By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 



167 



example will have especial interest for us : — under Welewe (Wel- 

 : low) in the Domesday for Hampshire, at fol. 50, we have a some- 

 what extraordinary proceeding attributed to Waleran the hunts- 

 man, no less in short than the transferring a virgate and a half 

 of land from Hants to Wilts. The words of the Record are, — 

 "De isto manerio (Welewe) abstulit Walerannus unam virga- 

 tam et dimidium, et misit for as comitatus et mi sit in Wiltescire," 

 that is literally, " turned it out of the county of Hants, and sent it 

 into Wilts." Whether Waleran made the change by his own 

 authority, or under superior direction, does not appear. Some 

 expressions in the Exon Domesday 1 make it possible that part of 

 Wellow may have been assigned to Wiltshire, in exchange for 

 some lands at Downton which had been thrown into the forest. 

 The transaction, however, still stands good to this day, for though 

 by far the greater part of the parish is in Hants, the tything of 

 West Wellow is reckoned as part of Wiltshire. 



Examples of this correspondence in minute particulars, evidenced 

 by a close comparison of the Domesday Record for adjoining 

 counties, are tolerably numerous ; the following are a few of them. 



On the south-eastern extremity of our county is Bramshaw, a 

 parish situated partly in Wiltshire and partly in Hampshire. The 

 church is said to be in both counties, the nave in the former, and 

 the chancel in the latter. Under the name of Bramessage, an 

 evident compound of the Anglo-Saxon 1 bremele-scdga? which 

 means simply ' bramble-tcood,' it is only mentioned in the Wilts 

 Domesday, two small holdings amounting in the whole to little 

 more than half a hide, or perhaps some 100 acres, being entered as 

 possessed by Edmund and Ulnod as King's Thanes. 2 For the rest 

 of the present parish, including the two tythings of Brook and 

 Fritham, we must look to the Domesday for Hants, where they 

 seem clearly to be accounted for amongst a number of entries under 

 the small Hundred of Truham, comprising some half dozen parcels 

 of land in the New Forest, and represented as having been held by 

 various possessors as King's Thanes. 3 



1 Domesday for "Wiltshire, edited by the Rev. W. H. Jones, p. 190. 

 2 Domesday for Wiltshire, /o J. 74a, 74&. 3 Domesday for Hampshire, fol. 51b. 



