312 



A Stroll through Bradford-on-Avon. 



8. Pursuing our onward course, we pass first of all Whitehead's 

 Lane — so called from one Manasseh Whitehead, a copyholder there 

 — and come to a narrow passage between houses, now called Cut- 

 Throat Lane, a corruption i imagine for the less alarming " Cut- 

 Through " Lane — a fair description enough of it — and so we arrive 

 at the corner of White Hill, the former portion of which is possibly 

 a corruption of a word signifying " wood," as in Wit-ley near Melk- 

 sham, and here we reach the site of one of the old chapels of which 

 I have spoken, namely that of St. Olave. All traces of the chapel 

 are now removed, but in documents of the last century we have the 

 street described as " vicus Sancti Olavi" otherwise " Tooley Street." 

 Just as Tooley Street, in Southwark, is so called from the Church 

 of St. Olave {e.g., St. Olaf, contracted into 'T Olaf, and so into 

 Tooley), so it was the case here. The street has now by a kind of 

 attraction assumed the name of the tithing to which it leads, namely 

 Woolley Street; originally, however, Woolley was " Ulf-lege/' and 

 so called from an owner of the name of Ulf, who is mentioned in 

 Domesday Book. 



9. We now arrive at Kingston House, the most beautiful 

 specimen of domestic architecture in the town. It partakes much 

 of the character of Longleat, and was built probably between 1590 

 and 1620. It was commenced probably by John Hall, who was 

 married to Dorothy Rogers, and who died in 1597, and completed 

 by his son, bearing the same Christian name, who married Elizabeth 

 Brunne, of Athelhampton and who died in 1631. This house may 

 be described as of the transition style, between the old Tudor or Per- 

 pendicular and the new or Palladian. Its enrichments are of German 

 invention, and the excess of window light is characteristic of houses 

 of this date and style. It is of such that Lord Bacon said, " they 

 are so full of glass that one cannot tell where to become to be out 

 of the way of the sun or of the cold." The principal front is to 

 the south ; it is divided into two storeys with attics in the gables, 

 and has large windows with thick stone mullions. The whole 

 building may be divided into three portions, the central one coming 

 forward square, and the two side ones with semicircular bows. In 

 the centre is a large sculptured doorway to a porch, and the 



