26 Bradford-upon-Avon. 
called in these early days. Reckoning those named as resident at 
Cumberwell, and assuming, in addition to those specifically men- 
tioned, a man for every mill, pasture, house, &c., (the plan adopted 
by Rickman and Turner,) we have enumerated in all some 175 per- 
sons in various employments. Supposing these numbers to have 
reference to the heads of families only, and taking four as the 
average of a family, it would give us a population of about 700. 
Many of these would, of course, live near the lands which they 
cultivated, so that the population of the town could hardly have 
been more than from three to four hundred at the most. 
From a.p. 1100—1300. 
We know as yet very little of the history of Bradford for the 
two centuries immediately succeeding the Norman Conquest. Our 
neighbourhood was the scene of frequent and deadly conflicts, and, 
no doubt shared in some of the misery that abounded on every 
side during the reigns of William Rufus, Henry I., and Stephen. 
In the reign of the last named king it was that the sound of war 
was heard almost within our borders, for after obtaining possession 
of the castles of Salisbury, Malmsbury, and Devizes, Stephen him- 
self laid seige to the Castle of Trowbridge, then belonging to 
Humphrey de Bohun, a partizan of the Empress Matilda, but re- 
tired after several unsuccessful attempts to take it. The fact of a 
‘large Church having been built in Bradford about the middle of 
the twelfth century, would seem to imply increasing wealth and 
population, and a comparative immunity from those desolating 
scourges with which other parts of the country were visited. 
With reference to the Church, we will for the present only state, that 
the oldest part of it, which no doubt formed the original building, 
consists of a Chancel (about two-thirds the length of the present one) 
some 34 feet long, anda Nave a little more than twice the length of 
the Chancel, both of them being of a proportionate width, built in 
the Norman style of architecture. Though the Norman features have 
1 The whole number of heads of families in Wiltshire, according to Domesday, 
is 10,749. This, according to the calculation above, would give a total popu- 
lation of about 42,000 souls. See Turner’s ‘ Anglo-Saxons,’ vol. ili. p. 255. 
2 William of Malmesbury’s Chronicle, (a.p. 11389.) 
