at Amesbury, which still preserves his name. Of the battle we know nothing—know only this, that the Keltic power in Wessex was broken, and that from henceforth the land from Winchester to Charford was called Natan-lea.[1]
Close to Charford lies Breamore,[2]—the last of the Forest villages to the north-west mentioned in Domesday—with the ruins of its fine Elizabethan hall, burnt down only a few years since, and its church standing in a graveyard full of old yews and laurels. The church has been most shamefully disfigured—stuccoed outside, and whitewashed within. Still it is worth seeing. A Norman doorway, another proof that the Conqueror
- ↑ The Chronicle, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 26. Florence of Worcester, Ed. Thorpe, vol. i. p. 4.
- ↑ This is the Brumore of Domesday (same edition as before, p. iv. a), and then belonged to the manor of Rockbourne, and was held by the Conqueror, as it had also been by Edward the Confessor. Two hydes and a half, and a wood capable of supporting fifty swine, were taken into the Forest. From the mention of a priest (presbyter), who received twenty shillings from some land in the Isle of Wight, there would seem to have been a church, in all probability situated, as the old yew would show, in the present churchyard, and of which the Norman doorway may be the last remains.
The Valley of the Avon, as was mentioned in chapter v., p. 51, footnote, appears from its nature to have been, with the exception of the east coast, the most flourishing district of any in the neighbourhood of the Forest. It is worth, however, noticing that many of its mills were rated not only by a money value, but by the additional payment of so many eels. Thus at Charford (Cerdeford) the mill is assessed at 15s. and 1,250 eels, and at Burgate (Borgate) the mill paid 10s. and 1,000 eels, whilst at Ibbesley (Tibeslei) the assessment was only 10s. and 700 eels (Domesday, as before, pp. xix. a, iv. b, xviii. a). The latter place had two hydes, and Burgate its woods and pasture, which maintained forty hogs, taken into the Forest; but Charford with its ninety-one acres of meadow-land, seems not to have been afforested, which, taken with other instances, shows that the best land was, as a rule, spared.
