174 



Notes, Archaeological and Historical. 



gaat thorough Whitehill, whoakhaycs and woakhayes meadow, passing into i 

 ground lately inclosed ought of the common (in Brinkworth parish), by Si 

 Henry Knyvett dyrcction or some of his offycers as we have hard at which plass 

 it ys sayed by thees old men, as they have hard their foorfathers saye, the Duk 

 had his waye forthe there by a gaat called faoffe gaat, and from that the pram 

 bulation went dyrectlye in the ought syde [outside] of the parcke as the way 

 lyethe to the sand pyttes at the fur corner of the great parcke on Brinkwort 1 

 hill, and from thence along the waye deviding the mannor of Wotton and Mughal 

 on the northe syde to a Crosse at hie gaat which stands the dystance from th 



to mean the Duke of York or Somerset is not known, but probably the former] 

 There are some depressions in the ground at the corner of the park on Brinkwort 

 Hill, which were probably the " sand pyttes." — The " Cross at hiegaat " muf 

 have stood near Mr. Tuck's farm-house. At Highgate was the entrance froi j 

 Fasterne Park to Brayden Forest, and on the 4th of June, 1549, Mr. Joh i 

 Berwick, Steward to the Protector Somerset, (vide Longleat Papers, Wilts Arc, 

 Mag., vol. xiv.), wrote to Sir John Thynne informing him that he had just thr 

 put into Brayden, from Fasterne, five hundred deer, of which a great part we:< 

 inferior ones, or " rascalls " — the reason being that grass in that year was re 

 markably early. There is a field still called " Gadcrafte." From Baynard's As 

 the boundary of the park went along the ridge towards Wootton Bassett, whe 

 there is, or was, a walk called the " Row Dow," thence at the back of the hous 

 in Victory Row, across the bottom of Wood Street, and the Butt Hay, to whe 

 the hedge divides Mr. F. Weston's property from Sir Henry Meux's, across it 

 upper part of Whitehill Lane, and on the high ground to the Great Weste 

 Railway, which it crossed, and down to the brook below Hunt's Mill. It th| 

 went up to Fastern Wilderness. There was another old or inner park, whi< 

 included about forty acres of Whitehill Farm, Old Park Farm, the Hart 

 Half's Farm, and part of Hunt's Mill Farm. On the west side the stream fro| 

 Tockenham and Lyneham divided the Wootton Bassett and Grittenham manoi 

 Near Hooker's Gate is " Brynuing's " or Browning's Bridge, which bridge 

 mentioned in the oldest known perambulation of the ancient forest of Brade 

 that commenced there. The " Quene Anne " must have been Anne of Cleves, ( | 

 Anne Boleyn. 



The late Canon Jackson kindly sent to the writer the following extract fro 

 the Register of the Protector Somerset's Estates in Wilts (when Viscov. 

 Beauchamp, 1540), copied from the original at Longleat :— " There is in the sa 

 mannor [of Midghall] a certain wood called Calo-wood, and contaynith 100 aci , 

 in the which grow bryers, furze, and thornes, with young okes, and the tena; 

 say that from Ward's lane unto the east part of the parke called Fasterne Par il 

 the Queen [Katherine Parr] shall have the breadthe of an acre and a halfe f 

 the said wood to mayntayn the hedge of the said parke." The site of the ho ft 

 of the Ranger of Fasterne Park is known, being on the north side of ft 

 Thunderbrook, on Whitehill Farm, and rather more than a quarter of a milei| 

 the east of Dovey's Bridge. There was a deep moat round it, which enclo II 

 an area of about half -an acre of land, the fertility of which still strangely cJ 

 trasts with the barrenness of that by which it is surrounded. Callow Hill j 

 at the corner of the great park at Brinkworth, 



