Charford and Breamore. 



at Amesbury, which still preserves his name. Of the battle we 

 know nothing know only this, that the Keltic power in Wessex 

 was broken, and that from henceforth the land from Winchester 

 to Charford was called Natan-lea.* 



Close to Charford lies Breamore,f the last of the Forest 

 manors to the north-west mentioned in Domesday with the 

 ruins of its fine Elizabethan hall, burnt down only a few years 

 since, and its church standing in a graveyard full of old yews 

 and laurels. The church has been most shamefully disfigured 

 stuccoed outside, and whitewashed within. Still it is worth 

 seeing. A Norman doorway, another proof that the Conqueror 



* The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 26. Florence of Worcester, 

 Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 4. 



f This is the Brumore of Domesday (same edition as before, p. iv.a), 

 and then belonged to the manor of Rockbourne, and was held by the Con- 

 queror, as it had also been by Edward the Confessor. Two hydes and 

 a half, and a wood capable of supporting fifty swine, were taken into the 

 Forest. From the mention of a priest (presbyter^), who received twenty 

 shillings from some land in the Isle of Wight, there would seem to have 

 been a church, in all probability situated, as the old yew would show, in the 

 present churchyard, and of which the Norman doorway may be the last 

 remains. 



The Valley of the Avon, as was mentioned in chapter v., p. 51, foot- 

 note, appears from its nature to have been, with the exception of the east 

 coast, the most flourishing district of any in the neighbourhood of the 

 Forest. It is worth, however, noticing that many of its mills were rented 

 not only by a money value, but by the additional payment of so many eels. 

 Thus at Charford (Cerdeford) the mill is rented at 15s. and 1,250 eels, 

 and at Burgate (Borgate) the mill paid 10s. and 1,000 eels, whilst at 

 Ibbesley (Tibeslei) the rental was only 10s. and 700 eels (Domesday, as 

 before, pp. xix. a, iv.b, xviii. a). The latter place had two hydes, and 

 Burgate its woods and pasture, which maintained forty hogs, taken into 

 the Forest; but Charford with its ninety-one acres of meadow-land, seems 

 not to have been afforested, which, taken with other instances, shows that 

 the best land was, as a rule, spared. 



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