140 FORD ABBEY. 



reparations and additions, in memory of which his initials were 

 painted on the glass of several of the windows, particularly in 

 the large middle window, on the south side of the tower and 

 the Hospital of St. Margaret, at Honiton, may be mentioned as 

 two of the places which shared his liberality. 



In 1536 the smaller monasteries had been suppressed, and the 

 storm long impending now burst upon the larger houses, and Ford 

 Abbey was not to be exempted from the common ruin. It was on 

 the 8th March, 1539, that Thomas Chard, with feelings doubtless 

 ill in accord with the wording of the document (which is set out in 

 full in Mrs. Allen's History of Ford Abbey) was induced to sign 

 the surrender of his Abbey to Henry VIII. The revenues at the 

 time of the dissolution were valued at .373 10s. 6d., and the 

 Court of Augmentation granted pensions to the abbot and convent 

 of the " house of Ford " for their lives amounting in the whole to 

 considerably less than half that amount, of which the late abbot's 

 share was <80 a year, with certain perquisites, a poor compensation 

 truly for the loss of his dignity and position as head of such an 

 establishment as Ford Abbey must have been at that period, and 

 to the splendours of which he had so largely contributed. 



Dr. Chard, however, still held the vicarage of Thorncombe until 

 his death in 1544, so that he survived the dissolution of his 

 monastery by about four years only. It is an ill wind indeed that 

 blows nobody any good, and it must have been some gratification 

 at all events to the dispossessed abbot to feel that all his care in 

 adorning and beautifying the abbey was not lost, for on the 28th 

 October, 1539, the king granted the buildings, site, and precincts 

 of the Abbey of Ford, and certain lands, on lease to Richard 

 Pollard, Esq., and on the 23rd June, 1540, he granted it to him 

 in fee. It is not a little singular that, notwithstanding the 

 mutations of time and the various hands through which the 

 property has passed, the fields and meadows are known to this 

 day by the same names as are recited in this very deed of 

 conveyance. 



The manor of Thorncombe, in the parish of which Ford Abbey 



