Wormesley, is one which recalls the name of a family not less famous in our history than that of the Talbots-the Mortimers Lords of Winforton and Wigmore. Roger Mortimer confirmed in the year 1304, the gifts of Walter Muchegros and John L'Estrange and other benefactors of the Priory. After reciting their grants, the deed conveys benefactions of his own, including the right to dig gravel, and other privileges, on lands situate on his manor of Winforton on the Wye and at Hay, but which are too numerous for recital here. The deed was attested at Chirk Castle, near Ruabon, one of the seats of the Mortimer family. This Roger Mortimer was apparently either father or uncle of the Mortimer who played such an important part in the reign of the unhappy Edward II. It will be remembered that he joined the Queen and barons against the King, and that a fine of a thousand pounds was set upon his head; that he is supposed to have procured the king's murder in Berkeley Castle, and was subsequently surprised by the young King at Nottingham Castle by means of an underground passage, now known as Mortimer's Hole, and being conveyed to London was hanged at Smithfield. But although Roger Mortimer came to this tragical end, his race did not vanish from the stage of history, or cease to play a part in those stormy times. His great grandson married the heiress of Lionel, third son of Edward III., and a second marriage into the house of Plantagenet brought the Mortimer family into the line of succession to the Crown. though some evil genius or fate, such as Greek tragedy bewails, hung over the family, this second marriage of Anne descended from Mortimer with Richard, grandson of Edward III. was the occasion of the sanguinary wars of the Roses, which stained the soil and disgraced the name of England. What part, if any, Wormesley took in these shameful quarrels history does not record, but as it was largely indebted to the Mortimer family it probably followed the fortunes of the White Rose.

As

As the name of Talbot and Mortimer bring Wormesley into connection with the stirring events of English history, so the name of another benefactor links this Priory with what has been finely called the Homeric age of English Literature. Among the charters or deeds transcribed in the Harleian MS. (6726), is a transcript of the endowments of the prebend of Wellington. Relying upon the learned work of Mr. Ward, relating to the Metrical Romances preserved in the British Museum, I find that this deed was attested by Walter Map and Milo de Muchegros, both of which names occur in deeds relating to lands in Wormesley. In another MS. of the same collection Walter Map appears in two documents as the granter of lands to Wormesley Priory. In the first draught of these notes, following previous investigators, I was led to identify this Walter Map of Wormesley, with the celebrated writer of Henry the Second's reign, the friend of Giraldus Cambrensis, and of Thomas à Becket. Mr. Ward who appears to have gone thoroughly into the matter, is of opinion that it would not be safe to do more than conjecture that the brilliant satirist belonged to the Maps of Wormesley. It seems however highly probable. He was a Herefordshire man, born in 1143, and the Priory was founded about 1190, and it is certain that a line of Walter Maps lived at Wormesley, between 1155 and 1240. An

interesting fact, however, for which I am indebted to Mr. Ward's work, already referred to, brings the poet appreciably nearer to Wormesley. A romance writer of the same age, named Hue de Rotelande, who lived at Credenhill, has some lines in which he refers to Walter Map. Writing in the Norman French of the time, and speaking of his own line in literature he says, "I am not the only one who knows the art of lying; Walter Map knows well his part of it :

Sul ne sai pas de mentir lart
Walter Map reset ben sa part."

As Credenhill and Wormesley are not far apart, it seems probable enough that the two romance writers were neighbours and friends. Beyond this it seems we cannot safely go. As a writer Map was known for his Latin satirical poems in which he attacked the vices of the clergy of his time, but we are more indebted to him for giving form and meaning to the floating Arthurian legends which had become popular since the publication of Geoffrey of Monmouth's history. To him we owe the stories of the Holy Grail, Merlin, and Lancelot. "All their old charm is left," writes Professor Morley, "intensified in the romance of Launcelot, "but all is now shaped in a legend of man's spiritual battle, and a lesson on the "search through a pure life alone for the full revelation of God's glory on earth." Although the claim of Wormesley to any share in the fame of Walter Map may be as shadowy as the legends of King Arthur himself, yet we may be pardoned for cherishing the belief that these beautiful creations of genius are not wholly unconnected with these meadows carpeted with wild hyacinth, through which the poet may have wandered long centuries ago as we have done to-day.

It should not be omitted that Walter Mapes, the poet, was Archdeacon of Oxford, and Rector of Westbury-on-Severn, and that one of the benefactors of Wormesley was Nicholas, son of Walter Mapes, whence some conclude that the father of Nicholas could not have been the Archdeacon, as clergymen were not at that time permitted to marry. This difficulty will not appear insuperable to serious students of ecclesiastical history.

Lord Tennyson, in his 'Becket,' introduces Walter Map as conversing with the great Chancellor.

Walter Map.-"Is the world any the worse for any verses if the Latin "rhymes be rolled out of a full mouth; or any harm done to the people if my jest "be in defence of the Truth?"

Ay! if the jest be so done that the people
Delight to wallow in the grossness of it,
Till Truth herself be shamed of her defender,
Non defensoribus illis, Walter Map.

One more extract from the Harleian Collection must suffice. By a deed therein recited the Lady Basilia of Tillington gave sixty marks to form a Chantry at Wormesley for prayers and masses for the soul of Paganus de Bourhall, her husband of happy memory. These Chantries were all suppressed by Act of Parliament in the last year of Henry VIII, and the first of Edward VI. In the preamble of the Statute, it was stated that the revenues of these Chantries were

to be used for the erection of Schools, the augmentation of the Universities, and the relief of the poor. This, however, was never done, and the pious bounty of the lady of Tillington fell to the lot of one of Henry's courtiers.

The name of Wormesley Priory frequently occurs in the Patent Rolls, taxation records, and other public state papers of the Plantaganet period, and much useful information might be gleaned therefrom by anyone who had the requisite leisure. The common seal which was used by the Convent in their deeds is described by Dugdale as oval, small, but neat, with the legend Commune sigillum capituli ecclesiæ Sancti Leonardi de Wormeleye. An impression of this seal in blue wax was in the Augmentation Office in Dugdale's time, the documents of which are now in the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane, but is not at present accessible.

The yearly revenue of the Priory at the Dissolution amounted to £83 10s. 2d. Most of the Priors received a yearly pension of £13; the Prior of Wormesley received £20. There were seven Canons who would receive a new gown apiece, and a small sum of money, adapted to those rules of strict austerity to which the religious Orders were bound, but which for a long time they had grievously neglected.

Time forbids me to speak of muniments once in possession of the Dansey family of Brinsop; of Pope Gregory's Bull and other deeds. I would gladly speak of a letter from Richard Warncombe, dated at Wormesley in 1535, in which the writer asks for the adjournment of a lawsuit as counsel would not come to Hereford, "forasmuch as the citye is so vexed with the plage, there is none wolle come there as Jesu knoweth who cease the said plage when his wille is."

According to Tanner's Notitia the site of the Priory was granted 37 Henry VIII. in exchange for other lands to Edward Lord Clinton, whose name appears in several State Papers as one of the Council of Edward VI., and as Lord Admiral in the reign of Elizabeth. Later on I find Richard Payne Knight, Esq., described as the proprietor of Wormesley Priory, of the certified value of £4 88. 4d. Of this family there are several sepulchral monuments in the churchyard of Wormesley, and the Grange is now owned and occupied by G. Boughton-Knight, Esq.

Of the Priory nothing now remains as it stood in old times; but Mr. Galliers, who accompanied our party this morning, remembers that many years ago there were remains of the old Grange belonging to the Priory still standing. The present residence, he tells us, was built of the stone of the Priory, and one or two incised stones of early English work, formerly part of the building, are to be seen on the lawn; "which things are an allegory."

The little church is of plain construction with an ancient font in the south-west corner, and a vestry curtained off in the north-west. On the south side is a Norman arch over the entrance of the eleventh century. The present vicar, the Rev. A. Relton, informs me that of the tithe appropriated to the Priory, as above mentioned, nothing remains, and three acres of land represent the ancient income of the benefice as distinct from modern additions.

And now that old world has passed for ever away like as a dream when one awaketh, or as a tale of which it may be said :-

"When the huge book of Faery-land lies closed,

And those strong brazen clasps will yield no more."

OFFA'S

DYKE IN HEREFORDSHIRE

BY H. CECIL MOORE.

OFFA'S DYKE does not commence, as has been so often erroneously stated, at the deep gully leading down to the Wye, situated east of the Russian Cottage, but at a spot about 250 yards west of that cottage, where it forms in the present day, the boundary between the parishes of Bridge Solers and Byford. The Dyke is here cut through by the Hereford and Hay road at the distance from Hereford of 63 miles, and 13 miles from Hay.

This position is 2 miles west of Kenchester, the Camp occupied by the Romans under the name of Magna. The Dyke can be traced more or less for about one mile in a N.N.W. direction between Bishopstone Hill and Byford Hill, but its prolongation cannot be traced over Mansel Hill. See Ordnance Map, Herefordshire Sheet xxxii., N.E., on the scale of six inches to one mile. Two miles further north it can be traced from a brook at the bottom of the Valley, then across the Hereford and Hay Railway, where the line is in a cutting crossed by an occupation bridge, 300 yards on the Hereford side of Moorhampton Station. It proceeds in a northerly direction through the grounds of Upperton Farm, and is continued a few yards west of the lane leading to the Clay Pits at the bottom of the hill below the clump of Scotch fir trees at Ladylift. It ought to be marked on Sheet xxv., S. E.

From the Clay Pits to Lyonshall, about six miles north-west, through the intermediate parish of Sarnesfield, no trace of the ditch has been found. If the Dyke had been prolonged from the Clay Pits in a true northerly direction, it would have passed successively through the parishes of Yazor, Weobley, Dilwyn, Eardisland, Pembridge, Shobdon, Aymestrey, Wigmore, possibly along the eastern fringe of Letton and Walford, Adforton, and would have left Herefordshire in the parish of Leintwardine. It happens that in the parish of Pembridge, a ditch called "The Rowe Ditch," of similar proportions to Offa's Dyke, can be traced northwards for the length of a mile. Reference will be made to the Rowe Ditch hereafter, and also to what is known as Grim's Ditch.

According to authorities, including the Ordnance Maps, the next appearance of Offa's Dyke, after its disappearance at the Clay Pits on the western base of Ladylift, occurs near Holme Marsh, in the parish of Lyonshall, Sheet xvii., S. E., a distance of six miles N.N. W. On Sheet xvii., N. E., it is shown 500 yards west of Lyonshall Castle, and again near Titley Junction; passengers proceeding from Titley Junction towards Kington may, from the right-hand windows of the train, when about 300 yards distant from the station, view a short length of it in the valley, until the ditch reaches the river Arrow in the parish of Titley; it is here of small proportions and not well defined. The direction of the Dyke here is N.N.W., and its situation is 34 miles west of the above-mentioned Rowe Ditch. Whatever the Rowe Ditch may have been, it is evident that the Dyke on the