By Sir Charles Hobhouse, Bart. 



73 



This stops at a long mound, which meets it at an acute angle in a 

 field called Lower Park Mead. This mound runs east and west; at 

 right angles to it is another mound running north and souths and 

 inside is a hollow of distinct shape and regularity. At the north- 

 east angle of the two mounds are two large upright stones, facing 

 one another, and with eyelets in them as if for the insertion of posts. 

 Corresponding to these stones are exactly similar ones in the ad- 

 joining field called Shepherd's Leaze. 



I state facts, and I venture no comment. It may be a case of 

 tc Praetorian here, Praetorian there" as old Edie Ochiltree has it, but 

 at least there is no one in the parish who, like the said Edie, " minds 

 the bigging o't." 



Although the term antiquity cannot in strict propriety be applied 

 to the events of the twelfth century, yet this seems to me the most 

 suitable place in which to dwell on certain architectural remains in 

 our parish that appertain to that and to the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centuries. 



In his History of the Priory of Monkton Farleigh, published at 

 Devizes, in 1857, Canon Jackson has dealt, I need hardly say in a 

 most exhaustive manner, with so much of the annals of our parish 

 as are made up of the history of the Priory, and for that history I 

 refer my readers to the learned canon's book. 



But I shall venture to add a few words to his description of " the 

 Remains of the Priory."" He speaks of a wall which contains " two- 

 very good lancet windows with bold mouldings/'' 



Of this wall, Mr. Talbot says that "it is of the very earliest 

 pointed work, certainly older than any part of Salisbury Cathedral." 

 The outer part of it now forms the inner wall of a carpenter's shop, 

 and I have traced to some extent the foundation of what must have 

 been the interior of the building, of which this wall was a part. 

 From the width and length of these foundations, and from the 

 height of the wall, the building must have been of considerable size. 

 From its position in relation to the manor house and to the ruins of 

 the ecclesiastical part of the priory, I am persuaded it formed a part 

 of the domestic buildings of the priory — was it the hostelry ? 



West of this wall, perhaps a quarter-of-a-mile from it, and in a 



