The Rev Richard ASBERRY 1585 - (1652 ?) Nothing is known of his origin or early life, except that he was well educated, and was said by Gwen Ashby to have served as a Chaplain in the Royalist Army of Charles I. The copy of his portrait (Ileft) "at age 62" was taken from a "Curzner's Handbook to Frome Sellwood". The smaller one (right) of the Rev Asberry''s son Charles, was taken from the same source. Unfortunately the original appears to have been of very poor quality. They both arrived at Marston Bigot after King Charles 1 had been captured by the Scots, and rented a cottage on the Boyle Estate at Marston House, adjoining the village of Marston Bigot, 6 miles south of Frome. Marston Bigot, once called Meristone. Still earlier it was listed as "Mersitone-tora" in the Doomesday Book, which also recorded the name of the then Saxon landowner - Robert Arundel, who had a mill on the site. The name, in its Marston derivative, was also applied to the millstream - which, in lower reaches, became the Marston River and flowed on through Dorset to the Channel. Marston became known as Marston Bigot some time after it was gifted by William the Conqueror to one of his Norman knights - Roger de Bigod, who became the owner of vast estates in this and other counties. The village, (which appeared on a 19th Century wall map in my father's tutorial college), faded into obscurity and then oblivion after the industrial revolution. I have included a copy of another (1815) map later in these pages. The only buildings at Marston when Adrienne and I visited in 1982 were Marston House (divided into apartments!) and the "neat little cottege" (see below) and the Church |
The original of this portrait hung in Marston House for many years See -"History of Somerset" Noel has a "travellers writing set" of 17th century origin, consisting of an ink well, a quill rest, and two candlesticks which can be unscrewed from their stands for travelling. All items are in matching bronze. It is possible that these items, carefully preserved since his era, may well have belonged to the Rev Richard and been handed down through the generations. |
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