Excerpt from The History of the Priory of Monkton Farley, County of Wilts Trowbridge Castle stood in the centre of the town, on a rising ground that still bears the name of Court Hill. Not a trace of it is left, but the principal street, which forms a curve, is said to owh that shape to its having followed the course of the Castle moat. An old painting was found, some years ago, concealed in the walls of a house, which is said to be a representation of the building when entire, but how much of it is authentic, and how much imaginary, I cannot say. The Castle, however, was the stronghold of the founders of Farley Priory, and their acts and deeds, both military and religious, were such as have been recited. It is only fitting that both kinds should now be duly noticed, as this is one of many similar cases showing that the disturbances by which the kingdom was convulsed were apparently no hindrance to the piety and charity of the nobles who were involved in them. Stephen himself was a great Founder. Dumg the eighteen years and nine months of his reign, no less than 148 religious houses of various kinds were established in Eu gland, bein g a larger number in proportion than in the reign of any of his predecessors. How, amidst the passions of war, men found leisure for works of peace and devotion it would be strange to conceive, did we not remember that the devotion of th ose days maintained such works to be, in a peculiar sense, meri torious to men's souls. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.