142 



Swindon and its Neighbourhood. 



Bernard ; Draycot Foliot, Draycote Cerne , Corapton Basset, Comp- 

 ton Chamborlayne, Compton Beauchamp ; and others. But in the 

 case of one of the Lydiards the puzzle is that Milicent is not a 

 family name — it is a female Christian name ; and such addition 

 to a parish is not very common. Still, there is in the county of 

 Wilts another instance ; the parish of Winterbourne Gunner, near 

 Salisbury. The records of that parish given in Sir R. C. Hoare's 

 work, prove that Winterbourne in the reign of Henry III. was 

 held by Gunnora, the widow of Henry Delamere, and to distinguish 

 it from several other Winterbournes it obtained that lady's bap- 

 tismal name of Gunnore. The same was probably the case with 

 North Lydiard, for there is a document of the reign of King John, 

 a deed of agreement between two brothers, sons of a lady, who, as 

 widow, was at that time Lady of the Manor of North Lydiard : 

 and in this deed one brother, Hugh, grants to tbe other the rever- 

 sion of the manor " after the death of Milicent their mother." It 

 so happens that all the parties are called by their Christian names, 

 and no family name at all appears, but from other evidences the 

 name was perhaps Clinton. 



About the second name, Lydiard Tregoz, there is no difficulty. 

 The older name of this parish was Lydiard Ewyas ; so called 

 because it had been granted, with several other places in Wilts, to 

 one William de Ewyas, Baron of Ewyas Castle in Herefordshire. 

 One of these Wiltshire places was Teffont Ewyas, in the vale of 

 Wardour. Sibilla, the heiress of the Ewyas family, in the reign 

 of Richard I., married Sir Robert Tregoz. His family (also 

 Barons) held it for about 100 years, and in 1299 ended in two 

 coheiresses. One of them took the Herefordshire Castle, the other, 

 Lydiard, and married William de Grandison. The same story was 

 repeated. The heiress of Grandison married Pateshall, the heiress 

 of Pateshall married Beauchamp, and the heiress of Beauchamp 

 married Oliver St. John, ancestor of the present owner. It is 

 sometimes called in deeds " Lydiard St. John," which it ought to 

 be, as that family has held it 400 years. The splendid monuments 

 of the St. John family, and the high decoration of their part of the 

 church, have earned for it the popular name of Fine Lydiard. The 



