Alice Oliffe, widow of yeoman John Oliffe of Bremhill Wick, was buried on 31st December 1632 in Bremhill Churchyard, according to her wish. In her will she named her children, Jillian, William, Joan and Humphrey, as beneficiaries. Interestingly, Alice’s bequests were quite varied: in addition to £50 Jillian was left her mother’s bedstead and bed linen, whereas William only received £5 and Joan her mother’s best gown. Everything else went to Humphrey, whom Alice appointed her Executor. Humphrey is likely to have been baptised in Bremhill on 1st January 1608 and would have been 24 at the time of his mother’s death. In her will Alice referred to “every one of my children” and “every one of their children”. A William Oliffe is recorded as having a son, baptised on 5th December 1624 in Bremhill Church, but no grandchildren were individually named in Alice’s will.
Alice’s husband John Oliffe had been buried on 28th November 1622, also in the Churchyard at Bremhill. This would have made their son Humphrey fourteen when his father died. John Oliffe left bequests in his will to his son Humphrey, to his daughter Gillian and, surprisingly, to a daughter Alice, to be paid when all three reached the age of twenty-one, or in the case of the daughters, married. Perhaps John and Alice’s daughter Alice predeceased her mother, though there is no record of this in the Parish burials. No mention was made in John’s will of a son William. In his will John named as one of his overseers John Harris of Tytherton, his brother-in-law. The term brother-in-law in the seventeenth century did not necessarily signify the same relationship as it does today, but perhaps Alice began life as Alice Harris?
Alice’s inventory was valued at approximately £150. As her husband had done (but with a more generous amount), she left some money to the poor of the parish and to the Church of Bremhill, to be used as the vicar, Thomas Collyer, one of the witnesses of her will, saw fit. Her livestock of various sorts, including a flock of 25 sheep, was valued at almost £40, and her corn, both on the ground and in the barn, at a sum approaching £20. Her inventory contained all the usual domestic utensils, with evidence of cheese making, beer brewing and wool beating. In the house were seven bedsteads and beds, one described as old and presumably out of use. It is clear Alice died a comfortably-off woman, but here the records of the family line seem sadly to die out.