170 THE RED DEER OF EXMOOR. 



There was one ploughland and thirty acres of pasture, 

 and one cannot help wondering whether this is not 

 represented by the old enclosure at Sweet Tree, now 

 mostly overgrown with bracken and furze, for the 

 grass here is of fine quality and forms a striking con- 

 trast to the rest of the rough ground around. 



Old Ashway is a solitary farmhouse on the way 

 down from Winsford Hill to Tarr Steps, where Mr. 

 Parkman looks after Sir Thomas Acland's ponies, 

 yet in Doomsday we find it held by one Hugo under 

 Roger de Courcelle, and that he had there two serfs, 

 eleven villeins, and three bordiers, or a total popu- 

 lation, including his own family, of about eighty-five 

 souls. In the Pleas of the Forest we find Ashway 

 repeatedly as a " township " and assessed as on about 

 the same level as Withypool and Winsford, and only 

 a little behind Dulverton and Exford. 



At Badgworthy was an ancient farmhouse and one 

 or more cottages, of which the ruined walls, pointed 

 out to tourists as the ruined houses of the Doones, 

 are the remains. The farm and the enclosed land 

 round it belonged to the Prior of the Hospital of 

 Jerusalem, who sold it to Walter, the son of William 

 Bagworthy, from whom it descended to John Bag- 

 worthy, who in 1402 sold it to Lord Harrington. It 

 is entered in the accounts of the Manor of Brendon 

 in 1422 as follows : " And of 1 2^. rent of Badgeworthy 

 acquired by the lord of John Baiggeworthy twenty 

 years ago, and of 2s. rent of one cottage next the 

 tenement aforesaid of Badgeworthy. And of 2^. rent 



