256 Maud Heath's Causey. 
as starting from Wick Hill, not from Chippenham. And so in 
the poetry. On a large stone at the commencement of it, near 
Bremhill, are these lines. 
“From this Wick Hitt begins the praise 
Of Maup Hearn’s gift to these highways.” 
At the other end, next to Chippenham, just at the point of junction 
of the two turnpike roads from Malmsbury and Draycote, is a second 
stone with this couplet :— 
‘‘Hither extendeth Maup HxEaty’s gift; 
For where I stand is Chippenham clift.” 1 
Midway, at the bridge over the Avon, there is a third commem- 
orative stone: a pillar about 12 feet high, erected by the feoffees 
in 1698, which enters more into particulars. 
“To the Memory of the worthy Maup Hearn of Langley Burrell, Spinster: 
who in the year of grace, 1474, for the good of travellers, did in charity bestow 
in land and houses about eight pounds a year, for ever, to be laid out on the 
highway and causey, leading from Wick Hill to Chippenham Clift.” 
CHIPPENHAM Injure me not. Wick Hitt. 
CLIFT. 
On the several faces of the pillar are short Latin sentences, 
intended to be applicable both to the journey to Chippenham, and to 
the longer one of human life. To these, however intelligible to the 
pontifices of Langley or Bremhill, and the other learned guardians 
of this modern “Sublician,” the late vicar of Bremhill, the Rev. 
W. L. Bowles, obtained leave to attach for the use of less accom- 
plished travellers, an interpetration in the vulgar tongue. 
1 It is to be presumed that this stone, being a public authority, speaks the 
truth; and therefore when it says ‘‘this 7s Chippenham Cif,” as Chippenham 
Cliff we must regard it. But the word is scarcely applicable to a locality almost 
flat. There is indeed all the way to the railway arch, a gentle slope down 
which a cannon ball might, or might not, roll: but there is not upon the spot, 
anything approaching to the abruptness of a cliff. The stone is just upon the 
limit of the parish of Langley Burrell, and probably has always been where it is; 
but had the causey been carried on to the left (still keeping within the same 
parish), so as to follow the old road towards the town, it would presently have 
arrived at something much more like a cliff—the steep rugged bank which 
overhangs the river, hear the entrance to Mr. Esmeade’s grounds at Monkton. 
And there it would have been a more intelligible stone. 
