Tuesday, July 15th. 



283 



think the idea of a chemical glaze was the true solution. After 

 a song and recitation by Chippenham ladies and gentlemen, and 

 refreshments, the Bev. E. H. Goddard, in the unavoidable absence 

 of the Eev. W. G-. Clark -Maxwell, read a paper by the latter on 

 " THE CUSTOMS OF THE MANOR OF LACOCK." This valuable 

 paper will also be printed in the Magazine. By way of comment 

 upon it Mr. C. E. Straton, who has lately bpen engaged in copying 

 and editing a most valuable and extensive series of rolls belonging 

 to the Earl of Pembroke, containing a complete survey of all the 

 estates of the first Earl in Wiltshire and other counties, gave a 

 very interesting account of the light thrown by this survey on the 

 condition of the various classes of tenants and labourers in the 

 13th century and subsequently, remarking that the real explanation 

 of the exaction of personal service and payment in kind was the 

 absence of coined money. 



TUESDAY, JULY 15th. 



The programme for the day's Excursion was not an extensive 

 one. It began by a drive in lovely weather up Deny Hill and 

 along to SPYE PARK GATEWAY, which is believed to have come 

 from Old Bromham House, and then by Sandy Lane to BOWDEN 

 HILL, where the outside of the old CONDUIT HOUSE of Lacock 

 Abbey and the modern Church were visited. As to the age of 

 the Conduit House, Mr. C. H. Talbot writes : — 



The conduit house, on Bowden Hill, which supplies Lacock Abbey, was 

 certainly built by Sir William Sharington, in the sixteenth century, and 

 probably replaced a mediaeval conduit house. Persons unfamiliar with 

 Sharington's work, which is, in many respects, very mediaeval in character, 

 and seeing the building for the first time, have supposed it to be older. There 

 has been some elaborate Kenaissance ornament upon it, which is now very 

 much decayed by the weather, and the arms of Sharington impaling Farington, 

 which Dingley noticed upon it in 1684, cannot now be traced. The building 

 has a true stone roof, supported on transverse arches, the construction being 

 very similar to that of the fifteenth century porch of Sutton Benger Church, 

 which the Society visited on the following day, but the porch is now tiled 

 over, on the top of the stone roof. 



From this conduit house, Wood, the Bath architect, took the idea of the 

 stone-roofed lodges at Prior Park. He probably noticed it, when travelling 

 by the high road from London to Bath, which passed down Bowden Hill, 



