124 EPONYMOUS FAMILIES OF DORSET. 



The name became a surname before 1300, and at that date it 

 was known as such in the counties of Yorkshire, Norfolk, 

 Lincolnshire, Bucks, and Berks, as well as Dorset, but shortly 

 after that date it is found in Dorset only. 



This family seems to have been one of considerable import- 

 ance locally, owning several manors in the county of Dorset, but, 

 fortunately for themselves perhaps, little known at Court or 

 beyond the boundary of the county ; though we must suppose 

 that the name was not unknown at Westminster in the i4th 

 Century, since five of this name were returned to Parliament as 

 representing Shaftesbury, during that period, beginning in 1306. 

 Prior to this, Roger Anketil was verderer of Gillingham Forest 

 from 1244 to 1258. 



In 1347 William Anketil obtained licence to have an oratory 

 in his mansion house, which perhaps implies that his retinue was 

 at that time too large to be accommodated in the adjacent 

 parish church. 



The year 1369 finds the family still located at Shaftesbury in 

 circumstances apparently unchanged. 



But the Wars of the Roses seem to have given them the 

 opportunity for which so many years of increasing wealth had 

 qualified them, and there are indications that that tempestuous 

 time that brought to wreck so many great houses and fortunes, 

 only brought more prosperity into the backwater of their quiet 

 lives. In 1390 Wm. Anketill, who had married a daughter of 

 the great landowner, Wm. Filiol, is engaged in a law suit con- 

 cerning lands in East Aimer, and apparently his suit was 

 successful, for the close of the disturbed period finds his grand- 

 son in possession of the whole of that manor. 



We can imagine that the rich lands on the sunny slopes of 

 Shaftesbury Hill, with fairs and market so close, and the near 

 neighbourhood of so excellent a customer as the convent, 

 brought many Rose nobles and Angels to the iron-bound coffer 

 in AnketelFs Place ; and what better investment could be found 

 than mortgages on the lands of neighbours who were less thrifty 

 or more anxious to ingratiate themselves with the sovereign of 



