281 Che Bistory of Longleat. By the Rev. J. E. JACKSON, Rector of Leigh-Delamere.1 BEFORE reading to you what I have been able, at rather short notice, to collect upon the subject of Longleat, I beg most respectfully, on the part of this Association, to thank the Noble Marquis for the opportunity he has so kindly given us of hearing its history on the spot. To myself the opportunity appears to be singularly favourable, since, after his Lordship's munificent hospitality, I may venture to presume that you will all be disposed to receive less critically the imperfections of this paper. Being a Topographical Society, it is our first duty to know exactly where we are. We are in Wiltshire certainly; otherwise, we should have no excuse for being here. But though the house stands within this county, the woods and grounds lie partially in Somerset, which begins about three-quarters of a mile off on the way to Frome. As to the Hundred; so long as we followed the high road hither from Warminster we were within that Hundred; but from the moment of entering Longleat Park, we have been, and now are, in the Hundred of Heytesbury. With respect to Parish, a much greater nicety of distinction is necessary, for I believe the case to be that the library, and the south front of the house, are in one parish, and the rest in another. When the Noble Marquis writes his morning letters he is in Horningsham; when he goes to dinner, he is in Longbridge Deverill. Having taken our bearings, the next question is, what is the proper meaning of the name of Longleat? It is a very peculiar one, perhaps unique. Sir Richard Hoare suggests that it may be derived from longa and lata, two Latin adjectives signifying 1 This Paper was read from the garden terrace at Longleat, after the entertainment given by the Marquis of Bath to the members of the Wiltshire Archæological Society, on Wednesday, August 6th, 1856. long and broad, as descriptive of the valley in which the house is situated. But to this explanation there are fair objections. First; adjectives, as we have been always taught to believe, are feeble parts of speech which cannot stand by themselves, but require something to lean upon. In the name of a place you always expect to find a noun substantive, either simple or in composition: as Warminster, anciently Wereminster, (the church on the Were rivulet), Bradford, Trowbridge, and the like. In the next place, if "Longalata" was the proper Latin name, how does it happen that it never occurs in any of the old Latin documents connected with Longleat? On the contrary, whenever the Latin name is used, as in a deed of 25 Edw. I.1 the word is Longa-leta: and the derivation which to myself appears, without any doubt, the true one, is this. The word leat is an old noun, from the Saxon verb to lead, and signifies a watercourse or aqueduct. There is near Plymouth an artificial channel of this kind, a celebrated piece of engineering made by Sir Francis Drake for supplying that town with water, which bears the name of The Leat. The word also occurs in old Acts of Parliament. In Scotland a mill-stream used to be called a mill-leat2. The changes here have been so great that it is of course difficult to say what may have been in ancient times, but it is most likely that the stream from Horningsham, which supplies the present lake, was originally used by some channel, for turning a mill. The late Mr. Davis, steward of this property, used to say that he believed there had once been a mill near the site of the house. [The Marquis of Bath here stated that this was the case; and that it stood near the old stables, close to the house]. His lordship's testimony came in very happily for the purpose: corroborating, without further question, this origin of the name.3 1 Prynne, p. 710. 2 Lade is a Scotch word for a mill-race or trench: and Baillie gives millead and milleat as used in the same sense. Lade also signified the mouth of a stream. At Lechlade, in Gloucestershire, the little stream called the Leach, discharges itself into the Isis. So also Crick-lade. Near Nismes in France there is the Mill of Langlade: a close approximation to the Mill of Long-leat. 3 The Mill is marked upon an old folio plan of the gardens and plantations by H. Hulsbergh. |