Short Notes. 



57 



together with ;i smaller one, less ornate and devoid of shields, but of similar 

 construction, which stood on the story above, and was connected with the same 

 chimneystack. The frame of a window on the north side of the same story, the 

 holes in which had been inserted the ends of the joists, and the above-mentioned 

 fireplace, were the only indications of there having been an upper story. In the 

 centre of the building was the barn floor, with the usual barn doors in the north 

 wall. On the south side the width had been extended by the addition of a porch, 

 Over this central space (probabl}' the hall) was an elaborate oak roof of fifteenth 

 century work. West of this were no signs of a second story ; but at the extreme 

 end holes for receiving the supports of some erection remained in the wall 

 (probably a minstrel's gallery), extending throughout the whole width from north 

 to south. In the north wall near the east end, looking into Castle Street, an un- 

 usually long oak-framed eight-mullioned window, with tracery of the same date 

 as the structure itself (which was coeval with the grand restoration of the Church, 

 1460), remained in good preservation. There is no tradition as to the time of 

 its conversion from a dwelling-house to a barn. The whole of the block of land 

 from Castle Street to Church Street, between Old Barton Lane and the house 

 now called the Buugalow, was Church property till recent years, and the greater 

 portion of it occupied by the farmhouse and homestead of the Parsonage Farm. 

 The " Grant of Garden, &c, to the Dean and Chapter of Sarum," on p. 334 of 

 vol. xxix. of this Magazine, mentions the residence of the Dean, but as the date 

 of that document is about A. D. 1280, this may not be the site there named ; the 

 probability is that the mill stood at the edge of the pond in " Dean's Orchard," 

 and that the water flowing thence was its motive power. There are still the re- 

 mains of some buildings near the dam, where the mill might have stood, and 

 these suggest the idea that the Dean's house afc that date stood somewhere near ; 

 that the croft adjacent was the field now called Knaplocks ; aud that the garden 

 was a portion of the present " Dean's Orchard," which is still Church propert} r . 

 The three existing mills belong to the Duchy of Cornwall, so the grant could 

 not apply to either of these, and every requisite for a mill being found here the 

 probability is that the property there named was situated on this spot. 



Remarkable Dream. 



August 10th, 1884, there died at Westbury, aged 72, Mary Anne, wife of 

 Frederick Herridge, formerly a labouring man at Mere, who migrated to 

 Westbury some years previously. She was the illegitimate daughter of Nancy 

 Mills, of Mere, who before her birth was engaged to be married to one John 

 Gray, he having another sweetheart at the same time. This must have been in 

 1811 or 1812. There was living at that time in the house in Salisbury Street. 

 Mere, now owned by Mr. Rutter, a doctor named Hicks. One night he dreamed 

 that he saw a man digging a grave in a certain field near the town. He awoke, 

 went to sleep again, had the same dream, awoke again, and again going to sleep 

 dreamed the same dream a third time, He then got up and walked to the field 

 ("Mere Mead," adjoining the old vicarage, to the south). On his way there ho 

 met with Nancy Mills in the road, and asked her where she was going at that 



