By the Ven. Archdeacon Macdonald. 



139 



wood, though there does not seem to have existed near the hamlet 

 any woody land, from which the name could come. Mr. Sotheron 

 Estcourt and Mrs. Smith are the chief proprietors, the last men- 

 tioned lady having a handsome villa residence in it. 



Bedborough is the remaining tything; the boundaries of which 

 it is not easy to ascertain and more difficult to describe It em- 

 braces portions of Devizes Green, and runs up the London road, 

 becomes intermixed with the tything of Roundway, and is stopped 

 by the lane leading to the Silk mill. 



III. Chittoe. Anciently Chetoive, and Chittow: now sometimes 

 called Ohitway. 



This tything adjoins the parish of Bromham, but is an outlying 

 part of the manor of Bishop's Cannings, from which by the nearest 

 road over the Downs it is six miles distant. The larger part of it 

 belongs to the Spye Park estate. In the year 1661 Sir Edward 

 Baynton of Bromham being engaged in building a mansion house 

 on a new site, Old Bromham House, the seat of his ancestors, hav- 

 ing been burnt in the civil wars ; Mr. Robert Henley, already 

 mentioned as Lord Farmer at that time of the entire manor, con- 

 veyed to Sir Edward, by an underlease, all his right and property 

 in Chittoe. This included about 100 acres of waste which were 

 added to the new domain called Spye Park ; a condition being 

 annexed that by way of acknowledgement, the Bayntons should 

 pay to the Bishop as chief lord an annual contribution of t wo fat 

 bucks. Mr. C. Wyndham is also a landowner in the tything. 



Tradition relates that there was anciently a chapel here : and 

 this appears to have been the case: for in the Valor Ecclesiarticus 

 (Henry VIII.) the vicar of Bishop's Cannings is charged with a 

 payment to the rector of Bromham of 6s. 8d. per annum "pro 

 capelld de Chittow." This, I doubt not, was in consideration of his 

 celebrating the sacraments to the inhabitants of Chittoe, on account 

 of their inconvenient distance from their proper parish priest. It 

 is not known when the chapel was destroyed, nor when this pay- 

 ment was discontinued. The parishioners of Chittoe have for very 

 many years been accustomed to be married at Bishop's Cannings, 



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