86 



Notes on Upper TTpham Manor-Home. 



and back are simple and effective, being square with the angles 

 taken off by a hollow chamfer. 



The original outbuilding's have entirely disappeared ; so also have 

 the entranoe gates and piers; but a long piece of sixteenth century 

 ornamental stonework now built into the low wall by the present 

 gate probably formed a portion of one of the piers. 



Prom the initial letters over the porch it is concluded that the 

 present house was commenced on or near the site of an earlier 

 building (said to have been the hunting lodge of John of Graunt) by 

 Thomas, second son of John GFoddard of TTpham, who appears to 

 have succeeded to the Swindon and Upham estates — or part of them 

 — at his father's death in 1545 ; the Standen Hussey and Clyffe 

 Pypard estates going to his eldest brother, John. Thomas married 

 for his first wife, Ann, sister of Sir Greorge Griff ord, from whom the 

 Swindon branch of the family are descended ; and secondly, Jane> 

 daughter of John Ernie. The initials of the first marriage appear 

 in the two places named. The letters and date R.Gr., E.GK, 1599 

 are for his son, Richard Groddard and Elizabeth Walrond, his wife, 

 who, it is supposed, completed the house. The will of his father, 

 Thomas, was proved in 1597, so that Richard must have been in 

 possession, two years previously to the date over the entrance. 



The large tomb in the south transept of Aldbourne Church' is 

 supposed to be that of Thomas, his wife Ann, and their children. 

 The Richard who gave the tenor bell, and who is commemorated on 

 the brass in the south aisle — if the two refer to the same man — was 

 not the Richard whose initials appear on the house, as Jefferies 

 states in his " Memoir of the Groddards of North Wilts," but an 

 ancestor of a century earlier. 



