By the Rev. Canon J. E. JacJcson. 



321 



Most of these names are lost, but enough remains to shew that the 

 general outline was probably this : — from Semington round by 

 Keevil ; Edington to the river Biss ; then by Merebrook, Southwick 

 (in North Bradley) ; then across to Trowbridge, Hilperton Moor, 

 and back to Semington. 



According to the next notice, which is Domesday Book a.d. 1084, 

 the Abbess of Romsey was Lady of the whole manor, and held about 

 one-fourth in her own hands ; and that part, I think, was on the 

 side towards Edington. The rest, in various sub -divisions, belonged 

 to different owners, who paid merely a certain head-rent to the Lady 

 of the Manor. 



Ashton Manor remained Abbey property for 578 years, until the 

 Dissolution of Religious Houses, when it fell, of course, into the 

 hands of the Crown. Sir John Thynne, the builder of Longleat, 

 was the Chief-Officer under the Crown in charge of it. From a vol. of 

 the accounts, now at Longleat, it appears that the manorial rights ex- 

 tended not only over the several Ashtons,of which I shall have to speak, 

 but over the tythings of Southwick, Semington, Littleton, Lowmead 

 in Trowbridge, and certain parts of Bulkington, Tilsit, and Bratton. 



In 1538, King Henry VIII. granted the whole Manor, and that 

 of Edington, to Sir Thomas Seymour, Lord Sudeley, brother of the 

 Protector Somerset. Sir Thomas only held them 12 years, until 

 his execution in 1550. 



Some years ago, Mr. J. Moore, of West Coker, was so kind as to 

 let me look at a volume of Court Rolls of the Manor while it was 

 Sir Thomas Seymour's. The volume was rather imperfect, but very 

 legible. It contained minute particulars of the tenants, names of 

 fields, a curious long lease, in Latin, of the Manor of Edington, by 

 Elizabeth Ry prose, Abbess of Romsey, to Meyrick Apprice. At 

 Longleat also there are two or three vols, of Court Rolls of this 

 period. 



A few years ago I was also fortunate enough to find at Rood 

 Ashton itself, a Survey of the year 1604, which supplied a good 

 deal of information about the great original Manor of Ashton. 

 In this volume there are certain agreements and holdings desoribed, 

 and several tenants have written their names to those agreements — 



