By fJte Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. 



337 



property enough, they are by no means the oldest property of the 

 family of Long* : as for instance, South Wraxal. This was Long's 

 in 1433, and is Long's in 1872 — 439 years, without any intermission. 



The pedigree of this Wiltshire family, in its various branches, 

 fills three or four large printed sheets ; so that you will hardly expect 

 me to enter upon that subject. Nor do I consider it at all necessary, 

 upon this occasion, to deal with it, except in a general way. It is 

 a very difficult pedigree to follow, because there were so many 

 branches and so many intermarriages. There were Longs of Wraxal, 

 of Draycote (near Chippenham), of Whaddon, of Monkton in 

 Broughton Gifford, of Semington, of Rood Ashton, of Trowbridge, 

 and of Netheravon near Pewsey. The name itself occurs in Wiltshire 

 at a very remote period, but the first person of known position as a 

 landowner was Robert Long, of South Wraxal, M.P. for the county 

 of Wilts in 1433. It has often been said that he was brought out 

 under the influence of the then potent family of the Hungerfords of 

 Farley Castle ; that the Walter Lord Hungerford of the day, Lord 

 Treasurer of England in Henry VI., preferred Robert Long to a 

 good marriage, and obtained for him some land. I have never been 

 able to make this old story clearly out. I have in my own possession 

 copies of more than 1200 deeds relating to the Hungerford family 

 and their estates. In them the name of Robert Long often occurs 

 as a confidential friend, a trustee, feoffee, and so forth. But there 

 is only one which in any way refers to land obtained for him by the 

 Hungerford family ; and that was not at South Wraxal, which 

 never belonged to the Hungerfords, but it was merely a trifling 

 affair of a lease at a place called Highchurch near Falkland, just 

 beyond Philip's Norton. And as to the " good marriage " to which 

 hv. *^as preferred, that point has been diligently enquired into : but 

 I fear without perfect success. The matter is of course, at this 

 time of day, of no very vital consequence ; but as it relates to the 

 very beginning of an old Wiltshire family, it is just one of those 

 little obscurities which Wiltshire genealogists and archaeologists 

 would feel a pleasure in clearing up, if they could. 



The first great division of Long family property, was, as is well 

 known, the separation of the Wraxal and Draycote estates, which 



