By the Bev. Edward Peacock. 



35 



What the date of the house at Cutteridge may have been I cannot 

 pretend to say, but it would seem that there could not have been a 

 house of any great importance there in Leland's days, as, in one of 

 his journeys he went " from Brook-Hall to Westbury, and from 

 Westbury to Trowbridge ; " now as Brook-Hall, the next place we 

 have to visit, is not half-a-mile from Cutteridge, we can hardly 

 think it possible, that he would have passed so near a place of im- 

 portance without visiting, or at least naming it in his itinerary. 

 On another journey, Leland went from Bradford on to Trowbridge, 

 and again to Brook, and so on to Frome ; neither now does he make 

 any mention of Cutteridge ; we must therefore conclude that in 

 Leland's days the mansion was not built. 



The house at Cutteridge, as it now stands, is formed of a portion 

 of the offices of the old mansion, which was pulled down about 1800. 

 The old mansion-house was roofed with copper : and when the house 

 was pulled down, the copper was sold, and most of the other ma- 

 terials as well; these latter were carried to Devizes, bui£^$8they 

 were made use of cannot now be determined. 



The three fine avenues of limes, the string of fish-ponds still 

 remaining, show that Cutteridge was a house of some pretension ; 

 the garden walls also still remain, one of which is covered with vines, 

 which produce an enormous quantity of grapes. 



Mr. William Francis, the present tenant of Cutteridge Farm, 

 told me, that, when a field near the house was being drained about 

 the year 1851, the men at work came upon a very heavy lead coffin, 

 which lay North and South, and contained the remains of a female. 

 This coffin was given to the men who were draining, and they sold 

 it for old lead. During the progress of the draining several more 

 traces of interment, as well as human bones, were found in different 

 places. It seems difficult to account for this fact, as I am not 

 aware that there was ever a chapel attached to the house, and con- 

 sequently we should not expect to find any burial place. 



The man of greatest note who lived at Cutteridge, was Mr. John 

 Trenchard, born in 1669 : he was Member of Parliament for 

 Taunton, and Commissioner of Forfeited Estates in Ireland. He 

 was also known as a political writer in the " British Journal," and 



