36 Westbury under the Plain. 



from, or led to, may not be now very evident. Under ground in 

 different places all along that side of the parish numerous coins and 

 fragments of pottery have turned up : many at Ham, a large open 

 tract north-west of the town. Tradition has it that old Westbury 

 stood there, and that it was battered (our friend Oliver Cromwell 

 again) from Bratton Camp. Sir R. C. Hoare was told by a quarry- 

 man that in a little piece of ground, then lately ploughed up, called 

 Compton's Plot, was the well of the old town, into which all the 

 valuables had been thrown. In the field between that plot and 

 Heywood the same man had assisted in digging up the foundations 

 of a large building of well-hewn stone ; and another labourer spoke 

 of a tesselated pavement found near the well. Cinerary urns have 

 been unearthed at the Iron Works 1 ; at Highsomley many Roman 

 relics ; and in Mr. Pkipps's garden at Charlcote, where I happened 

 some time ago to see the men making new flower-beds, the earth 

 appeared to be almost black and strewed thickly with fragments of 

 pottery as if it had been an ancient cemetery. There is no record 

 of the state of things here in the days of these Roman roads and 

 tesselated pavements, nor does anything appear to be known about 

 it till we come towards the end of the Saxon period, when the whole 

 belonged to the Crown. By degrees, in Norman times, certain 

 portions were granted to monasteries and to the Cathedral of Old 

 Sarum : the rest was disposed of to the laity. But the monasteries 

 did not get so large a share in this as in neighbouring parishes. 

 "Whilst the house of Bonhommes at Edington possessed the greater 



1 In April, 1881, the late Mr. Henry Cunnington wrote to the Devizes Gazette : 

 " The workmen engaged at the Westbury Iron Works have just discovered, about 

 two feet under the surface of the soil, a cinerary urn, about eight inches high, 

 containing the burnt bones of a young person about sixteen years of age. In 

 the mouth of this urn another smaller one was placed, to prevent the earth from 

 falling in on the interment. What is very remarkable, on taking out the contents 

 of the lower urn, a very fine coin of Constantine's was found at the bottom, 

 amongst the ashes. The coin is a bronze, and was struck in London. On the 

 obverse is the head of Constantine, laureated. Inscription : Emperor Constantino, 

 Pius, Felix, Augustus. Reverse : Mars marching to the right, with shield and 

 spear. Inscription : Mars, the defender of the country ; under the figure P.L.N. 

 Pecunia Londinensis), showing that the coin was struck in London. Both the 

 urns are in fine condition, and will shortly be placed in the Devizos Museum," 



