318 



A Stroll through Bradford-on-Avjn. 



and seems to intimate his belief that one of them built it. But 

 John Aubrey was certainly deceived, as he well might have been, 

 for he does not speak as though he had inspected the building, but as 

 only having seen it from a distance. There is no fmial at all like a 

 " battle axe/'' nor is it known that any of the Hall family, at any 

 rate at so early a period, had anything to do with the manor. 



At the same time there was a man of note, who, at the very 

 period when, as we conjecture, the barn was first built, may have 

 been its bold designer. This was Gilbert de Middleton, who held the 

 Manor of Bradford under the Abbess of Shaftesbury at that precise 

 period, and was virtually Rector — for as such he appointed Richard 

 Kelveston to the Vicarage of Bradford in 1312 — and who could at 

 all events well afford to indulge his building tastes. For he held 

 prebends in the Cathedrals of St. Paul's, Chichester, Hereford, 

 Wells, and Sarum, besides being (in 1316), Archdeacon of North- 

 ampton, and Prebendal Rector of Edingdon. He was moreover, 

 we may conjecture, not unknown, or at least not without interest at 

 Court, for in 1321, we are told, "the King" (Edward II.) "granted 

 him that he should uot be disturbed in any of his benefices.'" 

 Though it is of course wholly conjecture, yet I sometimes think that 

 this same Gilbert de Middleton may have had a hand in building 

 the barn. If not assisted, like others similarly situated, by the 

 landlady in chief, the venerable Abbess of Shaftesbury, he may have 

 had a very beneficial lease granted to him of the Manor, by way of 

 recouping him in part for the necessarily large outlay. 



15. But leaving the Barton Barn, and crossing the pretty little 

 ancient bridge, with its five arches and the piers each with its 

 elegant cut- water so arranged as to break as far as possible the force 

 of the stream in time of floods, we come to what is called Barton 

 Orchard, and so to a large house on the right-hand which is termed 

 Chantry House, a name also given to the field immediately adjoining 

 it. The site on which the present house stands, as well as the field 

 referred to, were at one time the endowments of the " Chantries " 

 which were founded in the parish Church ; and pcssibly also on the 

 same site there once stood a smaller dwelling, in which the Chantry 

 Priests lived. The present house has been from time to time added 



