294 Ancient Chapels, fyc, in Co. Wilts. 



8. West of Westport church, in a narrow street leading to the 

 horsefair, an ancient doorway and a perpendicular window 

 are thought by some to have been part of a chapel : and 

 Aubrey reports the tradition of another near it. (See plan 

 in Wilts Collections.) But both these are uncertain. 



The Yalor Eccles. names as in the Abbey Church, a chapel 

 of St. John Baptist, the chapel of the B. "V. M., and the shrine 

 of St. Aldhelm : but no notices of any of these having been 

 endowed have been met with. In the list of confiscated 

 chantries 1 Edw. VI. are named, "Lands given for the main- 

 tenance of a Priest within the parish of St. Paul : Thomas 

 Washebourne, aged 60 years, Incumbent. Clear yearly value 

 iJvii xiis.," and 4 'lands for the maintenance of a Priest in 

 Westport parish. J ohn Wymbole, aged 44 years, ' Stipendiary.' 

 Clear yearly value £v xiiiis. ixd." The Commissioners report 

 that " Malmesbury was a great Towne, and but two parish 

 churches, wherein be DCCCIX people which receyve the 

 Blessed Communion, 1 and no preests to helpe the Vicars in 

 admynistration of the Sacraments saving the said stipendiary 

 preests: wherfore the inhabytants there desire the King's most 

 honourable Councell to consider them accordinglie." But the 

 " honourable Councell " seem to have been rather swayed by a 

 marginal note annexed to the report, " The Vicar's man doe 

 yt well ynoughe. ,, 



Marlborough. No Town in Wiltshire seems to have been more 

 abundantly supplied with the opportunities of religious service 

 before the Reformation than Marlborough. 



The Religious Houses were four, all on a small scale. 

 1. St. Margaret's Priory. White Canons, of the Sempringham 

 Order, half-a-mile south of the Town : of Royal Foundation, 

 temp. John: endowed with tithes and lands in the neighbour- 

 hood. Roger Marshall was Prior, both of this and of Easton 

 Priory, near Burbage, in 1534. [Valor Eccles.] 

 1 In those days, every one above the age of confirmation who did not make 



confession and receive absolution in Passion week, could not receive the Holy 



Eucharist at Easter : and those who did not do so, dying within the year, would 



probably have been refused Christirn burial. 



