By C. E. Pouting, F.S.A. 



139 



all the stonework has been scraped to a degree which I have never 

 seen paralleled, and much valuable evidence of the history of the 

 Church has consequently been lost. We must make every allowance 

 for the early period at which this was done, and if the restorers of 

 that time only teach us to be more careful now they will not 

 have laboured in vain. 



Canon Jackson states 1 that at about 1149 the manors and Churches 

 of the two Ogbournes were given by Maud, daughter and heiress of 

 Robert D'Oiley, to Bee Herlewyn Abbey, in Normandy, and that 

 a cell of monks was placed at Ogbourne S. Andrew, but tradition 

 places the site of this house at Ogbourne S. George, west of tho 

 Church, where the Manor-house now stands, and the old-buttressed 

 walls, some parts of which are certainly of pre- Reformation character, 

 seem to confirm this. 



Great Bedwyn. S. Mary. 



The ecclesiastical history of this important parish has been fully 

 set forth by the Rev. J, Ward, in 1859 ( Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. vi., 

 p. 267), and as I am not able to add to it I will only here mention 

 a few main items. 



A Saxon Church must have existed on this site, for Domesday 

 Book states that a priest held the Church of Bedvynde, having 

 succeeded his father, who had held it before the Conquest ; a prebend 

 of Bedwyn existed in the Cathedral of Old Sarum. 



The parish originally contained over fourteen thousand acres of 

 land, and there were five chapels in connection with the Church, 

 besides those founded in the building itself: — (1) S. Nicholas, at 

 Grafton, which stood in the field nearly opposite the new Church, 

 but, having been ruined for centuries, its foundations were dug up 

 in 1844. In 1846 a beautiful fifteenth century pax of latten (gilt) 

 was found near the site and is now in the Wiltshire Museum at 

 Devizes. (2) S. Martin, Chisbury ; and (3) a chapel (dedication 

 unknown) at Knowle — both of which buildings we visited this 

 morning. (4) S. Michael, Little Bedwyn, now the Parish Church. 



1 Wilts Arch. Mag, vol x., p. 299. 

 VOL. XXVIII. — NO. LXXXIII, 



