By the Bev. Canon J. E. Jackson, F.S.A. 3-11 



TiDWORTH. 



Tidworth, near Cidbury, is so close upon our border line that it 

 lies on both sides of it. North Tidworth being in Wilts, South 

 Tidworth in this county. This morsel of rather nice topography 

 was, unluckily, not within the knowledge of the Loudon solicitors 

 of the late mighty hunter, Mr. Asheton Smith : and the consequence 

 of it was the important lawsuit, which is too fresh in your memory 

 to require any archseological research. 



Some part of Tidworth once belonged to the family of Poore : a 

 very ancient Wiltshire name, going so far back as two Bishops of 

 Sarum, Herbert and Richard Poore, who succeeded one another in 

 that Bishopric at the end of the twelfth century. The Sarum of 

 which they were bishops was Old Sarum : but it was Richard Poore 

 who effected the transfer of the see to modern Salisbury. 



There was a gentleman of that family whom I have often heard 

 spoken of by the late Mr. John Britton, our distinguished Wiltshire 

 antiquary, Mr. Edward Poore, as a very literary man who had 

 travelled much, read much, and associated much with men of letters 

 and science, and who had left behind him a vast quantity of manu- 

 scripts. I made enquiry about these many years ago, in hopes that 

 something might have been preserved of use to us in our endeavours 

 to throw light upon our county history : but I was informed that, 

 though there were six thousand and more pages of writing still 

 preserved, yet they were all upon general subjects, and would be of 

 no assistance to us. 



The DiEMON of Tidworth. 



A house at Tidworth (the same, I believe, that was lived in by 

 the Poore Family,) had been, before their time, the property of a 

 previous family, of the name of Mompesson : and during their 

 occupation it was the scene of a very celebrated ghost story, called 

 "The Daemon of Tidworth," or, ''The Invisible Drummer." A 

 ghost story still continues quite as much as ever to take a fascinating 

 hold of the popular mind : but two hundred years ago the whole 

 country was literally absorbed in the charming mystery which sur- 

 rounded " The Invisible Drummer." Addison actually wrote a play 



