Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/226

 Devon Notes and Queries, 163 The Guild of S. Laurence consisted of the Portreeve and burgesses of the Borough and it became the governing body of the town. Upon this Guild the Bishop bestowed his newly-erected chapel as a chantry, which was accepted by the Portreeve and commonalty of Ashburton under their common seal on the eve of the Assumption of the B.V.M. (14 August) 13 14. This document with very perfect seals is preserved in the Chapter House Library and forms our Ashburton charter. Most probably Stapledon was present on the occasion. It was a very anxious time for him, as he held high office under Edward II., and was a chief adviser; the disastrous defeat of the King at Bannockburn in June and the invasion of England by the victorious Scots made his presence needed at Court, but we, from his itinerary, find him at Chudleigb, only nine miles from Ashburton from loth to 13th August, and at Clyst on 1 6th, on his way through Tewkesbury to York. Although the Chantry was swept away in 1535 and the Guild dissolved, yet the ancient school has remained and is still carried on, under more modern management, on the same site. The entrance is still through the original tower built by Stapledon, although the other buildings, excepting the eastern wall, are of more modem date. The small class room over the entrance is perhaps the oldest secular schoolroom in England. (See illustration.) Thus, by the farseeing policy of Stapledon, of which our Ashburton school may have been an experiment, a continuous ladder was provided from the elementary school to the University of Oxford, which, we are glad to say, has been used by students for five and a half centuries and is still a recognised highway, with several walking along it, for the deserving students under Stapledon's conditions. P. F. S. Amery. 126. RowE (II., p. 122, par. 85.) — Whose daughter was Mary (Trevelyan), who died 4th March, 1721, and was the wife of Thomas Rowe, of Sparkwill ? I cannot see her men- tioned in the pedigree of the Trevelyans at the end of part iii. of the Trevelyan papers (Camden Society). From the arms she was presumably of that family. C.H. Sp. P.