377 



(BxlMtz nviif its JJiraor ^axh. 



By John Watson-Taylor. 

 ( Continued from page 309 J. 

 THE PLACE-NAME. 



HE earliest mention of Erlestoke is found in the Pipe Eoll 

 of 1198, where it is referred to as " terre de Stokes," and 

 the same form is used in a Close Eoll of the year 1220. In the 

 Eed Book of the Exchequer and in the Book of Fees it is called 

 Stoke, and when Eichard, Bishop of Salisbury, 1217 — 1228, granted 

 the Church of Melksham to the resident canons, he included in 

 the gift " the chapel of Stoke." 1 In the chartulary of Montacute 

 Priory the place-name occurs twice in one folio, in one place as 

 "Erlestokes" and in the other as "Stoches." The date of the 

 original grant of the mill of Erlestoke to that priory was about 

 1155, but the chartulary is a transcript of the time of Stephen 

 Eawlin, 2 who was appointed Prior in July, 1297. 3 In 1227 the 

 name first appears in the public records as Erlestoke, and is found 

 thus spelt, with a few exceptions, in seventy-two separate docu- 

 ments relating to the following three hundred years. The first 

 exception occurs in a post mortem inquisition taken at "Eorlestoke " 

 in the year 1340, and the " o " is introduced again four or five times 

 in the next fifty years, but not after that time. Isolated mis- 

 spellings such as Erlestone, Ellerstoke, and Erlescote occur at the 

 same period, but in the same documents the correct spelling is 

 given, and on three other occasions the first syllable is spelt Herle, 

 Erly, and Ewell. Towards the end of the sixteenth century the 

 spelling begins to get very erratic, especially in wills, in one of 



1 B.M. Add. Ch. 37666. 2 Coxe, Catalogus Codicum. 



3 Somerset Eecord Society, viii., p. lxix. 

 VOL. XXXIII. — NO. CII. 2 0 



