Short Notes. 



195 



by Nore- Marsh, up Stoneover Lane, and thence by a road which is said 

 to have existed by Midgehall Farm to Shaw, there appears to have been a 

 way to High worth. There was also another lane which is now disused, 

 called Vowley Lane. This was between Wootton Fields Farm and Taylor's 

 .Field on Nore-Marsh Farm. The correct name, however, is Fowl Hill. 

 There were several pieces of land of this name to which the lane led, 

 and instead of ' Bishop's Fowley ' the farm ought to be called ' Bushey 

 Fowlhill,' that being the name in old documents. There is another bridle 

 road, the knowledge of which has probably almost passed away. It com- 

 menced at Upper Greenhill, and passed along the south side of the parish, 

 from thence to Bushey Vowley, or Fowlhill, by Wootton Fields Farm, and 

 between the glebe (called Rudlands) and Goldborough in Broad Town 

 parish. The footpath from Tockenham and Lyneham originally crossed 

 the brook on the lower or north side of the canal aqueduct by means of 

 some very large stones, which formed a bridge. One of them was dragged 

 out by four horses in 1842 and utilised on a neighbouring farm. It is 

 probable that the field named the Wores (there were three of that name) 

 was so called from being close to the mill pond. A wear, or weir, is a dam 

 or stank, so that it is probable that ' The Weirs ' is the proper name. The 

 Weir at Broad Hinton, and Whyr Farm, are probably derived from the 

 same source. About 1793 the turnpike road from Swindon to Christian 

 Malford Bridge was in use, and that part between Hunt's Mill Bridge and 

 the Red Lion at Hillocks, Lyneham, was entirely new. The old road leading 

 from Wootton Bassett to Chippenham went up where the canal bridge now 

 is, up the hill on the right a little way beyond it, thence through the upper 

 part of Little Park Farm, by Woodyates (or Wood Gate) and along towards 

 Tockenham, passing at the bottom of the Cowleaze at Queen's Court Farm, 

 where there are several pollard sycamore trees which were once in the hedge 

 belonging to the road. It then passed the village of Tockenham on the 

 north side, went by Shaw House Farm, and thence to the Red Lion. The 

 turnpike house in Wootton Bassett parish at Coped Hall would seem to have 

 been used as such, according to the census, in 1793, but that at the west end 

 of the town at Whitehill Lane was not built then. There was a date on 

 the beam (1797) when it was pulled down in 1879. From where Whitehill 

 Lane widens below the cottages, or rather did, for it has recently been 

 enclosed and added to the adjoining fields, it was called Broadway. What 

 is now Hooker's Gate in ancient times was called Faafe Gate, and was 

 where the ' Duke went forth.' There was an enclosure of oak trees there, 

 called Woakhay (or Oak Hay), and a ' Woak Hay mead.' This must have 

 been corrupted into Hooker's. 



" There was formerly a wood called Calo Wood, consisting of a hundred 

 acres, about where Mr. Tuck's farm is at Highate. After the Agricultural 

 Riots of 1830 a large piece of land on the north of the road was broken up 

 there, and used as allotments by the labourers of the parish, which was 

 christened by them ' New Zealand,' and another piece of land on the south 

 side was used for the same purpose, and called 1 High Beggars.' 



" The Act of Parliament for enclosing the common land in this parish 

 was obtained in 1819, and the commissioner appointed was Mr. Decimus 



