By the Rev. J. EB. Jackson. 29 
an heiress, Christina Gascelyn, who married Edward Hales, Esq. ; 
and in the year 1424, (2 Hen. VI.) she and her husband sold the 
Hundred of Chippenham and the Manor of Sheldon for the sum 
of £1000, to Walter Lord Hungerford, High Treasurer of England. 
Sheldon continued in the Hungerford family for about 250 
years, being during that period more than once forfeited, but again 
restored. In the year 1684 Sir Edward Hungerford, having reached 
the crisis of extravagance, was compelled to break up all his noble 
inheritance. He sold Sheldon (then under lease to Mr. Gorges 
Scrope) to Richard Kent Esq. of London, afterwards Sir Richard 
Kent, Kt., and M.P. for Chippenham. Sir Richard did not keep 
it very long; for being in debt, his estates were sold by order of 
the Court of Chancery in 1698, and the purchaser of this part was 
Sir Richard Hart of Hanham, near Bitton, beyond Bath. In 12 
years it changed hands again; and was bought in 1710 by Mr. 
Norris of Lincoln’s Inn. The last owner of this name died at 
Nonesuch some years ago, and Sheldon now belongs to his rela- 
tives, the Marshalls. ] 
The lordship or liberty of the Hundred of Chippenham accom- 
panied the Manor of Sheldon through the older families, down to 
the Hungerfords. It fell to the Crown on Lord Hungerford’s 
forfeiture in 1540. It was then, and has since continued, severed 
from the Manor of Sheldon. King Edw. VI. sold the fee simple 
of this hundred to Thomas Lord Darcy, K.G.!_ Lord Darcy sold it 
to Sir William Sherington of Lacock. In 1650 it belonged to 
the Danvers family of Dauntsey. When forfeited by Sir John 
Danvers the regicide, King James IT. granted it to Charles Mordaunt, 
the celebrated Earl of Peterborough. From him it descended to 
Mr. Mordaunt Fenwick, who sold it in 1854 to Joseph Neeld, Esq.? 
1 Sir T. Phillipps’s Index to Grants in the Augmentation Office, temp, Edw. 
V1, p. 6, Bund. D., No. 12. 
2 The Hundred of Chippenham was anciently (7.e. in the year 1423), called 
the Hundred of Bishopstone, Donelewe, and Chippenham. The connexion of 
any Bishopstone with the hundred of Chippenham I cannot explain. Dunley 
survives within it: it lies between Grittleton and Alderton, and was formerly 
a small hundred of itself, about which there are records. 
