322 



Rood Ashton, 8fc. 



i.e., all who could write their names at Rood Ashton in the year 1604. 

 I am sony to say that out of fifty-three, there were only fifteen who 

 were masters of that useful accomplishment. The rest made their 

 marks : and the whole presents an extraordinary display of pen and 

 ink ingenuity. One is like those strange characters you see on a 

 Chinese or J apanese tea-chest, in a grocer's window : another like a 

 W turned topsy-turvy ; and then comes a pair of scissors, out of 

 joint. No. 4 is like a gridiron ; the next like a black spider with ever 

 so many legs; another must have belonged to a member of an 

 archery 'club, as he signs with a sort of bow and arrow ; and so on. 



This record is dated 1604 : but the Manor remained Crown pro- 

 perty till 1610, for in that year it was one of the many estates set 

 apart for the maintenance of Prince Henry, son of King James I. 

 The sum total of those estates was £9000 a year ; but the Crown 

 rents of the Manor of Ashton, by itself, merely amounted to about 

 £85 a year. 



This survey of 1604 also confirms the evidence of the other 

 documents to which I have alluded — viz., that the Manor of Ashton 

 included the tythings of Steeple Ashton, West Ashton, Southwick, 

 Semington, Littleton, Lowmead, and lands at Bratton, Bulkington, 

 and Tilsit ; also Edington, but that manor no longer belonged to 

 the Crown as part of Romsey Abbey. Before the Dissolution it had 

 been, by a certain arrangement, conceded by the Abbess of Romsey 

 to William of Edington, Bishop of Winchester, to endow a Religious 

 House at Edington ; of which, you have seen the noble old church 

 in this day's excursion. The same survey (of 1604) also gives the 

 names of the noblemen and others holding under the Manor of 

 Ashton, such as the Lords Mountjoy for Southwick, the Brunkers 

 for Semington, Trenchards, Westley, Long, Stillman, Whitaker, 

 Horton, Bayley, and other old local names. 



The Crown appears as owner in 1610, but the property was passing 

 out of its hands : for many years before, about 1561, 4 Elizabeth, 

 being in want (as even Crowns sometimes are) of money, it had 

 mortgaged its Manor of Ashton to the Mayor and Corporation of 

 the City of London. In 1573, the Mayor and Corporation of 

 London transferred the mortgage of the manor to Walter Long, 



