192 THE EXETER ROAD 



front of the electoral scandals that brought about the 

 great Reform Act of 1832. Although it contained 

 neither a sinule house nor an inhabitant, Old Sarum 

 survived as a Parliamentary borough until that date, 

 and regularly returned two meml)ers. Lord John 

 Russell, introducing the Reform Bill to the House of 

 Commons, remarked that Old Barum was a green 

 mound without a single habitation upon it, and like 

 Gatton, also an uninhabited l)orougli, returned two 

 members, while great towns like Birmingham and 

 Manchester were entirely without Parliamentary re- 

 presentation. The two members sent to Parliament 

 were merely the nominees of the Lord of the Manor, 

 elected by two dummy electors who, shortly after 

 each dissolution of Parliament, were granted leases 

 in the Iwrouoh of Old Sarum — leases known as 

 'burgage tenures.' Their voting done, they quietly 

 surrendered their leases, which were not granted again 

 until a like occasion arose. The elections took place at 

 the ' Parliament Tree,' which, until 1896 (when it w^as 

 blown down in a snowstorm), stood in a meadow Ije- 

 tween the mound and the village of ' Stratford-under- 

 the-Castle.' It was supposed to have marked the site 

 of the Town Hall of the vanished town. Cobbett, 

 riding horseback past the spot, anathematised this 

 ' rotten Ijorough ' and the system that allowed such 

 things. He calls it 'The Accursed Hill' TJie only 

 house standino- near is the ' Old Castle Inn.' 



Beyond it the road dips steeply to the downs, 

 and so continues, with regular undulations, unsheltered 

 from storms or frosts, or the fierce heat of tlie summer 

 sun, to Amesbury. 



