174 Notes, Archmological and Historical. 



f^aat thorough Whitehill, whoakhayes and woakhayes meadow, passing into a 

 ground lately inclosed ought of the common (in Briukworth parish), by Sir 

 Henry Kny vett dyrection or some of his offycers as we have hard at which plasse 

 it ys sayed by thees old men, as they have hard their foorfathers saye, the Duke 

 had his waye forthe there by a gaat called faoffe gaat, and from that the pram- 

 bulation went dyrectlye in the ought syde [outside] of the parcke as the waye 

 lyethe to the sand pyttes at the fur corner of the great parcke on Brinkworth 

 hill, and from thence along the wa3'e deviding the mannor of Wotton and Mughall 

 on the Dorthe syde to a Crosse at hie gaat which stands the dystance from the 



to mean the Duke of York or Somerset is not known, but probably the former. 

 There are some depressions in the ground at the corner of the park on Brinkworth 

 Hill, which were probably the "sand pyttes." — The "Cross at hiegaat" must 

 have stood near Mr. Tuck's fai'm-house. At Highgate was the entrance from 

 Fasterne Park to Brayden Forest, and on the 4th of June, 1549, Mr. John 

 Berwick, Steward to the Protector Somerset, {vide Longleat Papers, Wilts Arch. 

 Mag., vol. xiv.), wrote to Sir John Thynue informing him that he had just then 

 put into Brayden, from Fasterne, five huiidred deer, of which a great part were 

 inferior ones, or "rascalls" — the reason being that grass in that year was re- 

 markably early. There is a field still called " Gadcrafte." From Baynard's Ash. 

 the boundary of the park went along the ridge towards Wootton Bassett, where 

 there is, or was, a walk called the " Row Dow," thence at the back of the houses 

 in Victory Row, across the bottom of Wood Street, and the Butt Hay, to where 

 the hedge divides Mr. F. Weston's property from Sir Henry Meux's, across the 

 upper part of Whitehill Lane, and on the high ground to the Great Western 

 Railway, which it crossed, and down to the brook below Hunt's Mill. It then 

 went up to Fastern Wilderness. There was another old or inner park, which 

 included about forty acres of Whitehill Farm, Old Park Farm, the Hart or 

 Half's Farm, and part of Hunt's Mill Farm. On the west side the stream from 

 Tockenham and Lyneham divided the Wootton Bassett and Grittenham manors. 

 Near Hooker's Gate is " Brynning's " or Browning's Bridge, which bridge is 

 mentioned in the oldest known perambulation of the ancient forest of Braden, 

 that commenced there. The " Queue Anne " must have been Anne of Cleves, or 

 Anne Boleyn. 



The late Canon Jackson kindly sent to the writer the following extract from 

 the Register of the Prptector Somerset's Estates in Wilts (when Viscount 

 Beauchamp, 1540), copied from the original at Longleat :—" There is in the said 

 mannor [of Midghall] a certain wood called Calo-wood, and contaynith 100 acres, 

 in the which grow bryers, furze, and thornes, with young okes, and the tenants 

 say that from Ward's lane unto the east part of the parke called Fasterne Parke, 

 the Queen [Katherine Parr] shall have the breadthe of an acre and a halfe of 

 the said wood to mayntayn the hedge of the said parke." The site of the house 

 of the Ranger of Fasterne Park is known, being on the north side of the 

 Thunderbrook, on Whitehill Farm, and rather more than a quarter of a mile to 

 the east of Dovey's Bridge. There was a deep moat round it, which enclosed 

 an area of about half-an acre of land, the fertility of which still strangely con- 

 trasts -with the barrenness of that by which it is surrounded. Callow Hill is 

 at the corner of the great park at Brinkworth, 



