Particulars of the Manor of Stratford St Lawrence and Capital Estate

Situate at Stratford under the Castle near Salisbury

which will be sold by auction by Mr Vidler in 12 lots

at the Spread Eagle Inn Salisbury on Wednesday 3rd of June 1818.[1] 

                                                                                             

On June 3rd, 1818, the Manor and capital estate of Stratford St Lawrence was sold by auction at the Spread Eagle Inn Salisbury. This inn, at 53 New Canal, was demolished in 1966 [2].

 

In 1818 George III was king but incapable, with his son George (later IV) as regent. Napoleon was imprisoned on St Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. Jane Austen's novels Northanger Abbey and Persuasion were published posthumously and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein anonymously.

 

In June 1818 James Alexander and Arthur Johnstone Crawford were “elected” as MPs for Old Sarum, the right of election still lying with the holders of fewer than 11 burgages. As Du Pré Alexander, the 2nd Earl of Caledon (in Tyrone), held all of them he effectively nominated MPs and Old Sarum continued as a “rotten borough” until The Representation of the People Act 1832. He sold those eleven burgages to his cousins the brothers James and Josias Du Pré Alexander in 1820, they were very valuable plots (until 1832) and were NOT included in this 1818 auction. Also in 1820 James Alexander bought the leasehold interest of the Prebendal Estate from Mary Cooper, his representatives selling it in 1851 to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners (1).