246 



Notes on the History of Mere. 



Will' de St. Martino.= 



Will'us le Seneschal= 



Willelmus= 



Jordanus. 9 Heu. III. (1225). 1 



Earl of Cornwall, 1298. 



John Bettesthorne, who died 1398, is described on his brass in 

 Mere Church as " Johannes Bettesthorne quondam Dominus de 

 Chaddenwyche." Elizabeth, his daughter and heir, married Sir 

 John Berkeley, of Beverstone, Co. Gloucester, from whom it 

 descended by heirship to Lord Compton, first Earl of Northampton, 

 who owned it in 1571, when he sold it to Thomas Awbrey, of 

 Reading, gent., who died 1634. 



In 1640 possession was given to John Coventry, Esq., 2 by 

 William Awbrey. 3 It then became the property of Sir William 

 Wyndham, who sold it to Richard Hoare, Esq., in 1736, who was 

 afterwards knighted. He was Lord Mayor of London, 1745. In 

 1892 Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare sold this farm to John White, Esq. 



Many of the fields on this estate still retain in a corrupted form 

 their ancient nomenclature, viz., " (xannage " = Saxon gangwceg, this 

 being the roadway from the homestead to the arable land in 

 demesne; " Whurr "= Saxon oare, the boundary of the enclosed 



1 (MSS. Phillips). Addenda p. 6, Hoare's Wilts. 



2 Sir John Coventry resided in a house at Mere, which was pulled down 1711 

 and the Ship Inn erected on its site. 



3 In South Wraxhall Church is a monument inscribed " Here lieth the body of 

 William Awbrey, late of Chaddenwych in the parish of Meer in the County of 

 Wilts Esq., who dyed Jan. 8, 1664. 



William Aubrey, gent., of Chadenwyche, was M.P. for Hindon, 1559, therefore 

 the Aubreys must have lived there before they purchased it. 



In Caversham Churchyard, near Reading", is a monument to the memory of 

 Rachel, wife of Robert Awbrey, of Mere, in the County of Wilts, 1628. 



