By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



295 



contained the remains of the founder. There is also a tomb to the 

 Howe family (the same from which Lord Howe and Lord Chedworth 

 were descended), to whom the manor came, towards the close of 

 the 16th century, by a marriage with the sister and heiress of Sir 

 Richard Grobham. The Manor-house was for many years inhabited 

 by the Howe family. It was at this house, that, according to the 

 diary of Henry, Lord Clarendon, the Prince of Orange was enter- 

 tained in 1688, its occupant at the time being the widow of Edward 

 Hyde of Hatch, cousin to Lord Clarendon. One of the Rectors of 

 Berwick St. Leonard, who held this living jointly with that of 

 Kingston Deverill, Thomas Aylesbury, was a stout and fearless 

 Royalist in the eventful times of Charles I. A sermon of his, in 

 which, in no measured terms, the proceedings of the Parliament 

 were denounced as rebellious, is extant. Ejected from his livings, 

 he, together with his family, received much kindness from Sir 

 George Horner, who, in fact, supported them all, till, at the Resto- 

 ration, Thomas Aylesbury was reinstated at Kingston Deverill. 

 He does not seem to have returned to Berwick St. Leonard, for in 

 the year 1660, 'Richard Stone' was presented to that living by Sir 

 George Grobham Howe, Bart. 



Sedgehill. 



Sedgehill, though at some little distance from Berwick, and sepa- 

 rated from it by the two 'Fon thills,' has been for many years united 

 with it, and the two form one benefice. Separate presentations were, 

 however, made on two occasions, at the commencement of the 17th 

 century, to the Rectory of Sedgehill, the King exercising the right 

 of patronage in each case. This parish is situated in a little angle 

 at the very extremity of the county. On one side of it is a detached 

 portion of the hundred of Downton ; on the other, of the hundred 

 of Chalke. The church, dedicated to St. Catharine, is a small stone 

 building, some 60 feet in length, and 19 in breadth, without any 

 pretensions to architectural beauty. In the middle of the 16th 

 century, the church seems to have been neither too well cared for, 

 nor too well endowed, for at a Visitation held in 1588, the following 

 presentment was made respecting it by the churchwardens, John 



2 d 2 



