336 Notes on the Border of Wilts and Hants. 



were held under the Crown by a family of the name of Columbars, 

 whose name often occurs as great territorial lords in that part of 

 Wilts. There was one part of Chute that belonged to Hyde Abbey, 

 at Winchester. 



Chute Forest ran into both counties : one part was called Chute 

 Wilts ; the other Chute Hampshire. Chute Hampshire came down 

 as far as Hurstbourne, and the Doles. In this part of the forest 

 there were one thousand acres and twenty coppices. Chute Wilts 

 fell into the hands of Protector Somerset, who indeed contrived to 

 get into his hands most of the tract of country between Chute and 

 Marlborough. 



The meaning of the name of Chute I do not know. It is very 

 likely some old Celtic word. There are two parishes : Chute proper, 

 and Chute Forest. In the former and northernmost lies Conholt, for- 

 merly called Chute Park. This place was made into a park by a Sir 

 Philip Medows in Charles the Second's time. He had been Secretary 

 to Oliver Cromwell and Ambassador to Portugal. His last male 

 descendants were two : Sir Sidney Medows, who built the present 

 house in 1762, and a Philip Medows. Philip married a Pierrepont, 

 heiress to the Dukes of Kingston, of Kingston House, at Bradford- 

 on-Avon. Their son, Charles Medows, assumed the name of Pierre- 

 pont, and from him is descended the lady who is now the occupier 

 of Conholt, the Lady Charles Wellesley. 



There was at Chute in Charles the Second's time a celebrated 

 character, who somehow or other earned a bad reputation, Sir 

 William Scroggs, who was no less a person than Lord Chief Justice 

 of England. His origin was not very great : he was born in London, 

 and being intended for a divine, went to Pembroke College, Oxford, 

 in 1643 : but having previously been a soldier, and having borne 

 arms for Charles I. as a captain, at Colchester, in 1640, he was dis- 

 qualified for holy orders : so took to the law, and rose to the high 

 office mentioned. Along with two other judges he was impeached 

 on a report of the House of Commons, for certain arbitrary and 

 illegal proceedings, in 1680. The poets have embalmed him, but 

 not in the most fragrant of spices. The first, the anonymous author 

 of a poem called " Naboth's Vineyard," in the following lines :— 



