By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



135 



It is not certain that this was the origin of Wiltshire Lot Meads : 

 but as there is this instance of a village festival connected with 

 them, perhaps it may have been an annual merrymaking, kept up 

 ever since the time of the original settlement. 



Hannington. 



The name is properly Haningdon : and the Manor before and at 

 the Conquest belonged to the Abbey of Glastonbury. In Domesday 

 Book, under the head of this Manor, there is a curious circumstance 

 noted, which very rarely indeed occurs in that Record, viz. — That 

 in the time of Edward the Confessor the Abbot of Glastonbury had 

 sold one portion of his Manor for the lives of three men. This is a 

 very ancient instance indeed, showing that the custom of leasing 

 for three lives is not by any means a practise of late times in this 

 country, but existed in Saxon days before the Conquest, and more 

 than 1000 years ago. The same thing occurs also under the head 

 of Highway, in the Parish of Hilmarton; and the Eecord Com- 

 missioners, in their preface to Domesday Book, call particular 

 attention to the rarity of that example. 



By some means or other Haningdon Manor passed out of the 

 hands of Glastonbury Abbey, and in the year 1317 it is found 

 belonging to the Earldom, afterwards the Duchy, of Lancaster. 

 The Dukes of Lancaster were the founders of a noble collegiate 

 establishment at Leicester, called St. Mary's Novi Operis, or St. 

 Mary's "New Work. It consisted of a dean, 12 prebendaries, 12 

 vicars, clerks and choristers, 50 poor women, 10 nurses, with proper 

 officers and attendants, all plentifully provided for, and greatly 

 patronised by the House of Lancaster. Part of the maintenance 

 came from the rents of Haningdon and Inglesham in Wilts, and 

 Kempsford in Gloucestershire. The College at Leicester also had 

 the advowson of Haningdon. This continued till the Reformation. 

 According to a document in the State Paper Office, the Manor was 

 granted, in the year 1604, to Sir Roger Aston and Edmund Shaw: and 

 the family of Swaine, of Tarrant Gunville and Blandford, in Dorset- 

 shire, were patrons of the vicarage in 1615 and 1630. Yery soon after 

 that time,appears the name of Freke, also of Dorsetshire, as owners 



