290 Notes on the History of Great Somerford. 



Alexander was the son of Robert Alexander, of Rodbourne, yeoman. 

 His marriages first with Helen, the heiress of John Mayo, then with 

 Martha, a daughter of Jonas Lawrence, curate of Somerford, and 

 lastly with Joan Yines, seem to have made him a man of considerable 

 substance. Before his death, in 1724, " Cockerells " was re-built 

 and enlarged, the present building being about of the date of Queen 

 Anne. Some of the materials must have been brought from 

 Malmesbury, as old Norman zig-zag ornament and two stones from 

 diaper work in the demolished presbytery are inserted in the walls. 

 Mrs. Light has recently given more at large in Wiltshire Notes 

 and Queries the connection of the Alexanders and their relatives 

 the May os and Smiths with Somerford. " Cockerells " is the 

 farm-house now occupied by Mr. John Poole. Of the other 

 farms one seems to have gone to William Thornburgh, Esq., son 

 of Sir John Thornburgh, by whom it was sold in 1671 for £504 

 to Nathaniel Aske, then rector, and another ultimately to have 

 come into the hands of William Alexander, while a third, held for 

 a time by Richard Yewe, was sold by him in 1672 also to 

 Nathaniel Aske for £110. " Fletchers," evidently the site of the 

 old Church House, which would have ceased to be used after the 

 Reformation, was, after passing through various hands, purchased 

 by Mr. Henry Heath in 1797, who built on this site a house, at 

 first the "Old Yolunteer" Inn, afterwards a private residence. 

 It was owned and occupied by Mr. Henry Parsloe at the time of 

 his death in 1898. 



The Somerford Bolles Manor. 

 (b) We must now turn to consider the position of the 

 Brunings in the parish. Aubrey mentions in one of the chancel 

 windows of Somerford Church an inscription to Thomas Drew 

 and Agnes his wife. It is probable that the second manor in 

 Somerford 1 had come into the possession of the Drew family and 

 that this passed on by marriage to the Brunings and Mompessons. 

 A subsidy roll, 1 Ed. III., quoted below, seems to show that at 

 that date this manor was in possessson of William Bolle, from whose 



1 A portion of this was in Little Somerford. 



