Herald    Friday, May 13, 1988                                                                                Labourer digs up bones in jar

Pirton once belonged to Harold the Saxon, William the Conqueror owned it.  The village was part of the kingdom of Offa of Mercia.Romans lived there.  Pieces of Roman pottery are still being unearthed, including burial urns and coins.

In 1835 a labourer working in a field on Pirton Hill dug up a small jar.  Deeper down he found a skeleton – followed by 27 more.   Jars in the same area contained burnt bones and ashes.

The Normans built an enclosed settlement in Pirton.  The manor was given to Ralph de Limsey, a Norman knight, by King William.

In the Domesday Book of 1086 Pirton was recorded as Peritone.  It was an area of great wealth and prosperity with four mills and more than 200 inhabitants.

Ralph de Limsey also owned extensive land elsewhere.  He founded the priory at Hertford and gave a mill, the church and all his lands in Pirton along with other fringe benefits.

His descendants gave even more of Pirton to the priory.  But when Henry Viii took over the church in the 1530s he gave Pirton to his groom of the stole, Anthony Denny and his future wife Johanna.

The manor was sold and bequeathed through the years until on May 17, 1870, what remained was bought by Daniel Davis, a Hexton farmer, for £17,500.