102 



f)«p in % P^torg of Jofonttm, 



A.D. 1138—1380. 

 GTfjteflg from tfje public aaecortrs. 



By Rev. J. K. Floyee, M.A., F.S.A. 



pgj S TEADITION exists in Downton, based, it may be, on some 

 §||lg| entries in the Manorial Court Eolls of that place, that 

 there was in former times a castle of King J ohn existing there, and 

 some topographical writers have supposed that the " Moot " — a 

 British and Saxon earthwork of considerable extent — was the site 

 of it. The tradition, however, is really a confusion of two facts : 

 first, that there was a castle here ; and secondly, that King John 

 stayed in it. It was built in 1138 by Henry de Blois, Bishop of 

 Winchester, the lord of the manor. This appears from the following 

 entry : — 



A.D. 1138. " Hoc anno fecit Henricus episcopus aedificare dc-inum quasi 

 palatinum cum turri fortissima in Wintonia : castellum de Merdona et de 

 Fernham et de Wautham et de Duntona et de Tautona." 1 



The erection of these castles was probably to assist in the es- 

 tablishment of order in the troublous days of Stephen, Bishop 

 Henry de Blois being his brother. 



There are now no architectural remains whatever of it except such 

 portions of the stonework as may be worked into the construction 

 of other buildings, and two crowned wooden heads, one of a man, 

 the other of a woman, now on the front of the " White Horse Inn," 

 which are said to have been brought from it. Tradition ascribes 

 the first to King John, but his beard is a good deal longer, and the 

 side locks less conspicuous, than in the nearly contemporary effigy 

 on his tomb in Worcester Cathedral. Britton, writing in 1801, 

 states that the date 1225 was on the niche, but, if so, it could only 



1 Annales Monastic! Winton, 



