. Alexander Hyde, Thomas Hooper, William Lavington, 
and Alexander Toppe; the incumbrance on the lands to be removable 
by the payment of £1000 by the compounder or his heirs on or 
before the 14th of March, 1643; but the compounder had not paid 
it. Fine, £600, reduced to £500. 27th May. 1647, 
Mr. Toppe died in 1665, but Stockton House knows his name no 
longer; an heiress named Everard Balch having subsequently sold 
it to the father of Harry Biggs, Esq. The mansion, which is a fair 
specimen of the Elizabethan style, is supposed to have been built 
by John Toppe, Sheriff of the county in 1630, who died in 1632. 
This information is derived from Hoare’s South Wilts, where we 
further learn what became of the charitable trust referred to in 
Edward Toppe’s petition. The foundation of Stockton Almshouse 
was enrolled in Chancery, Ist February, 1658, the survivors of the 
trust having bought an estate at Mottesfont, in Hampshire, called 
Speary Well, John Toppe, the heir presumptive, adding a rent-charge 
out of Barnes’ Close, at Stockton. The statutes are still in force, 
and maintain eight poor persons, with a weekly allowance. 
_ Of three old families formerly conspicuous in this parish, viz., 
_ those of Toppe, Poticary, and Biggs, the two first acquired their 
position by the clothing trade. Sheriff Toppe married Mary, 
daughter of Edward Hooper, of Boveridge, supposed to have been 
a Puritan alliance, for her brother married a daughter of Jeffrey 
Whitaker, of Tinhead. The entry recording the death of Mistress 
Toppe makes the unusual addition that “ she was a most excellent 
person.” John Terry, the officiating incumbent, was eminently of 
the Puritan school. 
Joun Townson, of Bremhill, Bachelor in Divinity. His delin- 
‘quency consisted in deserting his habitation and repairing to Oxford, 
in which city he remained till its surrender to Sir Thomas Fairfax. 
‘VOL, XXIV.—NO, LXXIL. z 
