10 Amesbury Church, Reasons for thinking that it 



arrangement. If it does, then I think some other explanation will 

 have to be found than to suppose it the principal Church of the 

 Priory. 



The documentary evidence, published by Canon Jackson, is not 

 complete, but no one, reading it with an unbiassed mind, would 

 draw from it any other conclusion than that the Priory Church was 

 entirely destroyed. If the present Church had also disappeared, 

 the question would never have been raised, and, if a more close 

 similarity between the two Churches could be made out than at 

 present appears, their identity would not be proved. The docu- 

 mentary evidence of destruction would still have to be got over. 



One of the documents, published by Canon J ackson, states that 

 a certain quantity of the lead, from the demolished buildings, was 

 reserved, to be placed upon the chancel of the Parish Church, and 

 he says that this, at first, led him to suppose that there must have 

 been two large Churches, but that, as there is no trace or tradition 

 of any other large one than the present Parish Church, which is of 

 great antiquity, and, as the measurements of the monastic Church 

 corresponded very closely (as the documents, he says, show) with 

 those of the present Church, it is most likely that, as at Edington, 

 one and the same building served both for the monastery and the 

 parish, and that this seems to be confirmed by the fact that, in the 

 Episcopal Eegistry at Sarum (as printed in the Wilts Institutions), 

 there are no Presentations of a Clerk to Amesbury Church, before 

 the dissolution of the monasteries. If this were the true explanation 

 of the omission of any such record, it might be expected to be the same 

 in the case of Edington, but it is not. It appears, from the Wilts 

 Institutions, that the Eector and Convent of Edyndon presented 

 William Grodwyn 1 to the cure or charge of the conventual Church 

 of Edyndon, after the death of Thomas Elme, in 1450. 



It also turns out, on examination, not to be the case that the 



1 It appears however, from an entry of the succeeding year, 1451, that 

 William Godwyn was not simply a curate or vicar, but the actual rector 

 and as such, head of the monastic establishment of Edington. In that year 

 William Emyldon was, on the resignation of John Edward, instituted to the 

 vicarage of Kevelegh, the patron being William Godewyn, Hector of Edyndon. 



