By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jachon, F.S.A. 



143 



nothing- to do with the animal wolf. The first syllable is spelled in 

 the Domesday Record, " Ulf/' which was probably the name of 

 some more ancient owner. The people of the neighbourhood still 

 keep up the original pronunciation, calling it " Oolfall." 1 



Between the laundry and the old farm house stood the mansion 

 of Wulfhall, the residence first of the Esturmy and then of the 

 Seymour family, about a mile outside of Savernake Forest, and com- 

 manding a view of it. 



Sir John Seymour of Wulfhall, who died 1536 (28 Hen. VIII.), 

 had married a Wentworth of Nettlested ; by whom he had, with 

 other children, the three so famous in English History, Jane 

 Seymour (Queen of Henry VIII., and mother of Edward VI.), 

 Edward Seymour, the Protector, and Thomas Seymour, Lord 

 Sudeley, who married Queen Katherine Parr, widow of Henry VIII. 

 There is every reason to believe that Queen Jane Seymour and her 

 brothers were born at their father's house at Wulfhall ; but the 

 Registers of the parish of Great Bedwyn are not old enough to tell us. 



The Manor of Wulfhall, as appears from an old Survey, consisted 

 at that time of about 1270 acres, including what was, and still is, 

 called " Suddene Park/'' also a " Horse Park," and a " Red Deer 

 Park." [Appendix, No. i.) About the house, which is said to have 



1 The name in the Wiltshire Domesday is Uifela. In the same volume we 

 have an Ulf as a land-holder at Bradford-on-Avon. At Lincoln, in 1049, there 

 was a Clerk of the name of Ulph : and at York they still show a horn of one 

 Ulphus, a Dane. The name has come down to our own time. In the Obituary of 

 the Times newspaper, in April last, appeared the death of John Burt Ulph, Esq., 

 of St. Ives, Cornwall. Similarity of sound deceived Leland and Tanner. The 

 former (Itin., ix., 36) calls it, in Latin, " Lupinum, villa splendida Semarii : " 

 also in his " Genethliacon, Edw. vi." 



« yergit in occasum foecunda Sever ia tellus. 

 Illic Semarius, vir bello strenuus, arnplam 

 Incoluit -villain, quae nomine dicta Lupinum." 



Tanner (Bibliot. Brit. Hibern.) speaks of certain Epistles written by Edward 

 (the future Protector) son of John Seymour " de Puteo Lupino vulgo Wolf-hall." 

 Puteus Lupinus, however, begging the learned Bishop Tanner's pardon, would 

 not be first-rate Latin for WoU-hall : but it would do, as Latin, for the Saxon 

 " Wolf-AoZ," a wolf's pit or den. The derivation of Wulf-hall being thus ob- 

 scure, etymologists may choose. To the writer, Ulf, as an owner's name, seems 

 the most probable. 



