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



321 



unattractive building into one, which even the most critical can 

 hardly fail to admire, for the grand effect of its chancel, and the 

 chastened beauty of its mural painting. 



20. We descend the hill — down what is called Mason's Lane 

 — and at perhaps its steepest part, we stand before a large dwelling- 

 house, which, till quite a recent period was called " Methuen's," 

 but on which, some thirty years ago, was bestowed the fancy 

 name of " The Priory/' though no religious house ever existed there. 

 It is a house that has portions of it of the date, it may be, of Henry 

 VI., and the hall is especially worth seeing. There are still within 

 it some memorials of the Methuen family, to whom it belonged for 

 more than a century. It was built originally most probably by one 

 of the " Rogers " famii}', the first of whom, Thomas Rogers, des- 

 scribed as "serviens ad legem," I.e., " Serjeant at Law/' lived about 

 1478. The Rogers family settled afterwards at Cannington, in 

 Somerset. From Hugh Rogers, of Cannington, this house was 

 purchased by Paul Methuen, in 1657. Some hundred years after- 

 wards, in 1768, it became the property of the Tugwell family. 

 From them it was purchased, in 1811, by John Saunders, and it is 

 now the property, as well as the residence, of Thomas Bush Saunders, 

 Esq., the oldest of our county magistrates. 



21. We come once more, after leaving this house, through 

 Pippet Street, to the front of the Town Hall — a point which we have 

 already visited on our stroll round Bradford. As to the meaning of 

 "Pippet Street" we have long been puzzled. A suggestion was 

 made, at the time of our ramble, that after all it might be simply a 

 corruption of the word " Pie-powder/' which is from the French pied- 

 poudreux (literally dusty-feet, whence its name in Latin, Curia pedis 

 pulverizati) a name given to a Court once held in fairs, to administer 

 ready justice to buyers and sellers, and to redress at once disorders 

 committed in them. Old spellings of the name, Peput and Pepud, 

 are by no means against such a theory as to its derivation. More- 

 over the one "fair" of the town, at Trinity-tide, has from time 

 immemorial been held here ; and no doubt in ancient times, as 

 in our own, prompt administration of justice, and summary recti- 

 fication of wrongs, must ever have been esteemed a boon. 



