'{%+ 





Xlvi. GILLINGHAM, MERE, AND STOURHEAD. 



SECOND SUMMER MEETING. 



GILLINGHAM, MERE, AND STOURHEAD. 



July &h, 1911. 



The party on this occasion numbered 60, and included the 

 President, the Hon. Secretary, Treasurer, Editor, and Assistant 

 Secretary. The members who travelled by the Somerset 

 and Dorset line, reaching Gillingham nearly two hours before 

 those who came by the Weymouth train, were received by 

 the Vicar, the Rev. Walter Sotheby, who took them over the 

 parish church and showed them other places of interest. 



In ilir middle atfos a Royal manor and forest, Gillingham is the 

 centre of an enormous parish, over 40 miles in circumference, with an 

 of more than 60,000 acres, such dimensions being no doubt 

 attributable to the " forest." The land was deforested in the reign 

 of Charles I., and is now laid down to pasture. About a mile away is 

 Slaughter Gate, where Edmund Ironsides is said to have inflicted on 

 Canute in 1016 the great defeat which secured him the possession of 

 the southern half of the kingdom, and in 1042 a Witenagemot was held 

 here to give something in the way of a national sanction to the accession 

 of Edward the Confessor, in place of the rightful heirs, the children of 

 Edmund Ironsides. The church, mainly rebuilt in 1838, has a 

 Decorated chancel, but is partly Perpendicular. There is a monument 

 dated 1625 with two recumbent effigies to two brothers, Jessops, one 

 a former vicar and the other a physician and a Fellow or Postmaster 

 of Merton ; and a tomb to the last representative of the Dirdoe family 

 is placed in the north aisle. Another vicar, Edward Davenant, ejected 

 by the Parliament and replaced at the Restoration, has a Latin epitaph 

 over the tower arch. The Gillingham Grammar School was established 

 in 1526 by one John Grice, and well maintains its ancient reputation. 

 Clarendon, the historian and statesman, born at Dinton, received part 

 of his education here, and Frampton, Bishop of Gloucester, one of 

 James II. 's " Seven," was once associated with it. In addition to a 

 large brewery and flour mills, and various establishments connected 

 with the dairy industry and the curing of provisions, Gillingham has 

 considerable manufactures of silk and flax, as well as pottery, tiles, 

 bricks, and terra-cotta goods. 



