262 



Chippenham. Notes of its History. 



Hundred, or to both. The Market-place must have looked rather 

 different then from what it does now : for it is thus described. 

 " In the midst of the street of this Town standeth a Yeldehall 

 or Church House alone by itself horn all other houses: which the 

 inhabitants of the same town, time out of mind, have repaired, 

 and therein kept their Church Ales and Plaies, and have had their 

 meetings for making of ordinances for the same Town. And in 

 the same house for the same time, the Lords of the Hundred have 

 kept their Lawdays and Hundred Courts : but by the granting of 

 the Hundred, the grantee never enjoyed the house solely to him- 

 self, but as before. 



Qu : Whether the grantee or his assigns ought to have the 

 Yelde-Hall solely or no ? " 



The legal reply to this query is not extant : and it is no business 

 of ours now to supply it : but there are, in this old statement, one 

 or two things that we may lay hold of, arch geologically. 



The old building is described as having stood by itself. The rest 

 of the area must therefore have been originally clear. From other 

 documents that speak of bits of waste ground adjoining it, being 

 granted out for setting up shops and shambles by the Lord of the 

 Manor, the rights so far seem to have been claimed by him. By 

 degrees the whole space came (as not unfrequently happens) to be 

 called "The Shambles :" for about 1670-1680, many leases were 

 granted of chambers and stalls in the " Shambles or Market-place :" 

 so that by that time it must have been pretty well occupied. "Scam- 

 ell" is a word in Scotland for a bench. From "Scammells," 

 (wooden tables) the transition, in market-wives' pronunciation, to 

 " Shambles" is simple. Butcher's meat being the article principally 

 exposed, the word shambles has since grown to be applied to a 

 flesh- market only. It is so used once in the New Testament, 

 "Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat, asking no question 

 for conscience sake : " in which passage the Greek word signifies 

 a market-place for fish, flesh, fowl, and all manner of provisions, 

 but particularly a butcher's row. 



Somewhere about this spot stood once a Butter-cross. In 1683 

 there was a lease to one John Steevens, in which it is mentioned. 



