The Natural History Of Wiltshire - free ebook by John Aubrey

JOHN AUBREY TO

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MY DEAR SIR,

BY inscribing this Volume to you I am merely discharging a debt of gratitude and justice. But for you I believe it would not have been printed; for you not only advocated its publication, but have generously contributed to diminish the cost of its production to the "WILTSHIRE TOPOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY", under whose auspices it is now submitted to the public. Though comparatively obsolete as regards its scientific, archaeological, and philosophical information, AUBREY'S "NATURAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE"

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EDITOR'S PREFACE.

IN the "Memoir of John Aubrey", published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society in 1845, I expressed a wish that the "NATURAL HISTORY of WILTSHIRE", the most important of that author's unpublished manuscripts, might be printed by the Society, as a companion volume to that Memoir, which it is especially calculated to illustrate. The work referred to had been then suggested to the Council of the Society by George Poulett Scrope, Esq. M.P., as desirable for publication. They concurred with him in

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PART I.

CHAP. I. AIR:-Winds, Mists, Storms, Meteors, Echos, Sounds CHAP. II. SPRINGS MEDICINAL :- At Chippenham, Kington St. Michael, Draycot, Seend, Epsom, Melksham, Dundery-hill, Lavington, Devizes, Minety, Wotton Bassett, &amp;c.; Sir W. Petty's "Queries for the Tryall of Minerall Waters" CHAP. III. RIVERS :- Wily, North Avon, Upper Avon, Nadder, Stour, Deverill, Kennet, Marden, Thames, &amp;c.; Proposal for a Canal to connect the Thames and North Avon. CHAP. IV. SOILS :- Clay, Marl, Fuller's

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MEMOIRES

County of Wilts: 1685. PSALM 92, v. 5, 6. "0 LORD, HOW GLORIOUS ARE THY WORKES: THY THOUGHTS ARE VERY DEEP. AN UNWISE MAN DOTH NOT WELL CONSIDER THIS: AND A FOOL DOTH NOT UNDERSTAND IT." PSALM 77, v. 11. "I WILL REMEMBER THE WORKES OF THE LORD: AND CALL TO MIND THY WONDERS OF OLD TIME." ==================================================================== LORD HERBERT OF CAERDIFFE, &amp;c.;...

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ONE OF THE PRIVY COUNCELL TO THEIR MAJESTIES, AND PRESIDENT OF THE ROYALL SOCIETIE.

[A page is appropriated in the manuscript to the Author's intended DEDICATION ; the name and titles of his patron only being filled in, as above. The nobleman named is particularly mentioned by Aubrey in his Chapter on "The Worthies of Wiltshire", printed in a subsequent part of this volume. He was Earl of Pembroke from 1683 till his death in 1733; and was distinguished for his love of literature and the fine arts. He formed the Wilton Collection of marbles, medals, and coins; and succeeded John

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INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. CHOROGRAPHIA.

[IT has been thought sufficient to print only a few brief extracts from this Introductory Chapter, which in the original is of considerable length. Its title (derived from the Greek words {Gk:choros} and {Gk: grapho}) is analogous to Geography. By far the greater portion of it has no application to Wiltshire, but, on the contrary, consists of Aubrey's notes, chiefly geological and botanical, on every part of England which he had visited; embracing many of the counties. His observations shew him

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THE CHAPTERS. PART I.

1. Air. 2. Springs Medicinall. 3. Rivers. 4. Soiles. 5. Mineralls and Fossills. 6. Stones. 7. Formed Stones. 8. An Hypothesis of the Terraqueous Globe: a digression "ad mentem M{emo}ri", R. Hook, R.S.S. 9. Plants. 10. Beastes. 11. Fishes. 12. Birds. 13. Insects and Reptils. 14. Men and Woemen. 15. Diseases and Cures. 16. Observations on some Register Books, as also the Poore Rates and Taxes of the County, "ad mentem D{omi}ni" W. Petty. 1. Worthies. 2. The Grandure of the Herberts, Earles of Pemb

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CHAPTER I. AIR.

[THIS Chapter contains a variety of matter not apposite to Wiltshire. Besides the passages here quoted, there are accounts of several remarkable hurricanes, hail storms, &amp;c., in different parts of England, as well as in Italy. The damage done by "Oliver's wind "(the storm said to have occurred on the death of the Protector Cromwell) is particularly noticed: though it may be desirable to state on the authority of Mr. Carlyle, the eloquent editor of "Cromwell's Letters and Speeches" (8vo.

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CHAPTER II SPRINGS MEDICINALL.

[IN Aubrey's time the mineral waters of Bath, Tonbridge, and other places, were very extensively resorted to for medical purposes, and great importance was attached to them in a sanatory point of view. The extracts which have been selected from this chapter sufficiently shew the limited extent of the author's chemical knowledge, in the analysis of waters; which he appears to have seldom carried beyond precipitation or evaporation. He mentions several other springs in Wiltshire and elsewhere, att

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CHAPTER III. RIVERS.

[THE following extracts include the whole of this chapter, with the exception of a few extraneous passages.-J. B.] I SHALL begin with the river of Wyley-bourn, which gives name to Wilton, the shire town. The mappe-makers write it Wyley fulvous, and joiner a British and a Saxon word together: but that is a received error. I doe believe that the ancient and true name was Twy, as the river Twy in Herefordshire, which signifies vagary: and so this river Wye, which is fed with the Deverill springs, i

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CHAPTER IV. SOILES.

[THIS and the three succeeding chapters, on "Mineralls and Fossills," "Stones," and "Formed Stones", comprise the Geological portions of Aubrey's work. In a scientific view, these chapters may be regarded as of little value; though creditable to their author as a minute observer, and enthusiastic lover of science. It has been necessary to omit much which the progress of scientific knowledge has rendered obsolete; and in the passages quoted, the object has been to select such as possessed the mos

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CHAPTER V. MINERALLS AND FOSSILLS.

[IN its etymological sense the term fossil signifies that which may be dug out of the earth. It is strictly applicable therefore, not only to mineral bodies, and the petrified forms of plants and animals found in the substance of the earth, but even to antiquities and works of art, discovered in a similar situation. The chapter of Aubrey's work now under consideration mentions only mineralogical subjects; whence it would appear that he employed the term "mineralls" instead of "metals", including

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CHAPTER VI. STONES.

I WILL begin with freestone (lapis arenarius), as the best kind of stone that this country doth afford. The quarre at Haselbury [near Box] was most eminent for freestone in the western parts, before the discovery of the Portland quarrie, which was but about anno 1600. The church of Portland, which stands by the sea side upon the quarrie, (which lies not very deep, sc. ten foot), is of Cane stone, from Normandie. Malmesbury Abbey and the other Wiltshire religious houses are of Haselbury stone. Th

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CHAPTER VII. OF FORMED STONES.

[AUBREY, and other writers of his time, designated by this term the fossil remains of antediluvian animals and vegetables. This Chapter is very brief in the manuscript; and the following are the only passages adapted for this publication. The numerous excavations which have been made in the county since Aubrey's time have led to the discovery of a great abundance of organic remains; especially in the northern part of the county, from Swindon to Chippenham and Box. Large collections have been mad

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CHAPTER VIII. AN HYPOTHESIS OF THE TERRAQUEOUS GLOBE. A DIGRESSION.

[THE seventeenth century was peculiarly an age of scientific research and investigation. The substantial and brilliant discoveries of Newton induced many of his less gifted contemporaries to pursue inquiries into the arcana and profound mysteries of science; but where rational inferences and deductions failed, they too frequently had recourse to mere unsupported theory and conjectural speculation. The stratification of the crust of our globe, and the division of its surface into land and water,

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CHAPTER IX. OF PLANTS.

Præsentemq{ue} refert quaelibet herba Deum.- OVID. [THIS is one of the most copious chapters in Aubrey's work. Ray has appended a number of valuable notes to it, several of which are here printed. Dr. Maton has quoted from this chapter, which he mentions in terms of commendation, in his "Notices of animals and plants of that part of the county of Wilts within 10 miles round Salisbury", appended to Hatcher's History of Salisbury, folio, 1843.-J. B.] IT were to be wish't that we had a survey or in

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CHAPTER X. BEASTES.

[THIS Chapter, with the three which follow it, on "Fishes", "Birds", and "Reptils and Insects", constitute a principal branch of the work. On these topics Aubrey was assisted by his friend Sir James Long, of Draycot, Bart., whose letters to him are inserted in the original manuscript. Besides the passages here given, the chapter on "Beastes" comprises some extracts from Dame Juliana Berners' famous "Treatyse on Hawkynge, Hunting, and Fisshynge" (1481); together with a minute account of a sculptu

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CHAPTER XL FISHES.

HUNGERFORD trowtes are very much celebrated, and there are also good ones at Marleborough and at Ramesbury. In the gravelly stream at Slaughtenford are excellent troutes; but, though I say it, there are none better in England than at Nawle, which is the source of the streame of Broad Chalke, a mile above it; but half a mile below Chalke, they are not so good. King Charles I. loved a trout above all fresh fish; and when he came to Wilton, as he commonly did every summer, the Earle of Pembroke was

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CHAPTER XII. BIRDS.

WE have great plenty of larkes, and very good ones, especially in Golem-fields and those parts adjoyning to Coteswold. They take them by alluring them with a dareing-glasse,* which is whirled about in a sun- shining day, and the larkes are pleased at it, and strike at it, as at a sheepe's eye, and at that time the nett is drawn over them. While he playes with his glasse he whistles with his larke-call of silver, a tympanum of about the diameter of a threepence. In the south part of Wiltshire the

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CHAPTER XIII REPTILS AND INSECTS.

[THIS Chapter contains several extraordinary recipes for medicines to be compounded in various ways from insects and reptiles. As a specimen one of them may he referred to which begins as follows:-"Calcinatio Bufonum. R. Twenty great fatt toades; in May they are the best; putt them alive in a pipkin; cover it, make a fire round it to the top; let them stay on the fire till they make no noise," &amp;c. &amp;c. Aubrey says that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De Feb

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CHAPTER XIV. OF MEN AND WOEMEN.

[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births, &amp;c. will suffice to shew the nature of this Chapter. It must be admitted that its contents are unimportant except as matters of curious speculation, and as connected with the several localities referred to.-J. B.] 'Salisbury Plain Never without a thief or twain.' As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken before in the Prolegomena. As to longæevity, good aire and water doe conduce to it:

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CHAPTER XV. DISEASES AND CURES.

[SEVERAL passages may have been noticed in the preceding pages, calculated to shew the ignorance which prevailed in Aubrey's time on medical subjects, and the absurd remedies which were adopted for the cure of diseases. In the present chapter this topic is further illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts suited to this publication. Aubrey describes in the manuscript an instrument made of whalebone,

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CHAPTER XVI. OBSERVATIONS ON PARISH REGISTERS,

[THIS chapter consists merely of memoranda for the further examination of those valuable materials for local and general statistics - the parochial registers. Aubrey has inserted the number of baptisms, marriages, and burials, recorded in the registers of Broad Chalke, for each year, from 1630 to 1642, and from 1676 to 1684 inclusive; distinguishing the baptisms and burials of males and females in each year. The like particulars are given for a period of five years from the registers of Dunhead

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PART II. CHAPTER I. WORTHIES.

[IN this chapter Aubrey has transcribed that portion of Fuller's Worthies of England which relates to celebrated natives of the county of Wilts; but as Fuller's work is so well known, it is un- necessary to print Aubrey's extracts from it here. He has interspersed them with additional matter from which the following passages are selected. - J. B.] PRINCES. - There is a tradition at Wootton Basset that King Richard the Third was born at Vasthorne [Fasterne], now the seate of the earle of Rocheste

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PART II. - CHAPTER II. OF THE GRANDEUR OF THE HERBERTS, EARLES OF PEMBROKE.

[AUBREY'S account of the famous seat of the Pembroke family at Wilton, and of its choice and valuable contents, will be found exceedingly interesting. His statements are based upon his own knowledge of the mansion before the Civil Wars, and upon information derived from Thomas Earl of Pembroke, Dr. Caldicot, who had been chaplain to the Earl's family, and Mr. Unlades, who also held some appointment in the establishment. As the ensuing narrative is occasionally somewhat obscure, owing to its want

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PART II. - CHAPTER III.

IN the former Chapter I endeavoured to adumbrate Wilton House as to its architecture. We are now to consider it within, where it will appeare to have been an academie as well as palace; and was, as it were, the apiarie to which men that were excellent in armes and arts did resort and were caress't, and many of them received honourable pensions. The hospitality here was very great. I shall wave the grandeur of William the first Earle, who married [Anne] sister to Queen Katharine Parre, and was th

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PART II. - CHAPTER IV.

[THE stately gardens of the seventeenth century were less remarkable for the cultivation of useful or ornamental plants than for the formal arrangement of their walks, arbours, parterres, and hedges. Amongst the various decorations introduced were jets d'eau, or fountains, artificial cascades, columns, statues, grottoes, rock-work, mazes or labyrinths, terraces communicating with each other by flights of steps, and similar puerilities. This style of gardening was introduced from France; where th

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PART II. - CHAPTER V.

CRICKLAD, a market and borough town in this county, was an University before the Conquest, where were taught the liberall arts and sciences, as may appeare by the learned notes of Mr. Jo. Selden on Drayton's Poly-Olbion, and by a more convincing and undenyable argument out of Wheelock's translation of Bede's History. This University was translated from hence to Oxford. But whereas writers swallow down the old storie that this place takes its name from certain Greek philosophers, who, they say, b

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PART II - CHAPTER VI.

[IN this chapter, the account of Aubrey's visit to Old Sarum, and the traditions connected with the erection of Salisbury Cathedral, although they furnish no new facts of importance, will be read with interest; especially on account of the reference they bear to the enlightened and munificent Bishop Ward. A memoir of that prelate was published by Dr. Walter Pope, in 1697 (8vo); and some further particulars of him, as connected with Salisbury, will be found in Hatcher's valuable History of that C

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PART II.-CHAPTER VII. AGRICULTURE.

[THE late Mr. Thos. Davis, of Longleat, Steward to the Marquess of Bath, drew up an admirable "View of the Agriculture of the County of Wilts", which was printed by the Board of Agriculture in 1794. 8vo. -J. B.] CONSIDERING the distance of place where I now write, London, and the distance of time that I lived in this county, I am not able to give a satisfactorie account of the husbandry thereof. I will only say of our husbandmen, as Sir Thom. Overbury does of the Oxford scholars, that they goe a

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PART II. - CHAPTER VIII.

WE now make our ascent to the second elevation or the hill countrey, known by the name of the Downes, or Salisbury Plaines; and they are the most spacious plaines in Europe, and the greatest remaines that I can heare of of the smooth primitive world when it lay all under water. These downes runne into Hampshire, Berkshire, and Dorsetshire; but as to its extent in this county, it is from Red-hone, the hill above Urshfont, to Salisbury, north and south, and from Mere to Lurgershall, east and west.

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PART II-CHAPTER IX.

[THE author appears to have merely commenced this chapter; which, as it now stands in the manuscript, contains little more than is here printed. The three succeeding chapters are connected in their subjects with the present. - J. B.] THIS nation is the most famous for the great quantity of wooll of any in the world; and this county hath the most sheep and wooll of any other. The down-wooll is not of the finest of England, but of about the second rate. That of the common-field is the finest. Quae

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PART II. - CHAPTER X.

[AUBREY addressed to his friend Mr. Francis Lodwyck, merchant of London, a project on the wool trade; proposing, amongst other things, a duty on the importation of Spanish wool, with a view to raise the price of English wool, and consequently the rent of land. (See the Note on this subject in the preceding page.) Mr. Lodwyck's letter in reply, fully discussing the question, may be consulted in Aubrey's manuscript by any one interested in the subject It is inserted in the chapter now under consid

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PART II - CHAPTER XL

[THE following are the only essential parts of this chapter, which is very short.-J. B.] KING Edward the Third first settled the staples of wooll in Flanders. See Hollinshead, Stowe, Speed, and the Statute Book, de hoc. Staple, "estape", i e. a market place; so the wooll staple at Westminster, which is now a great market for flesh and fish. ___________________________________ When King Henry the Seventh lived in Flanders with his aunt the Dutchess of Burgundie, he considered that all or most of

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PART II.-CHAPTER XII.

[IN this chapter there is a long "Digression of Cloathiers of other Counties," full of curious matter, which is here necessarily omitted. - J. B.] .. . SUTTON of Salisbury, was an eminent cloathier: what is become of his family I know not. [John] Hall, I doe believe, was a merchant of the staple, at Salisbury, where he had many houses. His dwelling house, now a taverne (1669), was on the Ditch, where in the glasse windowes are many scutchions of his armes yet remaining, and severall merchant mar

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PART II.-CHAPTER XIII.

FAIRES. The most celebrated faire in North Wiltshire for sheep is at Castle Combe, on St. George's Day (23 April), whither sheep-masters doe come as far as from Northamptonshire. Here is a good crosse and market-house; and heretofore was a staple of wooll, as John Scrope, Esq. Lord of this mannour, affirmes to me. The market here now is very inconsiderable. [Part of the cross and market-house remain, but there is not any wool fair, market, or trade at Castle Combe, which is a retired, secluded v

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PART 1I.-CHAPTER XIV.

[A PAPER "Of Hawkes and Falconry, ancient and modern", is here transcribed from Sir Thomas Browne's Miscellanies, (8vo. 1684.) It describes at considerable length (from the works of Symmachus, Albertus Magnus, Demetrius Constantinopolitanus, and others), the various rules which were acted upon in their times, with regard to the food and medicine of hawks; and it also narrates some historical particulars of the once popular sport of hawking.-J. B.] QUÆRE, Sir James Long of this subject, for he un

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PART II.-CHAPTER XV.

HENRY Earle of Pembroke [1570-1601] instituted Salisbury Race;* which hath since continued very famous, and beneficiall to the city. He gave ….. pounds to the corporation of Sarum to provide every yeare, in the first Thursday after Mid-Lent Sunday, a silver bell [see note below], of …… value; which, about 1630, was turned into a silver cup of the same value. This race is of two sorts: the greater, fourteen miles, beginnes at Whitesheet and ends on Harnham-hill, which is very seldom runn, not onc

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PART II.-CHAPTER XVI.

[A STATUTE was passed in the reign of Edward I. which gave the first authority to suitors in the courts of law to prosecute or defend by attorney; and the number of attorneys afterwards increased so rapidly that several statutes were passed in the reigns of Henry IV. Henry VI. and Elizabeth, for limiting their number. One of these (33 Hen. VI. c. 7) states that not long before there were only six or eight attorneys in Norfolk and Suffolk, and that their increase to twenty-four was to the vexatio

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PART II.-CHAPTER XVII.

[NEARLY the whole of this chapter, with some additions, is included under the head of "Local Fatality" in Aubrey's Miscellanies. 12mo. 1696.-J. B.] "Omnium rerum est vicissitudo". Families, and also places, have their fatalities, "Fors sua cuiq' loco est." OVID, PAST. lib. iv. This verse putts me in mind of severall places in this countie that are or have been fortunate to their owners, or e contra. The Gawens of Norrington, in the parish of Alvideston, continued in this place four hundred fifty

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PART II.-CHAPTER XVIII.

["ACCIDENTS" was a term used in astrology, in the general sense of remarkable events or occurrences. From a curious collection of Aubrey's memoranda I have selected a few of the most interesting and most apposite to Wiltshire. Several of the anecdotes in this chapter will be found in Aubrey's Miscellanies, 12mo. 1696. J. B.] IN the reigne of King James 1st, as boyes were at play in Amesbury- street, it thundred and lightened. One of the boyes wore a little dagger by his side, which was melted in

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PART II.-CHAPTER XIX.

[This chapter comprises only a few scattered notes; of which the following are specimens. -J. B.] I TAKE Merton to be the best seated for healthy aire, &amp;c., and sports, of any place in this county. The soile is gravelly and pebbly. Ivy Church, adjoining to Clarendon Parke, a grove of elms, and prospect over the city of Salisbury and the adjacent parts. The right honorable Mary, Countess of Pembroke, much delighted in this place. At Longford is a noble house that was built by Lord Georges

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PART II.-CHAPTER XX.

[I HAVE thought it desirable to print the concluding Chapter of Aubrey's work verbatim. It is merely a list of remarkable buildings and views, which he wished to be drawn and engraved, for the illustration of his work. The names attached to each subject are those of persons whom he thought likely to incur the expence of the plates, for publication; and his own name being affixed to two of them shews that he was willing to contribute. It is impossible not to concur in his closing observations on

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