Communicated by Mr, James Waylen. 



337 



which was that his elder brother John had, eight years back, by his 

 will in 1638, levied on three of the above farms the sum of £1000 

 for the establishment of some charitable institution as should seem, 

 good to the trustees, to continue for ever, either in the County of 

 Wilts or in the University of Oxford. The trustees were Sir Henry 

 Ludlow, Dr. Alexander Hyde, Thomas Hooper, William Lavington, 

 and Alexander Toppe ; the incumbrance on the lands to be removable 

 by the payment of £1000 by the compounder or his heirs on or 

 before the 14th of March, 1643; but the compounder bad not paid 

 it. Fine, £600, reduced to £500. 27th May. 1647. 



Mr. Toppe died in 1665, but Stockton House knows his name no 

 longer; an heiress named Everard Balch having subsequently sold 

 it to the father of Harry Biggs, Esq. The mansion, which is a fair 

 specimen of the Elizabethan style, is supposed to have been built 

 by John Toppe, Sheriff of the county in 1630, who died in 1632. 

 This information is derived from Hoare's Koutk Wilis, where we 

 further learn what became of the charitable trust referred to in 

 Edward Toppe's petition. The foundation of Stockton Almshouse 

 was enrolled in Chancery, 1st February, 1658, the survivors of the 

 trust having bought an estate at Mottesfont, in Hampshire, called 

 Speary Well, John Toppe, the heir presumptive, adding a rent-charge 

 out of Barnes' Close, at Stockton. The statutes are still in force, 

 and maintain eight poor persons, with a weekly allowance. 



Of three old families formerly conspicuous in this parish, viz., 

 those of Toppe, Poticary, and Biggs, the two- first acquired their 

 position by the clothing trade. Sheriff Toppe married Mary, 

 daughter of Edward Hooper, of Boveridge, supposed to have been 

 a Puritan alliance, for her brother married a daughter of Jeffrey 

 Whitaker, of Tinhead. The entry recording the death of Mistress 

 Toppe makes the unusual addition that " she was a most excellent 

 person." John Terry, the officiating incumbent, was eminently of 

 the Puritan school. 



John Townson, of Bremhill, Bachelor in Divinity. His delin- 

 quency consisted in deserting his habitation and repairing to Oxford, 

 in which city he remained till its surrender to Sir Thomas Fairfax. 

 vol. xxiv. — no. lxxii. z 



