By the Rev. Canon W. H. Jones, F.S.A. 



319 



to and altered, and looks as though its oldest parts may date from the 

 fifteenth, or at any rate the sixteenth century. It belonged, some 

 two hundred years ago, to the Thresher family, from whom it was 

 purchased, about 1744, by Mr. Samuel Cam, a leading clothier and 

 active magistrate of the town. One of Mr. Cam's daughters mar- 

 ried Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, and their eldest son, " John Cam"— 

 afterwards raised to the peerage under the title of Baron Broughton 

 de GifFord — inherited Chantry House. On his decease it descended 

 to his nephew, Sir Charles Parry Hobhouse, Bart., and by him was 

 sold a few years ago to its present posf 3ssor, the Rev. J. C. Turing. 



16. We now visit the spot whence issues the water-supply, 

 which for so many centuries, has sufficed for the needs of the 

 town. This is called Lady- Well, perhaps because it belonged to 

 the Lady Abbess at Shaftesbury, or perhaps (and as we would fain 

 believe more probable) from the dedication of the little chapel at 

 the very top of the hill (the more so as the water all comes from 

 the hills behind it) , as though it were the well of " Our Lady," that 

 is, of the C( Blessed Virgin." Noted for its purity for centuries, the 

 sanitary diggings, and the engineering proclivities of modern times, 

 have contrived — though only temporarily we will hope — to damage 

 its fame, and even the supply provided for themselves by the poor 

 folk of Bradford at their own cost and trouble is pronounced impure. 

 We will hope, however, now in a very short time to have a pure 

 supply of water to our town, though an archaeologist may be forgiven 

 for expressing a passing wish that it had been found possible to 

 preserve a supply, about which there was at all events more than a 

 temporary interest, otherwise than by the rough-and-ready expedient 

 of closing it altogether. 



17. We now climb a steep hill called Well-Path, and at the 

 top of it we find ourselves by the side of what is called Tory Chapel, 

 and also, by Leland, termed the Hermitage. The word Tory is no 

 doubt little else but the old word, common to Celtic and Teutonic 

 dialects (W. twr and A. S. tor), which signifies a high eminence; iu 

 fact our word tower is its modern equivalent; and the situation 

 verifies the name, for it is the very highest part of the town itself. 

 By "Hermitage" is not meant one of those primitive hermitages, 



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