By T. H. Baler. 



325 



were manufactured in this locality. On one compartment of the 

 tomb is inscribed : — 



" In Ccelo quies 

 James Ford 

 Son of John and Mary Ford 

 who died Nov. 6th, 1802 

 Aged 58 years, 

 and by his will he gave £100 for 

 an organ for the adjoining church 

 £10 for the Salisbury Infirmary 

 and £10 to the second poor of the 

 Hamlet of Zeals." 



This was distributed in bread shortly after his death. 



Zeals Church. 



In 1220 Dean Wanda's Inventory mentions a chapel at Seles 

 dedicated to St. Martin, and Mr. Batten, in his documentary history 

 of Zeals, Wilts Arch. Hag., vol. xxviii., p. 210, states that in 27 

 Elizabeth, 1585, " All that the Free Chapel with one fourth of an 

 acre of land north of the Chapel situate in Zeals Clivedon," was 

 granted to Edward Morrice and James May land from whom it 

 came to the Chafyns. All traces of this chapel have disappeared, 

 and there is no tradition as to its site. 



The following appeal to the public was made in 1845, and the 

 result was that a new Church was erected at Zeals Green. It was, 

 like its predecessor, dedicated to St. Martin. 



" Proposal for the erection of a Chapel of Ease, Parsonage House, and School 

 on Zeals Green, Wilts, estimated cost about £3000. 



" Zeals is a hamlet of Mere, a poor manufacturing town in the south-western 

 part of the county of Wilts. The benefice is a vicarage of the small value of 

 £200 per annum under the peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean of Salisbury. 



" The population of the parish is about 3200, for the most part in great poverty. 

 The poor-rate during the last year amounted to more than £2000. In respect of 

 Church accommodation it is believed that the parish of Mere, with its hamlets, 

 is one of the most destitute in the diocese of Salisbury, affording church room 

 for less than one fifth of its inhabitants. 



" The population of the hamlet of Zeals, where it is proposed to erect the 

 Chapel of Ease, amounts to nearly 600 souls, distant, for the most part, from 

 their parish Church between two aud three miles. 



" The Chapel is intended to accommodate 300 persons, the whole of the sittings 

 being free and unappropriated, aud a gallery may be hereafter added to ac- 

 commodate 50 more persons. 



