Descent uf the Manor of Draycat Cerwe. 
By Cartes Epwarp Lone, Esq. 
In connection with the Topography of Wiltshire, the descent of 
a property belonging to one of its oldest families, may not be, 
altogether, unworthy of notice. The manor of Draycot, otherwise 
Draycot Cerne, has, for four centuries, been the inheritance of the 
family of Long, yet how it came into their possession, whether from 
consanguinity to the last of the race who conferred upon it its 
agnomen, as has been hitherto, traditionally, supposed, or by the less 
distinguished process of purchase, remained, until a short time 
back, a matter of doubt. 
It will be my endeavour to trace its history in as succinct a way 
as is practicable with a due regard to intelligibility; and the 
appended pedigree will serve to explain the case more clearly as 
regards the family of Cerne, while the nature of its transfer to the 
Longs, may be readily understood without the necessity of printing 
in extenso the record upon which the fact of its acquisition by them 
is founded. 
It appears from the Hundred Rolls, that, in the time of Henry 
the Third, the vill and advowson of Draycot were held of the king, 
in capite, by John de Venuz, and that he alienated the same to 
Henry de Cerne, sometimes spoken of as “Magister Henricus de 
Cerne.” On the decease of this Henry de Cerne it was held by 
his successor Philip de Cerne, and who appears to have been in 
possession in the thirty-ninth of Henry the Third, (1254-5). From 
this period, and until the decease of Richard de Cerne in the eighth 
of Henry the Sixth, (1429-30), it remained one of the possessions 
of that family, and was held by the like tenure. By the inquisition 
taken in the ninth of Henry the Sixth, (1430-1), on the decease of 
Richard de Cerne, John Heryng was found to be his cousin 
