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Wulfhall and tJie Seymours. 



The Name appears to have been anciently spelled St. Maur. They 

 hadj among other residences, a Castle called by their name, near 

 Penhow, in the county Monmouth, and also Hatch Beauchamp, in 

 the county of Somerset. 1 There being no occasion to go into all 

 their early history, I begin with them when they came into the 

 county of Wilts. This was in the reign of Henry V. (A.D. 1413), 

 when a Roger St. Maur of Hatch Beauchamp, by marrying the 

 daughter and heiress of the old Wiltshire family of Esturmy, became 

 owner of Wulfhall. 



In order to know exactly where Wulfhall is, you are to suppose 

 yourselves on the railway going from Devizes towards London. 

 Stop at Savernake Station, get out and walk along the towing path 

 of the canal by the side of the railway for about a mile beyond the 

 station, take the first turn to the right, and you are at Wulfhall. 

 All that is left of the old mansion is a picturesque little red-brick 

 house with tall chimneys, called the Laundry. It stands at the foot 

 of a rising ground, on the top of which, about 250 yards off, is the 

 old farm house and large barton of Wulfhall. 



As to the meaning of the name, I would merely say that it has 



l Mr. J. R. Planche (Brit. Archceol. Journ., 1856, p. 325) says: " There are 

 two families of St. Maur. The St. Maurs or Seymours of Kingston Seymour, 

 in Somersetshire, who trace their pedigree to Milo de Sancto Mauro, who, with 

 his wife Agnes, is named in a fine roll of King John ; and the St. Maurs or 

 Seymours of Penhow, Monmouthshire, from which the present ducal house of 

 Somerset descends. All our genealogists, from Dugdale downwards, are 

 scrupulous in observing that there is no connexion whatever between the two 

 families, who bore different arms and settled in different counties, and I freely 

 admit there is no connection to be traced between them from the earliest date to 

 which they have proved their pedigree ; but that tact by no means satisfies me 

 that they did not branch from the same Norman stock. We have no proof that 

 there were two St. Maurs who came over with the Conqueror (probably from St. 

 Maure sur Loire in la Haute Touraine), nor can we assert that if there were two 



or more, they were not, as in many similar instances, near kinsmen 



That their arms should be different is no proof at all, for although a similarity 

 in their bearings would be strong'evidence in favour of some connection, it is 

 one of the most common things in the world to find, in those early days of 

 heraldry, the son bearing a coat quite distinct from that of his father, as he did 

 frequently a perfectly different name." The St. Maurs of Kingston bore Argent, 

 two chevrons gules, a label of five points. The St. Maurs of Penhow, Gules, a 

 pair of wings conjoined in lure or. 



