280 



Uotes on jjlaws fmsitefo fog % JJotwtg m i89o. 



By H. E. Medlicott. 

 NOTICEABLE point in the country covered by the ex- 

 §l?li§ cursions made by the Society from Devizes is the paucity 

 of old country houses in the district. Here, as elsewhere, in the 

 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there were far more resident 

 gentry than there are at present. The number began to dwindle in 

 the eighteenth century, and in this particular district the number 

 of representatives of old county families still occupying country 

 mansions has dwindled to almost nothing. There are, however, 

 here and there traces of the former occupants, and it would be a 

 matter of regret to the local historian and the genealogist if these 

 were altogether lost. 



The following short notes are made with a view of recording in 

 the pages of our Magazine the names of a few of the old people and 

 places which have not been mentioned in earlier volumes. 



Passing by Potterne — which has had as Lords of the manor for 

 centuries the Bishops of Salisbury, with an ancient crenellated 

 mansion destroyed at the time of the Commonwealth — and Eastwell 

 —where the family of Hunt Grubbe has been located for four 

 hundred years — we arrived in Market Lavington. Here, at Cleeve 

 (now Clyffe) Hall, lived in the last century Henry Chivers Vince, 

 Esq., whose son married into the Long family in 1792; and there 

 seems to have been a residence of some kind at " Feddenton " 

 Common, occupied by a Dr. Batters. 



In consequence of a letter from Mr. Watson Taylor attention was 

 called during the excursion to the " Three Graves" on " Wickham 

 Green," or " Workforth Common." These are situated in the 

 middle of a large open field about a mile west of Erchfont Manor 

 House, and are fenced in and carefully preserved by the owner of 

 the property. It is said they are the graves of John, Jacob and 

 Humphrey Giddings, who all died of the Plague in 1644, and that 

 the Rev. Peter Glassbrook, his son, and four grandchildren, were 

 interred at the same place, having been all buried by their servant 

 maid, the only survivor of the household. 



