By the Rev, F. H. Manley. 



301 



Somerford, fromMr.Eichard Bruning in 1713 for £11 2, together with 

 land called " Boardlands," 1 part of the manor of Broad Somerford. 

 The whole property is- described as " the messuage with close ad- 

 joining one and a-half acres ; a field called ' Crofts,' four acres ; 

 another called ' Heath,' three acres ; two and a-half acres of arable in 

 Westfield, two acres of arable in .Broadfield, two acres of arable in 

 Downfield, twenty pieces of meadow land lying dispersed in the 

 common meadow called • Broadmeadow,' amounting to eight acres, 

 and commons for two beastes in the common called ' Cowleaze.' " 

 We seem here to have a very ancient holding. Mr. Bichard Sarjeant 

 had already in 1692 purchased a messuage with eleven acres of 

 land, late the property of Mr. Aske. This house, "Hoskyn's 

 messuage," I believe, passed to his son Bichard, was sold in 

 1763 to Mr. John Bishop, passed on in 1814 to Mr. Handy, of 

 Bodbourne, and is now owned and occupied by Mr. T. Gibbs. 2 

 " Serjeant's " passed to his son Thomas, who left the property 

 between his brother John and nephew John Leonard. The 

 former, in 1777, sold his share to John Leonard, who, dying 

 in 1792, again divided the property between his sons. After 

 this the homestead became separated from the land, which, no 

 doubt, for many centuries had been attached to it. There is a 

 tablet in the Church to the memory of Bichard Leonard, one of the 

 sons of John, and of Sarah, his wife. 



St. Mary Lands. 



One other very small property is that called the " St. Mary 

 Lands Estate," on part of which' the school stands. The name 

 suggests that this once belonged to " St. Mary's Briory," Kington 

 St. Michael. Queen Elizabeth, in the seventeenth year of her 

 reign, September, 1574, made a grant by letters patent of certain 

 lands in the parish of Somerford Magna, to John Herbert, of 

 London, gent., and Andrew Balmer, citizen and goldsmith, of 



Vide " Jones's Domesday for Wiltshire" p. lxi. 

 2 Who has been clerk for over fifty years. 



