AND ITS SURROUNDINGS. 223 



There is another inscription as follows : — 



" To the memory of Elizabeth, lately the Pious 



Wife of Richard Wood, Gent. She died Jan. 11, 1662. 



Eliza's soule a GrafTe divine 



With Clay was fastened into Wood 



The Tree did suddenly decline 

 The Fruit was blasted in the Bud. 

 The Clay which death brake off lies here, the Wife 

 Is now engrafted on the tree of life. 

 Reader, expect not long to hold thy breath, 

 For hearte of Oake thou see'st cut off by death. 



Kenedon, in the parish of Sherford, is an ancient house 

 of the early Tudor period. It was formerly the seat of the 

 Pralls ; at one time it belonged to Sir W. Elford, and after- 

 wards it was the property of the late Luke Howard, Esq., of 

 Tottenham. There was once a tower attached to it, but this 

 was taken down by the Aldhams, who occupied the place 

 for some years. The following is extracted from Prince's 

 "Worthies": — John Halse, Lord Bishop of Coventry and 

 Lichfield, was born in Kenedon, in the parish of Sherford (a 

 chapel of ease to Stokenham Church). It hath the name 

 Sherford from a clear stream of water running there and a 

 passage through it. John Halse, the Judge, was the first of 

 the name who possessed this seat (Kenedon) whom I take to 

 be a native of this county, although where born I cannot say. 

 In the 1st of King Henry V. he was made the King's 

 Sergeant-at-Law. In the first of King Henry VI. he was con- 

 stituted one of the justices of Common Pleas, and in the year 

 after, 1424, one of the justices of the King's Bench. He took 

 up his habitation at Kenedon, and made it the seat of his 

 family, which flourished there many generations in a right 

 worshipful degree, down to the latter end of the reign of 



