President's Address. 



301 



[Manor House of the 15th century, and Winsley demands attention 

 as having been the scene of one of Alfred's battles with the Danes. 

 Turley House, the birth-place of Edmund Burke, is close by, and 

 Freshford reminds us of the gallant Sir William Napier, who there 

 wrote his " History of the Peninsular War/"' We may, in 

 imagination, see the Monks of Cluny in their Priory at Monkton 

 Farley and the Carthusians at Hinton Charterhouse, while Hinton 

 Manor House, built out of the ruins of their Abbey, and now the 

 residence of E. T. O. Foxcroft, Esq., will recall the memory of the 

 magnificent Hungerfords. At South Wraxall is a curious old 

 mediaeval Manor House. Over the entrance gate is a little room 

 with a pretty oriel window. Some parts of the house are said 

 to have been built by Robert Long, M.P. for Wiltshire, 1433. 

 The drawing-room has a highly-ornamented plaster ceiling, and a 

 splendid chimney-piece with carved figures and quaint inscriptions. 

 Walker, in his " Pugin's Gothic Architecture/'' gives elaborate details 

 of this fine old Wiltshire mansion. At a short distance from it are 

 the remains of a small chapel temp. Ed. L, now enclosed in a modern 

 house. This chapel might possibly have been a resting-place for pil- 

 grims on their way to the shrine of St. Joseph of Arimathea at Glaston- 

 bury Abbey, like Chapel Playster, which Aubrey distinctly speaks of 

 as a place of entertainment for pilgrims going to Glastonbury. The 

 date of Chapel Playster was probably about 1480. The old Wiltshire 

 Chronicler speaks of it as " the chapelle of Playster/'' Possibly, it 

 might have been built by a person of the name of Plaister, but I 

 am more inclined to agree with Mr. Lower, who in his " Patronimyca 

 Britannica says that Playster is a corruption of Play stow — i.e., locus 

 ludorum — a place of play for the recreation of the inhabitants of a 

 parish. White, in his delightful history of Selborne, describes such 

 an open place, which was called Plestor. Near this little chapel 

 Playstor stands a small house which was at one time the head- 

 quarters of the celebrated Wiltshire highwayman — Thomas Boulter, 

 whose father was a miller at Poulshot, near Devizes. It is said 

 that he possessed a famous black mare, called " Black Bess/' which 

 was reared by Peter Delme, Esq., of Erie Stoke, and was a descendant 

 of the far-famed Black Bess of Dick Turpin. Before returning to 



