250 



A Sketch of the History of Hill DeverM. 



building stones, and there arc others elsewhere, all pointing to a 

 good building. A media) val tile with fleur-de-lys pattern was 

 turned up close by in 1893. The group of ancient buildings in the 

 farmyard, mentioned above, 1 has its front face built in a style 

 common in this district, that is, alternate squares of hewn stone and 

 flints, giving the appearance of a chess-board. 



The present road through the parish is not the ancient road. 

 Formerly the road ran to about 180 yards short of the Church, when 

 it bent to the south-east, and joined the afore-mentioned road from ' 

 the Manor Farm. A close observer can still mark its direction by 

 an old hedge and trees : it ran just under the east wall of the \ i 

 churchyard. To get from the village to Brixton Deverill the way . ] 

 would , have been along these two roads to the old road over the 

 shoulder of Bradbury, or by a footpath, where a causeway can still I j 

 be traced on the west bank of the river. This was the more direct i t 

 way ; there were cottages on it called Hobath (short for Eehobath) ; i 

 in all the meadows close by numbers of building stones may be I s 

 turned up. The beams in the barn at Rye Hill Farm are popularly il 

 said to have been brought from the Manor Farm, and go by the t 

 name of " Ooker's bedstead." The present road to Brixton Deverill ] 

 was made in 1854, through the exertions of the Eev. "W. Barnes, . 

 an active-minded man, who held the livings of Brixton and Hill j 

 Deverill. From the isolated position of the place it is not surprising j 1 

 to find that the inhabitants were credited with speaking a broader |j 

 dialect than their neighbours, and that a good amount of folk-lore | i 

 can still be unearthed, At the eastern boundary of the parish are j ( 

 thorn-bushes known by the name of " Grospel Thorn " ; this probably i 

 points to the custom of reading the gospel under the trees which i 

 had been planted to mark the boundaries, when the bounds were ' 

 beaten. 2 



The parish, like most parishes in this district, runs across the i 

 valley, the idea being that each should have its share of water- j 1 

 meadow, low-lying land, and upland. The name " Lady- well " is 



1 See Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xxvii., p. 270-1. 

 2 See Clodd, Childhood of Religions, p. 99. 



