By the Rev. J. E. Jackson. 



139 



neuter, which always denotes woodland feeding. In the counties 

 of Kent and Sussex, along the edge of the Weald (the Great 

 Forest), there are many such names as Surrenden, Tenterden, 

 Ashenden, and the like. There are so many of them, that within 

 the last two centuries, there was actually a peculiar jurisdiction, 

 called the Court of Bens, for settling claims belonging to the wood- 

 land feedings. There is another word, dene, which means a valley ; 

 but that is ancient British, not Saxon, and is very rarely found in 

 composition. The Saxon Ben is woodland pasture. Brad is, of 

 course, Saxon for broad; and Bra-den, means the broad woodland 

 pasture. That is the reason why it ought to be spelled with an e, 

 not with an o. If it is spelled don, as in Swindon, that would 

 mean hill. 



Purton. 



It can only have been in very remote times that the whole of 

 this tract was forest, because in William the Conqueror's great 

 survey we find the same parishes named as are now within that 

 district, showing that those different portions of it had been cleared 

 and enclosed by that time. For example : — Purton. This had 

 been granted by Saxon Kings of Wessex 300 years before the 

 Conquest to Bishop Aldhelm, as the charter expressly states," for 

 the foundation of his Abbey at Malmesbury." Purton ought to 

 be spelled P-i-r, as it is a pure Saxon name, Piriton, meaning the 

 Pear-tree enclosure, and it is always so spelled in ancient deeds. 



In the, sometimes weary, work of tracing obscure histories, it is 

 a relief to find that a manor was given to a Monastery ; because, 

 as the Monasteries took better care of their property than any body 

 else, its history is settled for many centuries. So it was with 

 Purton. It belonged to Malmesbury Abbey till the Dissolution. 

 This gives us a leap of 800 years. 



Soon after the Dissolution in Henry VIII., a part of Purton was 

 bought by Mr. Hyde, the father of the Lord Chancellor, Earl of 

 Clarendon. The Chancellor was not born there, but at Dinton 

 (now Mr. Wyndham's, in South Wilts), which Mr. Hyde held on 

 lease. Preferring to live on his own freehold to living on leasehold, 



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