158 Devon Notes and Queries, where he is said to have died. He appears to have had a daughter who married Courtenay, who took the name of Tracy, probably the William Tracy of 1196. This branch after a few descents ended in females. King John gave the barony of Barnstaple to Henry de Tracy. Tawstock, in the deanery of Barnstaple, belonged to Lord William Brewer, who gave it as a marriage portion to his daughter, when she married Robert, Earl of Leicester. This daughter, Countess of Leicester, had no children. Her niece Matilda was the wife of Henry de Tracy, and to her she gave this manor. This appears to be the connection between the Brewer and Tracy families. Lord William Brewer founded Polesloe Priory, and he gave to Tor Abbey the Church of Brad- worthy ; part of the Manor of Buckland and the great tithes ; Lower Shillingford and North Shillingford ; Pancras Week Church and the great tithes ; the great tithes of Tor Mohun; Woolborough Manor; and the Manor of Grindell in Woodbury. Many years ago, when I first visited Weston-super-Mare, I was told that the four murderers of Thomas k Becket were buried in the Island at Brean Down, which we see so clearly from the beach. It puzzled my young mind, because it appeared so far from Canterbury. This research about Sir 'William de Tracy throws a light on that old tradition. I^ he died at Morthoe his body could easily have been brought in a boat and buried in that lonely spot away from conse- crated ground, as a punishment for his great crime. Judging from the gain of shore land during the last half century, the sea, at the time of Tracy's burial, must have swept over the part that is now the town, and broken in wild spray against the lofty rocky part (on the top of which is said to be the remains of the oldest British Camp) and the Island of Brean Down have been more in mid ocean. Emily Skinner. 119. Exeter Street Nomenclature (II, p. 28, par. 25 ; p. 70, par. 49). — Is not Waterbeer Street the Waterbearers* Street ? I think that in ancient documents it is Latinised "vicus aquabajali" In a concession to Magdalen Hospital, dated 1439, it is "^vico vocato Waterberstret ** {Oliver's Monasticon, 403.) J. S. Attwood.
