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John May (the second) of Worting who died in 1677 left by his will everything to his eldest son John, his successor at Worting, who only survived him by three years. He however left small legacies to his son Thomas, and to the five youngest children of his son Christopher of Basing by the said Christopher's second wife, and to one of his sons by his first wife - another Christopher. Christopher May of Basing, who died in 1693, left to his eldest son Thomas the copyhold estate of Huish in the Parish of Nately Skewers in which he was then living. He also left various properties in Basingstoke to his son Christopher in trust for his younger brother Daniel not then of age. This Daniel long survived all the rest of his generation and died sp. at Burghfield in 1740, and was taken back to be buried at Basing. He left his property to his nephews, John May of Sherfield and George Woodruffe.

To return to Christopher May and his Will, he does not seem to have left anything personally to his son Christopher, the one mentioned in the will of the grandfather "John May of Worting'', though he left him trustee for a brother and sister. Probably he had provided for him in his lifetime after the family fashion. He ordered the four elder of his five youngest children, Charles, Dorothy, Sarah, Daniel and William to give quittance for their legacies from his father to his kinsman (his nephew) John May of Worting. William, having presumably been born after his grandfather's death had no legacy and John, the eldest of the five children then living of Christopher and his second wife Ann, being already of age, must already have done so when his father's will was made.

John May of Worting, brother of Christopher May of Basing, had died in 1680. Christopher leaves his brother Thomas and his nephew John May of Worting overseers of his will, and his wife Ann and their son John executors.

Christopher May of Basing's son, Charles May of Basingstoke and Sulhamstead, also refers in his will 1714 to the same "kinsman" John May of Worting, and leaves his own brother, Thomas (of Huish) and John as his executors. Thomas May of Huish also left his "dear brother John" his executor in 1715 but in a codicil two years later he left his younger brother Daniel so instead. His eldest son, John May of Sherfield (b. 1683 died 1750), our great grandmother Mary May's grandfather, came in for most of the property, but among other thing she left half his household goods and furniture to his son James, our great great grandfather, when he should attain his age of twenty-one years. James was his youngest living son.

My father's two old cousins, Jane and Ann May, died at their house in Bath, No. 11 Beaufort Place East, in 1883 and 1884 at the respective ages of 89 (nearly) and 84. They left their house with its quaint old-fashioned contents to their oldest niece Jane Wickham, and she already an old woman, kept it unaltered till she herself died at 97 years of age in 1917 (last July). There were many family things there which had come from Brimpton, amongst them a great quantity of our great grandfather's plate, all marked with the May crest. Alice Wickham asked me to go and take a last look at the familiar house before it was dismantled. Her aunt, Jane Wickham, a benevolent shadow, had left no trace of her colourless existence, but it was still redolent of the vigorous individuality of old cousin Jane. The drawing room with its many cross-stitched chairs worked by the old sisters in their youth, the painted leather screen, the miniatures and glorious old china were just as when she brought and arranged them there at the end of the earlier half of the last century. It seemed queer and rather sad, remembering how I used - when I was first married and came to live in Bath - to think her rather an awesome personage, to be turning over her lace-boxes and "secret drawers" and the trinkets and headdresses she and cousin Ann used to wear to the Bath Assemblies so long ago. There was one lovely dress that had belonged to their Mother, our great Aunt Charles, a pearl coloured silk almost thick enough to stand alone brocaded with big flowers shaded in reds and yellows. The Wickhams had, to their regret, to sell the things to pay duties and legacies. Some were very quaint old snuff boxes, three ancient and very ornamented gold watches more or less shaped like balls, a porcupine quill backscratcher with silver c law. We should have liked to buy many of them but at the sale, the old china fetched fabulous sums - £85 for one vase and £89 for a pair of much broken ones. The ugly old screen which cousin Jane told me (with satisfaction) was not a "May" thing but came through her mother, née Sarah Dyer, sold for £317. Some of the old china too, she told me came from the same source. The old "May" silver all marked with the crest - all the ornamental part - went for high prices. I much coveted a set of four 1746 salt cellars, which must have belonged to our great great Grandfather James May of Brimpton, who did not die until 1771 [for which read 1774] though he was born in William & Mary's reign. I was offered them after the sale for £15 but in war time with all three sons in the army and financial and other uncertainties on every side we did not think it right to spend even that amount upon a superfluity. We did get as small mementoes an odd 1764 table spoon and a pair of 1791 ones and a 1796 wine strainer which had belonged to our Great grandfather Thomas May of Brimpton (the first article probably to his father James). His things had been left by his eldest son Thomas to the next brother, our great Uncle Charles who was his residuary legatee and father of our old Cousins Jane and Ann.

Alice Wickham kindly sent me a little "keeper" ring which had belonged to our Great grandmother Mary May, a mourning ring for her husband, inscribed “Thomas May Oct. 68.obit. Aug. 6th 1800". 1 have lately discovered among letters of Aunt Mary's put aside when she died, a small "shadow” portrait of our Grandfather Daniel May, taken when an old man which rather confirms the idea that he was unusually good-looking.

My mother's great grandmother Elizabeth Vaux was married to George Higgs at Marylebone Parish Church when Marylebone was a Village in 17, she and her husband died early and their only child William Simonds Higgs was brought up by his Grandfather Robert Vaux at West Hyde, Rickmasnworth.

Since writing last we have had from our Cousin Sarah Lyne (since dead) a miniature portrait of our great grandmother Sarah Barnard as a young girl; it is a pretty but not good face. My kind brother Hubert, too, saved for me from clearing-out of my sister Constance's house, Granny Barnard's bible. It was printed in 1726 and her father Robert Markland has scribbled his name in faint pencil between two lines of print near the beginning of it. A reference also in Clementina Black's "The Linleys of Bath" to their frequenting her house made us feel sufficiently interested in her to look at her husband's will; there we found that my father's estimate of her was not unjust, as her husband had left his money after his death to be equally divided between his daughter and sons. She had concealed this, as she easily might after fifty years, and left all to her sons or their families ignoring our grandmother Eleanor May. I wonder if wills are often forgotten like this! The friend of "my life and heart", Caroline Dinfield Wemyss has suggested occasionally during our intimacy of 67 years that we must be somehow connected as my grandmother and her mother's grandmother were both named Barnard. Nothing seemed to me more unlikely as hers is one of the well-known families of Scotland and apparently indigenous in Fife, whilst we are of Kent or thereabouts. I used to say that, if so, it must have been in the days when her people were Picts and used to hook my mother's Cumberland forebears off the Roman Wall. Lately, however, she has told me that her Mother (daughter of General Samuel Smith) was taken as a girl by her mother to visit a Barnard cousin who lived in London and was a Doctor, and on looking at a list of London Doctors of that date we found that the only one named Barnard was my Great Uncle Samuel Barnard, which looks as if after all it may be so. The only thing against it is that she is convinced her Barnard was related to Sir John Barnard the stout old Mayor of London who stood up against Sir Robert Walpole and ''bested'' him and I never heard that ours was though of course we know hardly anything about him except what once belonged to him lately through his will. We had an unsuccessful hunt once for his miniature by Cosway which was in Aunt Mary Robert's possession but which could never be found after her death ‑ he mentions it in his own will.

The large memorial tablet of Thomas Buckeridge Noyes has since I first wrote these notes been removed from St. Mary's church Reading and I can get no account about it from the Church Warden, who has been there for 40 years but refuses to answer any questions. I conclude he knows, being a lawyer that he had no right to have it moved without a faculty, and does not wish to give himself away. The small tablets to T.B. Noyes' two daughters were previously removed and placed in the church porch a notice of these ladies and their descent is in the Gentleman's Magazine, June 1842. My nephew Walter Thomas May tells me that last summer (1929) he saw two hatchments quartering the May arms still hanging in Pangbourne Parish Church. They are of the descendants of Daniel May of Pangbourne, our great grandfather's elder brother through his daughter Jane (he had no sons) who married John Symmonds Breedon of Bere Court. He, J. S. Breedon, was also Rector and Lord of the Manor of Pangbourne as was one of his sons and one of his grandsons after him - which probably accounts for the hatchments not having been taken down and burnt as they have been elsewhere. Canon Millard in his erudite history of Basingstoke remarks in a note that it is said that brasses of the May family were removed from the Church of Basingstoke when it was restored in 1840; but in this he was misinformed; it was from Basing Church that the brasses were removed some time between 1820 when Aunt Mary Roberts told me that she saw them there and 1840. Many tablets however were removed from the Basingstoke church when it was restored and among them that of Charles May of Basingstoke and Sulhamstead (brother of our forebear Thomas May of Huish) of his wife Ann Noake, and one of their infant children. He was Mayor of Basingstoke in 1711 and died of smallpox in 1714 at the age of 44. The copy of their inscription given me by Jane May is as follows: from opposite the fourth column from the screen:

"Here lieth the body of Chas. May Gent. late of this Towne who departed this life the 13th day of Sept. A.D. 1714 in the 45th year of his age. He married Ann daughter of Robert Noake of Southcote in the County of Berks, Gent., by whom he had issue Ann Elizabeth and Charles Daniel Christopher and Jane of these Elizabeth and Christopher died some time before their father and Chas. soon after viz: the 8 day of October 1714".

Between the 4th and 5th columns soon after the screen:

"Here next the remains of her dear husband lies interred the body of Mrs Ann May above 30 years the widow of Mr Charles May. She died 8th March 1745 aged 62 years".

A tablet to the memory of the great great nephew of this Charles May, our great Uncle Thomas, is still on the wall of the aisle in Basingstoke Parish Church inscribed as follows:

"Thomas May Esq a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant who died 4th June 1846 aged 78 years".