286 The Wiltshire Possessions of the Abbess of Shaftesbury. 



and that all Communion-tables should be removed from the east 

 end of every Church and Chancel.' 



Of the estates comprised within Donhead St. Mary, Bell-knapp, 

 now called Donhead Hall, derives some interest from its having 

 belonged to the Kneller family, to whom it came by intermarriage 

 with the Weeks family. The present Mansion-house was built by 

 Godfrey Huckle, who assumed the name of Kneller, and was, 

 through his mother, a grandson of the great painter, Sir Godfrey 

 Kneller. Donhead Hall was sold, in 1825, to Mr. Wyndham, by 

 the grandson of its original builder. 



There is also another building in the Manor of Combe, within 

 this parish, that merits a passing notice. An old farm house near 

 the spring is called ' The Priory, 5 not because it was ever the man- 

 sion-house of any religious society, but in consequence of a Prior 

 and four or five Monks of the Carthusian order seeking refuge 

 there, at the time of the first French Eevolution, from the ruin that 

 threatened them in their own country. One of this number, 

 Anthelm Guillemot, described as of the convent of Bourbon, in 

 Normandy, died here, at the advanced age of 84 years. A plain 

 slab in the parish church, with a simple inscription, marks the 

 exile's last earthly resting-place. 



Tisbury. 



We travel on now to one of the most extensive and valuable of 

 the possessions of the Abbess. On our road we shall be at no great 

 distance from Ansty, the church of which village is described as 

 being one of the oldest in the county, and formerly part of the 

 possessions of the Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem. In the 

 neighbourhood of Tisbury are many remains of our British and Saxon 

 forefathers. Traces of villages, earthworks, and Cumuli,' are still 

 to be seen ; though within the last 30 years, the plough has obliter- 

 ated many such traces as were very perceptible when Sir P. C. 

 Hoare published his " Ancient Wiltshire." ' Castle Ditches,' a 

 large encampment consisting of a treble ditch and ramparts ranged 

 in the form of an irregular triangle, and comprising within its area 

 some 23 acres, is but a short distance, on the south-east, from 



