294 The Wiltshire Possessions of the Abbess of Shaftesbury. 



Berwick St. Leonard. 



We travel on now to Berwick St. Leonard. This parish, which 

 is also called ' Cold Berwick,' was no doubt originally a part of 

 Tisbury. In a recital of the various tithings of Tisbury, in ther 

 Shaftesbury Chartulary, from which ' Algar and Harding, who held 

 the Church,' received tenths, 'Berwick' is reckoned along with 

 Linley, Hatch, Fernhill, and others, which are still part of the 

 parish ; — and further, it is added, — " and from all these places they 

 bring bodies for burial to the church at Tisbury," — words which would 

 seem to imply the common right belonging to every parishioner} 

 Amongst the tenants at Tisseberie, too, is the * Capellamis cle Saiicto 

 Leonardo,' i.e., the 'Chaplain of [Berwick] St. Leonard's.' Without 

 doubt it was constituted into an independent cure at an early period, 

 for, in another part of the chartulary, we have the following 

 descriptions of the privileges of ' Ulfric, the Priest : ' — " Ulfric 

 holds the church, and half a hide adjacent to the church, and the 

 tithe of all things from the demesne, and the tithe of the villans 

 (decimam villanorum), and 15 animals free of pasture, and 60 sheep, 

 and 3 horses, and 15 hogs, and is entitled to one tree from the 

 wood for his fire, and other necessaries." 



This opinion as to ' Berwick ' having been originally a part of 

 Tisbury, derives support from the name itself. Berem'c, or Berewite, 

 are original forms of the word. They are found in most counties, 

 and imply, as Sir Henry Ellis intimates, in his ' Introduction to 

 Domesday Book,' ^ ' a member severed from the body of a Manor, 

 as a vill or hamlet of a Manor or Lordship.' Moreover, in a sum- 

 mary of the Wiltshire estates given in the chartulary, Berwick is 

 not mentioned, neither is any such place named in Domesday, 

 omissions which are very intelligible on the supposition that it was 

 included in Tisbury. 



The church is a small building, and consists only of a chancel, 

 nave, and south porch. In Sir R. C. Hoare's work, mention is 

 made of a low arched recess in the north wall, under which was an 

 altar-tomb, with a cross fleury at the top, which, it was conjectured, 



1 Harl. MS. 61 , fol. 43. ' Introduction to Domesday (fol.J p. 443. 



