Books: The Natural History of Wiltshire
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John Aubrey >> The Natural History of Wiltshire
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[The reader will find many observations of this nature, and on
analogous subjects, in the manuscript, which it has not been thought
desirable to print. Among the rest are several pages from John
Norden's "Surveyor's Dialogue", containing advice and directions
respecting agriculture, of which Aubrey says, "though they are not of
Wiltshire, they will do no hurt here; and, if my countrymen know it
not, I wish they might learn". - J. B.]
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The wheate and bread of this county, especially South Wilts, is but
indifferent; that of the Vale of White Horse is excellent. King
Charles II. when he lay at Salisbury, in his progresse, complained
that he found there neither good bread nor good beer. But for the
latter, 'twas the fault of the brewer not to boil it well; for the
water and the mault there are as good as any in England.
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The improvement by cinque-foile, which now spreads much in the stone-
brash lands, was first used at North Wraxhall by Nicholas Hall, who
came from Dundery in Somersetshire, about the yeare 1650.
George Johnson, Esq. counsellour-at-law, did improve some of his
estate at Bowdon-parke, by marling, from 6d. an acre to 25sh. He did
lay three hundred loades of blew marle upon an acre.
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Sir William Basset, of Claverdoun, hath made the best vinyard that I
have heard of in England. He sayes that the Navarre grape is the best
for our climate, and that the eastern sunn does most comfort the vine,
by putting off the cold. Mr. Jo. Ash, of Teffont Ewyas, has a pretty
vineyard of about six acres, made anno 1665. Sir Walter Erneley,
Baronet, told me, a little before he died, that he was making one at
Stert, I thinke, neer the Devizes.
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The improvement of watering meadows began at Wyley, about 1635, about
which time, I remember, we began to use them at Chalke. Watering of
meadows about Marleburgh and so to Hungerford was, I remember, about
1646, and Mr. John Bayly, of Bishop's Down, near Salisbury, about the
same time made his great improvements by watering there by St.
Thomas's Bridge. This is as old as the Romans; e.g. Virgil, "Claudite
jam rivos, pueri, sat prata biberunt". Mr. Jo. Evelyn told me that out
of Varro, Cato, and Columella are to be extracted all good rules of
husbandry; and he wishes that a good collection or extraction were
made out of them.
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INCLOSING.- Anciently, in the hundreds of Malmesbury and Chippenham
were but few enclosures, and that near houses. The north part of
Wiltshire was in those dayes admirable for field-sports. All vast
champian fields, as now about Sherston and Marsfield. King Henry the 7
brought in depopulations, and that inclosures; and after the
dissolution of the abbeys in Hen. 8 time more inclosing. About 1695
all between Easton Piers and Castle Comb was a campania, like
Coteswold, upon which it borders; and then Yatton and Castle Combe did
intercommon together. Between these two parishes much hath been
enclosed in my remembrance, and every day more and more. I doe
remember about 1633 but one enclosure to Chipnam-field, which was at
the north end, and by this time I thinke it is all inclosed. So all
between Kington St. Michael and Dracot Cerne was common field, and the
west field of Kington St. Michael between Easton Piers and Haywood was
inclosed in 1664. Then were a world of labouring people maintained by
the plough, as they were likewise in Northamptonshire. 'Tis observed
that the inclosures of Northamptonshire have been unfortunate since,
and not one of them have prospered.
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Mr. Toogood, of Harcot, has fenced his grounds with crab-tree hedges,
which are so thick that no boare can gett through them. Captain Jones,
of Newton Tony, did the like on his downes. Their method is thus: they
first runne a furrow with the plough, and then they sow the cakes of
the crabbes, which they gett at the verjuice mill. It growes very
well, and on many of them they doe graffe.
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Limeing of ground was not used but about 1595, some time after the
comeing in of tobacco. (From Sir Edw. Ford of Devon.)
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Old Mr. Broughton, of Herefordshire, was the man that brought in the
husbandry of soap ashes. He living at Bristoll, where much soap is
made, and the haven there was like to have been choak't up with it,
considering that ground was much meliorated by compost, &c. did
undertake this experiment, and having land near the city, did
accordingly improve it with soap ashes. I remember the gentleman very
well. He dyed about 1650, I believe near 90 yeares old, and was the
handsomest, well limbed, strait old man that ever I saw, had a good
witt and a graceful elocution. He was the father of Bess Broughton,
one of the greatest beauties of her age.
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Proverb for apples, peares, hawthorns, quicksetts, oakes:
"Sett them at All-hallow-tyde, and command them to grow;
Sett them at Candlemass, and entreat them to grow."
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Butter and Cheese. At Pertwood and about Lidyard as good butter is
made as any in England, but the cheese is not so good. About Lidyard,
in those fatt grounds, in hott weather, the best huswives cannot keep
their cheese from heaving. The art to keep it from heaving is to putt
in cold water. Sowre wood-sere grounds doe yield the best cheese, and
such are Cheshire. Bromefield, in the parish of Yatton, is so - sower
and wett - and where I had better cheese made than anywhere in all the
neighbourhood.
Somerset proverb:
"If you will have a good cheese, and hav'n old,
You must turn'n seven times before he is cold."
Jo. Shakespeare's wife, of Worplesdowne in Surrey, a North Wiltshire
woman, and an excellent huswife, does assure me that she makes as good
cheese there as ever she did at Wraxhall or Bitteston, and that it is
meerly for want of art that her neighbours doe not make as good; they
send their butter to London. So it appeares that, some time or other,
when there in the vale of Sussex and Surrey they have the North
Wiltshire skill, that halfe the cheese trade of the markets of Tedbury
and Marleborough will be spoiled.
Now of late, sc. about 1680, in North Wiltshire, they have altered
their fashion from thinne cheeses about an inch thick, made so for the
sake of drying and quick sale, called at London Marleborough cheese,
to thick ones, as the Cheshire cheese. At Marleborough and Tedbury the
London cheese-mongers doe keep their factors for their trade. [At the
close of the last century Reading was the principal seat of the London
cheese factors, who visited the different farms in Wiltshire once in
each year to purchase the cheese, which was sent in waggons to
Reading: often by circuitous routes in order to save the tolls payable
on turnpike roads. - J. B.]
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Maulting and Brewing. It is certain that Salisbury mault is better
than any other in the West; but they have no more skill there than
elsewhere. It is the water there is the chiefest cause of its
goodnesse: perhaps the nitrousnesse of the maulting floores may
something help.
[Aubrey devotes several pages to these subjects. He particularly
commends "The History of Malting, or the method of making Malt,
practised at Derby, described for R. T. Esq. by J. F. (John
Flamsteed), January 1682-3", which was printed in "A Collection of
Letters for ye Improvement of Husbandry and Trade", No. 7, Thursday,
June 15, 1682. This paper by Flamsteed, which is of considerable
length, is inserted by Aubrey in both his manuscripts: a printed copy
in the original at Oxford, and a transcript in the Royal Society's
fair copy. - J. B.]
It may be objected how came that great astronomer, Mr. John Flamsteed,
to know so much the mystery of malsters. Why, his father is a maulster
at Derby; and he himself was a maulster, and did drive a trade in it
till he was about twenty yeares of age, at what time Sir Jonas Moore
invited him to London. [The best memoir of Flamsteed will be found in
"An Account of the Rev. John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal,
compiled from his own manuscripts and other authentic documents never
before published. To which is added his British Catalogue of Stars,
corrected and enlarged. By Francis Baily, Esq. &c. &c. Printed by
order of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, 1835". Such
is the title of a large quarto volume which my late esteemed friend
and neighbour Mr. Baily edited and wrote, con amore; and which
contains not only a curious autobiography of the first Astronomer
Royal of Great Britain, but numerous letters, documents, and
miscellaneous information on the science of astronomy as it was known
in Flamsteed's time, and up to the time of the publication of the
volume. This work was printed at the expense of the government, and
presented to public colleges and societies, to royal and public
libraries, and to many persons distinguished in science and
literature. Hence it may be regarded as a choice and remarkable
literary production. Some curious particulars of Flamsteed's quarrel
with Sir Isaac Newton, respecting the printing of his "Historia
Coelestis", are given in Mr. Baily's volume, which tend to shew that
the latter, in conjunction with Halley and other persons,
perseveringly annoyed and injured Flamsteed in various ways, and for a
considerable time. Some of the admirers of Newton's moral character
having attempted to extenuate his conduct, Mr. Baily published a
Supplement to his work, in which he shews that such attempts had
completely failed. - J. B.]
PART II. - CHAPTER VIII.
THE DOWNES.
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. The turfe is of a short sweet grasse, good
for the sheep, and delightfull to the eye, for its smoothnesse like
a bowling green, and pleasant to the traveller; who wants here only
variety of objects to make his journey lesse tedious: for here is "nil
nisi campus et aer", not a tree, or rarely a bush to shelter one from
a shower.
The soile of the downes I take generally to be a white earth or mawme.
More south, sc. about Wilton and Chalke, the downes are intermixt with
boscages that nothing can be more pleasant, and in the summer time doe
excell Arcadia in verdant and rich turfe and moderate aire, but in
winter indeed our air is cold and rawe. The innocent lives here of the
shepherds doe give us a resemblance of the golden age. Jacob and Esau
were shepherds; and Amos, one of the royall family, asserts the same
of himself, for he was among the shepherds of Tecua [Tekoa] following
that employment. The like, by God's own appointment, prepared Moses
for a scepter, as Philo intimates in his life, when he tells us that a
shepherd's art is a suitable preparation to a kingdome. The same he
mentions in his Life of Joseph, affirming that the care a shepherd has
over his cattle very much resembles that which a King hath over his
subjects. The same St. Basil, in his Homily de St. Mamme Martyre has,
concerning David, who was taken from following the ewes great with
young ones to feed Israel. The Romans, the worthiest and greatest
nation in the world, sprang from shepherds. The augury of the twelve
vultures plac't a scepter in Romulus's hand, which held a crook
before; and as Ovid sayes:-
"His own small flock each senator did keep."
Lucretius mentions an extraordinary happinesse, and as it were
divinity in a shepherd's life: -
"Thro' shepherds' care, and their divine retreats."
And, to speake from the very bottome of my heart, not to mention the
integrity and innocence of shepherds, upon which so many have insisted
and copiously declaimed, methinkes he is much more happy in a wood
that at ease contemplates the universe as his own, and in it the sunn
and starrs, the pleasing meadows, shades, groves, green banks, stately
trees, flowing springs, and the wanton windings of a river, fit
objects for quiet innocence, than he that with fire and sword disturbs
the world, and measures his possessions by the wast that lies about
him.
These plaines doe abound with hares, fallow deer, partridges, and
bustards. [The fallow deer and bustards have long since disappeared
from these plains; but hares and partridges abound in the vicinity of
gentlemen's seats, particularly around Everleigh, Tidworth, Amesbury,
Wilbury, Wilton, Earl-Stoke, Clarendon, &c. - Vide ante, p.64.
- J. B.] In this tract is ye Earle of Pembroke's noble seat at Wilton;
but the Arcadia and the Daphne is about Vernditch and Wilton; and
these romancy plaines and boscages did no doubt conduce to the
hightening of Sir Philip Sydney's phansie. He lived much in these
parts, and his most masterly touches of his pastoralls he wrote here
upon the spott, where they were conceived. 'Twas about these purlieus
that the muses were wont to appeare to Sir Philip Sydney, and where he
wrote down their dictates in his table book, though on horseback.* For
those nimble fugitives, except they be presently registred, fly away,
and perhaps can never be caught again. But they were never so kind to
appeare to me, though I am the usufructuary: it seemes they reserve
that grace only for the proprietors, to whom they have continued a
constant kindnesse for a succession of generations of the no lesse
ingenious than honorable family of the Herberts. These were the
places where our Kings and Queens used to divert themselves in the
hunting season. Cranbourn Chase, which reaches from Harnham Bridge, at
Salisbury, near to Blandford, was belonging to Roger Mortimer, Earle
of March: his seate was at his castle at Cranbourne. If these oakes
here were vocall as Dodona's, some of the old dotards (old stagge-
headed oakes, so called) could give us an account of the amours and
secret whispers between this great Earle and the faire Queen Isabell.
*I remember some old relations of mine and [other] old men hereabout
that have seen Sir Philip doe thus.
[Aubrey held the manor farm of Broad Chalk under a lease from the
Earl of Pembroke. - J. B.]
To find the proportion of the downes of this countrey to the vales, I
did divide Speed's Mappe of Wiltshire with a paire of cizars,
according to the respective hundreds of downes and vale, and I weighed
them in a curious ballance of a goldsmith, and the proportion of the
hill countrey to the vale is as .... to .... sc. about 3/4 fere.
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SHEEP. As to the nature of our Wiltshire sheep, negatively, they are
not subject to the shaking; which the Dorsetshire sheep are. Our sheep
about Chalke doe never die of the rott. My Cos. Scott does assure me
that I may modestly allow a thousand sheep to a tything, one with
another. Mr. Rogers was for allowing of two thousand sheep, one with
another, to a tything, but my Cosin Scott saies that is too high.
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SHEPHERDS. The Britons received their knowledge of agriculture from
the Romans, and they retain yet many of their customes. The festivalls
at sheep-shearing seeme to bee derived from the Parilia. In our
western parts, I know not what is done in the north, the sheep-masters
give no wages to their shepherds, but they have the keeping of so many
sheep, pro rata; soe that the shepherds' lambs doe never miscarry. I
find that Plautus gives us a hint of this custome amongst the Romans
in his time; Asinaria, Act III. scene i. Philenian (Meretrix):
" Etiam opilio, qui pascit (mater) alienas ovis,
Aliquani habet peculiarem qua spem soletur suam.''
Their habit, I believe, (let there be a draught of their habit) is
that of the Roman or Arcadian shepherds; as they are delineated in Mr.
Mich. Drayton's Poly-olbion; sc. a long white cloake with a very deep
cape, which comes halfway down their backs, made of the locks of the
sheep. There was a sheep-crooke (vide Virgil's Eclogues, and
Theocritus,) a sling, a scrip, their tar-box, a pipe or flute, and
their dog. But since 1671, they are grown so luxurious as to neglect
their ancient warme and useful fashion, and goe a la mode. T. Randolph
in a Pastoral sayes;-
" What clod-pates, Thenot, are our British swaines,
How lubber-like they loll upon the plaines." *
* [See "Plays and Poems, by Thomas Randolph, M.A." 12mo. 1664, p. 90.
The lines quoted are at the commencement of a dialogue between Collen
and Thenot; which is described as "an Eglogue on the noble assemblies
revived on Cotswold Hills by Mr. Robert Dover". An able criticism of
Randolph's works, with extracts, will be found in the sixth volume of
the "Retrospective Review". - J. B.]
Before the civill warres I remember many of them made straw hatts,
which I thinke is now left off, and our shepherdesses of late yeares
(1680) doe begin to worke point, whereas before they did only knitt
coarse stockings. (Instead of the sling they have now a hollow iron or
piece of horne, not unlike a shoeing horne, fastened to the other end
of the crosier, by wch they take up stones and sling, and keep their
flocks in order. The French sheperdesses spin with a rocque.
- J. EVELYN.)
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Mr. Ferraby, the minister of Bishop's Cannings, was an ingenious man,
and an excellent musician, and made severall of his parishioners good
musicians, both for vocall and instrumentall musick; they sung the
Psalmes in consort to the organ, which Mr. Ferraby procured to be
erected.
When King James the First was in these parts he lay at Sir Edw.
Baynton's at Bromham. Mr. Ferraby then entertained his Majesty at the
Bush, in Cotefield, with bucoliques of his own making and composing,
of four parts; which were sung by his parishioners, who wore frocks
and whippes like carters. Whilst his majesty was thus diverted, the
eight bells (of which he was the cause) did ring, and the organ was
played on for state; and after this musicall entertainment he
entertained his Majesty with a foot-ball match of his own
parishioners. This parish in those dayes would have challenged all
England for musique, foot-ball, and ringing. For this entertainment
his Majesty made him one of his chaplains in ordinary.
When Queen Anne returned from Bathe, he made an entertainment for her
Majesty on Canning's-down, sc. at Shepherds-shard, at Wensditch,
with a pastorall performed by himself and his parishioners in
shepherds' weeds. A copie of his song was printed within a compartment
excellently well engraved and designed, with goates, pipes, sheep
hooks, cornucopias, &c. [Aubrey has transcribed it into his
manuscript. It appears that it was sung as above mentioned on the
llth of June 1613; being "voyc't in four parts compleatly musicall";
and we are told that "it was by her Highnesse not only most gratiously
accepted and approved, but also bounteously rewarded; and by the right
honourable, worshipfull, and the rest of the generall hearers and
beholders, worthily applauded". See this also noticed in Wood's "Fasti
Oxonienses", under "Ferebe", and in Nichols's Progresses, &c. of King
James the First, ii. 668. In this curious chapter, Aubrey has further
transcribed "A Dialogue between two Shepherds uttered in a Pastorall
shew at Wilton", and written by Sir Philip Sidney. See the Life of
Sidney, prefixed to an edition of his Works in three volumes, 8vo,
1725.-J. B.]
[Anne of Denmark, Queen of James I. was married to that monarch in
1589, and died in 1619.-J. B.]
[Shard is a word used in Wiltshire to indicate a gap in a hedge.
Ponshard signifies a broken piece of earthenware.-J. B.]
PART II-CHAPTER IX.
WOOLL.
[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.
Quaere, if Castle Comb was not a staple for wooll, or else a very
great wooll-market?
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Mr. Ludlowe, of the Devises, and his predecessours have been wooll-
breakers [brokers] 80 or 90 yeares, and hath promised to assist me.
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Quaere, if it would not bee the better way to send our wooll beyond
the sea again, as in the time of the staple? For the Dutch and French
doe spinn finer, work cheaper, and die better. Our cloathiers combine
against the wooll-masters, and keep their spinners but just alive:
they steale hedges, spoile coppices, and are trained up as nurseries
of sedition and rebellion.
[For a long series of years the clothiers, or manufacturers, and the
wool-growers, or landowners, entertained opposite opinions respecting
the propriety of exporting wool; and numerous acts of parliament
were passed at different times encouraging or restricting its
exportation, as either of these conflicting interests happened to
prevail for the time with the legislature. The landowners were
generally desirous to export their produce, without restriction, to
foreign markets, and to limit the importation of competing wool from
abroad. The manufacturers, on the contrary, wished for the free
importation of those foreign wools, without an admixture of which
the native produce cannot be successfully manufactured; whilst they
were anxious to restrain the exportation of British wool, from an
absurd fear of injury to their own trade. Some curious particulars of
the contest between these parties, and of the history of legislation
on the subject, will be found in Porter's Progress of the Nation and
McCulloch's Commercial Dictionary and Statistical Account of the
British Empire; and more particularly in Bischoff's History of Wool
(1842). The wool trade is now free from either import or export duties.
- J. B.]
PART II. - CHAPTER X.
FALLING OF RENTS.
[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 consideration; which contains also a printed
pamphlet with the following title:- "A Treatise on Wool, and the
Manufacture of it; in a letter to a friend: occasioned upon a
discourse concerning the great abatements and low value of lands.
Wherein it is shewed how their worth and value may be advanced by the
improvement of the manufacture and price of our English wooll.
Together with the Presentment of the Grand Jury of the County of
Somerset at the General Quarter Sessions begun at Brewton the 13th day
of January 1684. London. Printed for William Crooke, at the Green
Dragon without Temple Bar. 1685." (Sm. 4to. pp. 32.) - J. B.]
THE falling of rents is a consequence of the decay of the Turky-trade;
which is the principall cause of the falling of the price of wooll.
Another reason that conduces to the falling of the prices of wooll is
our women's wearing so much silk and Indian ware as they doe. By these
meanes my farme at Chalke is worse by sixty pounds per annum than it
was before the civill warres.
The gentry living in London, and the dayly concourse of servants out
of the country to London, makes servants' wages deare in the countrey,
and makes scarcity of labourers.
Sir William Petty told me, that when he was a boy a seeds-man had five
pounds per annum wages, and a countrey servant-maid between 30 and
40s. wages. [40s. per ann. to a servant-maid is now, 1743, good wages
in Worcestershire.- MS. NOTE, ANONYMOUS.]
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Memorandum. Great increase of sanfoine now, in most places fitt for
itt; improvements of meadowes by watering; ploughing up of the
King's forrests and parkes, &c. But as to all these, as ten thousand
pounds is gained in the hill barren countrey, so the vale does lose as
much, which brings it to an equation.
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