232 Avebury. — Arclimological " Varia." 



This William Dunche was, I presume, either a son or other relative 

 of John Dunche who owned the Manor-house estate in the rei<m of 

 Elizabeth, and who rebuilt great part of the Manor-house itself in 

 the year 1601 as is indicated on its entrance porch ; and perhaps 

 this offering of William Dunche to the church may be taken as an 

 indication of a very general revival of the decencies and solemnities 

 of divine service brought about by the zeal of Archbishop Laud 

 under Charles I. ; though it has sometimes occurred to me that it 

 may have been suggested by a more urgent and personal motive. 

 Thus this Mr. Dunche was in possession of property which at no very 

 distant day had been appropriated to sacred uses ; the unhappy fate 

 of many families so enriched seems to have been a matter of some 

 notoriety even at a somewhat later period than this when Dr. South 

 preached that wonderful sermon on sacrilege from Psalm Ixxxvii, 

 2, in which he stated, " And for the most part, so unhappy have 

 been the purchasers of church lands, that the world is not now to 

 seek for an argument from a long experience to convince it that 

 though in such purchases men have usually the cheapest penny- 

 worths, yet they have not always the best bargains. For the holy 

 thing has stuck fast to their sides like a fatal shaft, and the stone 

 has cryed out of the consecrated walls they have lived within, for a 

 judgement upon the head of the sacrilegious intruder : and Heaven 

 has heard the cry, and made good the curse/ - ' And so perchance 

 poor William Dunche felt ill at ease in conscience, and therefore 

 offered this " guift 33 in acknowledgment of the very precarious I 

 tenure of his goods, and as some poor act of restitution to Him 

 from whose service they had been wrested. 



In connection with this point of the provision of decent accessories 

 for the celebration of Divine Service, I may here record a circumstance 

 which was mentioned by our late venerable and most estimable 

 parish clerk, Lawrence drivers, as having occured within his mem- 

 ory ; viz : — that Mr. J ones, who succeeded to the possession of the 

 Manor-house estate upon the death of Sir Adam Williamson in E 

 1790,always used to attend church on Sundays in a scarlet coat and j 

 sword i.e. } in his full-dress court suit. Now it is very probable 

 that such a custom may have survived in our isolated Wiltshire 



