Methuens, long its owners. The house was sold by the last proprietor of that family in 1763 to Mawbey Tugwell; and he (or probably his executors) sold it about 1818 (?) to John Saunders: from him it passed through Thos. Hosier Saunders to the late Thomas Bush Saunders, M.A., and from him to his daughter, the present owner. John Saunders built the kitchen wing. In the beautiful old music room, above the minstrel gallery, is a shield which cannot have belonged to any known proprietor, apparently ermine, two chevronels, crest an arm and hand holding an otter. It does not occur in Jackson's Aubrey, There is, in the grounds, a fine, stone-built, mediæval barn. On the lawn are two tulip trees of extraordinary size and beauty, but not older than the nineteenth century.

The Chantry House.

We have seen (p. 116) that there was, in 1546-48, a house known as "the Mantyon House of the Chauntre,', and occupied by the Priest at a yearly rent of 3s. 4d. This must have been the nucleus of the present house, and included, in its southern wing, the small priest's room or place of concealment, and the curious fish tank, or bath, below it.

The following history of the tenure I owe to the kindess of Sir C. P. Hobhouse, Bart.

20th Dec., 1578, Cyrell Hall, of Barton, Bradford, woadener (? dyer) and Anthony Webbe, also of Barton, conveyed the messuage and garden, called the Chauntery House to James, Thomas and Mary, the children of Richard Willis of Wynnesley. Consideration £12 of currante money of England. In 1580 Edward Horton, of Westwood, gentleman, (whose father Thomas of Iford had purchased the Chantry property from the crown at the dissolution) had let ("farm letten ") the premises to Robert Fuller, of Bradford, for a consideration of 14/-. In 1595 and 1614 there were certain money transactions between Thomas and Anthony Lobell, yeoman and clothier, of Bristol, and John Baillie; and one of these Lobells on December 1, 1623, conveyed the premises to Robert Daunton alias Bailie, of Bradford, husbandman, for a consideration of £44.

On January 1, 1650, Thomas Bailey alias Daunton, of Bradford, gentleman, and Charles Bayley alias Daunton, of Attwell, Wilts, clothier, conveyed the premises to Robert Holton, of Bradford, clothier, for a consideration of £65; and in 1662 Elizabeth Taunton or Daunton alias Bayley, of Leigh, Bradford conveyed the premises to Robert Holton, of Trowbridge, clothier, in consideration of the sum of 10 shillings and divers other considerations.

Up to this time the conveyances talk simply of a messuage and garden, and make no mention of any rights superior to those of the successive leaseholders (though the existence of such rights might perhaps be conjectured from the smallness of the prices.) But in the year 1664 appears the fact that the premises were within the Manor of Bradford and Rowldy, that the main lease was apparently from the Lord of the Manor (? Walsingham) and that the full term of it was 2000 years.

On the 20th November, 1664, Sir Edward Hungerford, of Farley Hungerford, conveyed the premises for the sum of £399 3 6 to certain Trustees, in trust for Edward Thresher, clothier, of Bradford, for the residue of this term of 2000 years. But on July 4, 1672, Lady Hungerford, of Corsham, Wilts, and of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, in consideration of £66 in money, and of a yearly payment of 4 shillings and a fatted capon to be rendered yearly on or before Christmas Day, demised the premises to John Holton, of Bradford, clothier.

Nevertheless, in 1676, the same John Holton paid one Robert Ifoot a sum of £303 for the said premises. Then in May, 1696, John Holton, of Nonsuch, Bromham, Wilts, and his sisters Margaret and Jane, children of John Holton, late of Bradford, clothier, conveyed the tenancy of the above premises to Edward Thresher, tenant thereof, for £260, the tenants immediately preceding having been Thomas Poole and Charles Baillie, otherwise Dainton or Daunton, of Keevil, Wilts, clothier.†

So up to 1664-72 the Hungerfords were the owners of the 2000 years' tenure. From the year 1664 Edward Thresher held some

†(Note) There is a triangular piece of land at the top of Elmscross Hill still called Dainton's Grave.-C.P.H.

kind of ownership, but not until 1696 was he both owner and occupier. The complexity of the tenures is quite feudal, and the vicissitudes of the local families concerned are noteworthy.

Additions seem to have been made to the house in the latter part of the 17th century, and again, by the Threshers, in the early part of the 18th, when the small courtyard was covered in. From the Threshers the property passed to the Cams, and so by marriage to the Hobhouses. Sir John Cam Hobhouse, Byron's friend, afterwards Lord Broughton, was born here. The property was later on sold to the Rev. F. Thring, and by him to Dr. Beddoe,

Orpen's House.

This, the abode of Gainsborough's model for the "Parish Clerk," is on the north-west of Trinity Church. The curious little singlepane windows, placed between the greater ones, are for giving light to cupboards in the thickness of the wall: this arrangement seems to be peculiar to Bradford, in which it is not

uncommon.

Horton's Church House.

This was recently the Free School: it contains a handsome timber-framed hall with a small minstrel's gallery. In a survey of about 1629, we read

-holdeth the Church House in Church Street. The house in breadth 23 foot and in length 73 foot, (worth) £3 : 0 : 0 yearly.]

THE PAROCHIAL CHARITIES.

THE OLD ALMSHOUSE.

This is the oldest of the Charitable Institutions connected with Bradford-on-Avon. No exact account can be given, it is believed, either of its foundation or its endowment. According to the Valor Ecclesiasticus' (vol. i. p. 276) the Rectory of Bradford was chargeable with £3 6s. 8d. per annum for the support of "twelve poor persons at Bradford, there praying for the Founder of the Monastery" at Shaftesbury. This

1 The entry is as follows,-"In elimosina per sustentacionem xii pauperum apud Bradeford ibidem orantium pro fundatore monasterii."

sum would be equal to at least ten times as much in the present day. It is not unlikely that at the Reformation out of the proceeds of the Manor of Bradford, which, as being the property of the dissolved Monastery at Shaftesbury, then lapsed to the Crown, some provision was made for the maintenance of a few of those poor persons who had before, from a similar source, derived their support.

Moreover

These almshouses are now occupied exclusively by poor women. This was by no means the case originally. Many entries may be seen in the Burial Register which prove that poor men also shared originally in their benefits.1 there are now but three recipients of this charity. now four.] Originally without doubt, there must have been more;-indeed as lately as 1786, as appears from a return made to the House of Commons in that year, there would seem to have been four alms-women.

[There are

When the Charity Commissioners visited Bradford, in 1834, they enquired into the truth of some traditions that then prevailed, (as they do to the present day) not only as to the much larger number who formerly received relief from this source, but as to there being a chapel, and a chaplain attached to it, who received £10 as a yearly stipend. They state, as the result of their enquiries, that though they could obtain no satisfactory oral or documentary evidence in proof of the truth of such traditions, yet that there was every reason to believe "that a bell had been taken from what is described as the chapel, and carried to Winsley Church. where it is supposed yet to remain." They also give it as their opinion that some loads of stone were taken from the Alms-house premises, about the year 1794, for the purpose of mending the roads, such a statement having been expressly made to them by one George Price, who drove the team on the occasion."

1 The following extracts from the Register prove the truth of this statement. It will be observed that the first is of a very early date, no long time after the Reformation:-

1587 Septemb. John Brencke, of the almshouse, buried the 3 day. 1611 Octob. George Blecke, of the almshouse, buried the 12 day. 1613 Novemb. John Hurle, of the almshouse, Porter, buried the 26 day. 1693 Decemb. Robert Gear, of the almshouse, buried the 10 day.

Though there might be an absence of clear evidence on the subject, there is every probability that there is more truth in the traditions of the old people of Bradford than the Charity Commissioners seemed willing to allow. The fact of there being at the time of the Reformation two Chantry Priests attached to the parish church, each with a stipend of £10 yearly, may give some little explanation of part of the tradition though a mistake may have been made as to the precise 'chaplain,' who received it. Moreover that there was a chapel is quite clear. Aubrey who wrote more than two hundred years ago expressly mentions it. It is spoken of also in the Terrier, which contains an account of the property of the Almshouse at the beginning of the last century. In a map moreover of Wiltshire, published in 1773 by Messrs. Andrews and Dury, a spot is distinctly marked as,-"The Chapel."

The only document relating to the original property of the Alms-house is an ancient parchment writing or terrier, which was produced, by the then Steward of the Lord of the Manor, before the Charity Commissioners, in 1834. They give in their report a complete copy of this document.

It is entitled,

-"An account taken the 2nd day of June, 1702, of all the lands belonging to the old Alms-house, situate in the Parish of Bradford, in the county of Wilts." The land belonging to the Alms-house is described as twelve acres and a half, lying dispersedly in different parts of the Parish. The rent arising therefrom, together with an annual payment of 38s. due from the Lord of the Manor, constituted the income of the Charity.

The Charity Commissioners were further informed that there was in existence a lease, by which, about the year 1760, Mr. Powlett Wright, as Lord of the Manor of Bradford, demised the lands above described for the benefit of the Almshouse. The lands were also said to be let at rack-rent, producing either £8, or (as was thought more probable) £12 a year.

With reference to the buildings the Charity Commissioners say,

"The almshouses occupy a triangle, standing between two roads and the canal from Bradford to Bath. They consist of three tenements, of one