The Environs of Bath. 199 



Hugolin, or Hugo-cum-Barba, also called Interpres (Inter- 

 preter), who held the manor in the time of the Conquest, is 

 said to have been one of the Justiciaries to whom William I. 

 entrusted the verification of Domesday Book. Hugh, in the 

 time of William Rufus, sold the manor to John de Villula, 

 together with Warleigh and Hampton and part of Easton ; 

 a very pretty property almost in a ring-fence, affording doubt- 

 less certain sporting advantages. That Claverton was to 

 some extent a sporting ground may be inferred from the 

 fact that Bishop Button, of Wells, who owned it in the four- 

 teenth century, obtained from Henry III. a charter of Free- 

 warren on all his lands in this parish, and one of the fields 

 still bears the name of cony-gre. Not long after, a grant was 

 procured that this manor should be exempted from the 

 jurisdiction of the Hundred Court, and be constituted a 

 separate liberty with Hampton. John de Villula, Bishop of 

 Bath and Wells, endowed the Abbey of Bath with this and 

 other manors, but afterwards resumed possession of some of 

 them as Bishop, and Claverton in this way escaped the fate 

 of the other manors belonging to the Abbey at the Dissolu- 

 tion, and was exchanged by Bishop Barlow in 1548 with 

 King Edward VI. for other lands in the county. Soon 

 after (4 Edward VI.) it was granted to Matthew Colthurst, 

 of Wardour Castle, Wilts, whose son Edmund in 1588 sold 

 both the manor and advowson of the living to Edward 

 Hungerford, Esq., from whose family it passed to Estcourt. 

 Sir Thomas Estcourt (1609) sold the estate to William 

 Bassett, Esq., whose monument is in the chancel of the 

 church. His grandson having deeply mortgaged it, it 

 passed into the hands of Richard Holder, Esq., who sold it 

 in 1 7 14 to William Skrine, Esq., of Bath. Mr Holder gave 

 ^21,367 "js. for the estate, including in the purchase 4 



