By John U. Powell, M.A. 



251 



still attached to a well in a bottom east of the Manor House, in a 

 fold of the downs. 



The tithes were formerly paid to the Prebendary, who was Rector ; 

 in 1818 they were leased on three lives to the Duke of Somerset; 

 the last life dropped in 1895, and as an Act had been passed in 1839 

 vesting the estate of non-residentiary prebends in the Ecclesiastical 

 Commissioners, the tithes fell to them. The ecclesiastical patronage, 

 however, is transferred by the same Act from the suppressed prebend- 

 aries to the Bishop of the Diocese, who exchanged it with the 

 Marquis of Bath, in 1877, for the patronage of Imber. The en- 

 dowment consists of land bought by Queen Anne's Bounty in the 

 parishes of North and South Barrow, in Somerset. 



There is a mill mentioned in Domesday, and again in 1342. The 

 farm-house which goes with the mill was formerly a poor-house in 

 the days when each parish kept its own poor, that is, till the reforms 

 in 1834. The first cottage on the right as one enters the parish is very 

 substantially built : one of its walls must be 5ft. thick. Probably 

 it was at one time a farm-house. The first cottage on the left in 

 the parish is said by tradition to have been the first cottage built. 

 The row of cottages beyond the mill is called the Malthouse. 



Some of the names of the fields are interesting. The following 

 are all on Rye Hill Farm, but the names point to a time when the 

 land was much different in appearance ; in the days of high farming 

 and high prices the hedge-rows, planted when the Enclosure Acts 

 were passed at the end of the last century, were grubbed up, and 

 the small fields were thrown into large ones. Mr. Edward Jefferys, 

 who died in 1870, is said to have added twelve acres to the arable 

 part of the farm in this way, by grubbing thickets and undergrowth. 

 ; The names are: — "Devil's Parrick " (A.S. pearroc), so called 

 J "because horses, when ploughing or going alone in the drove, 

 1 would run away, for summat did gaily [scare] them " ; " Pot-hole 

 Thicket " ; " Fiery Corner " ; " Upper Spix." 



The only industry besides farming was glove-making and button- 

 making by the women. 



Dim historical traditions still remain of Alfred, the scene of 

 whose exploits is near ; a faint reminiscence of the Danes in the 



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