Books: The Natural History of Wiltshire

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In Vernknoll, a ground belonging to Fowles-wick, adjoyning to the
lands of Easton-Pierse, neer the brooke and in it, I bored clay as
blew as ultra-marine, and incomparably fine, without anything of sand,
&c., which perhaps might be proper for Mr. Dwight for his making of
porcilaine. It is also at other places hereabout, but 'tis rare.

[It is not very clear that "blew clay," however fine, could be "proper
for the making of porcilane," the chief characteristic of which is its
transparent whiteness. Apart from this however, Aubrey's remark is
curious; as it intimates that the manufacture of it was attempted in
this country at an earlier period than is generally believed. The
famous porcelain works at Chelsea were not established till long
afterwards; and according to Dr. Plott, whose "Natural History of
Staffordshire" was published in 1686, the only kinds of pottery then
made in this country were the coarse yellow, red, black, and mottled
wares; and of those the chief sale was to "poor crate-men, who carried
them on their backs all over the country", I have not found any account
of the Mr. Dwight mentioned by Aubrey, or of his attempts to improve
the art of pottery.- J. B.]
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Clay abounds, particularly about Malmesbury, Kington St. Michael,
Allington, Easton Piers (as also a hungry marle), Dracott-Cerne,
Yatton-Keynell, Minty, and Bradon-forest.

At Minty, and at a place called Woburn, in the parish of Hankerton, is
very good fullers'-earth. The fullers'-earth at Minty-common, at the
place called the Gogges, when I tooke it up, was as black as black
polished marble; but, having carryed it in my pocket five or six
dayes, it became gray.

At Hedington, at the foot of the hill, is a kind of white fullers'-
earth which the cloth-workers doe use; and on the north side of the
river at Broad Chalke, by a poole where are fine springs (where the
hermitage is), is a kind of fullers'-earth which the weavers doe use
for their chaines: 'tis good Tripoly, or "lac lunæ". Lac lunæ is the
mother of silver, and is a cosmetick.

In Boudon-parke, fifteen foot deep under the barren sand, is a great
plenty of blew marle, with which George Johnson, Esq., councellor-at-
law, hath much improved his estate there. The soile of the parke was
so exceedingly barren, that it did beare a gray mosse, like that of an
old park pale, which skreeks as one walkes on it, and putts ones teeth
on edge. Furzes did peep a little above the ground, but were dwarfes
and did not thrive.

At Bitteston, in the highway, blew marle appears. Mr. Montjoy hath
drawn the water that runnes through it, and is impregnated with its
nitre, into his pasture grounds, by which meanes they are improved
from ---- to ---- per annum.
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In Bradon-forest, and at Ashton Kaynes, is a pottery. There is
potters' clay also at . .. . Deverell, on the common towards Frome,
and potts are made there.
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At Clarendon-parke is lately discovered (1684) an earth that cleanseth
better than Woburne earthe in Bedfordshire; and Mr. Cutler, the
cloathier of Wilton, tells me he now makes only use of it. There is at
Burton-hill, juxta Malmesbury, fullers' earth, as also about Westport,
and elsewhere thereabout, which the cloathiers use.

Tobacco-pipe-clay excellent, or the best in England, at Chittern, of
which the Gauntlet pipes at Amesbury are made, by one of that name.
They are the best tobacco pipes in England. [See a curious paragraph
on the subject of Gauntlet-pipes in Fuller's Worthies,- Wiltshire.-J.
B.]
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The earth about Malmesbury hundred and Chippenham hundred, especially
about Pewsham-forest, is vitriolate, or aluminous and vitriolate;
which in hot weather the sun does make manifest on the banks of the
ditches.

At Bradfield and Dracot Cerne is such vitriolate earth; which with
galles will make inke. This makes the land so soure, it beares sowre
and austere plants: it is a proper soile for dayries. At summer it
hunger-banes the sheep; and in winter it rotts them.

These clayy and marly lands are wett and dirty; so that to poore
people, who have not change of shoes, the cold is very incommodious,
which hurts their nerves exceedingly. Salts, as the Lord Chancellor
Bacon sayes, doe exert (irradiate) raies of cold. Elias Ashmole, Esq.
got a dangerous cold by sitting by the salt sacks in a salter's shop,
which was like to have cost him his life. And some salts will corrode
papers, that were three or four inches from it. The same may be sayd
of marble pavements, which have cost some great persons their lives.
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The soil of South Wilts is chalke and white marle, which abounds with
nitre; and is inimique to the nerves by the nitre that irradiates from
it. 'Tis that gives the dampishnesse to the flowres and walles of
Salisbury and Chalke, &c. E contra, Herefordshire, Salop,
Montgomeryshire, &c. the soile is clear of any salt; which, besides
the goodnesse of the air, conduces much to their longævitas: e. g.,
100 yeares of age in those parts as common as 80 in Wilts, &c.

The walles of the church of Broad Chalke, and of the buttery at the
farme there, doe shoot out, besides nitre, a beautifull red, lighter
than scarlet; an oriental horse-flesh colour.

The soile of Savernake forest is great gravelle: and (as I remember)
pebbley, as on the sea side. At Alderbury, by Ivy Church, is great
plenty of fine gravelle; which is sent for all over the south parts
of the countrey.

At Sutton Benger eastward is a gravelly field called Barrets, which is
sown every year onely with barley: it hath not lain fallow in the
memory of the oldest man's grandfather there. About 1665 Mr. Leonard
Atkins did sow his part of it with wheat for a triall. It came up
wonderfully thick and high; but it proved but faire strawe, and had
little or nothing in the eare. This land was heretofore the vineyard
belonging to the abbey of Malmesbury; of which there is a recitall
in the grant of this manner by K. Henry VIII. to Sir ---- Long. This
fruitfull ground is within a foot or lesse of the gravell.
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The soil of Christian Malford, a parish adjoyning to Sutton, is very
rich, and underneath is gravell in many parts.
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The first ascent from Chippenham, sc. above the Deny hill, is sandy:
e. g. Bowdon-parke, Spy-parke, Sandy-lane, great clear sand, of which
I believe good glasse might be made; but it is a little too far from a
navigable river. They are ye biggest graines of sand that ever I saw,
and very transparent: some where thereabout is sand quite white.

At Burbidge the soile is an ash-coloured gray sand, and very naturall
for the production of good turnips. They are the best that ever I did
eate, and are sent for far and neere: they are not tough and stringy
like other turnips, but cutt like marmalad.

Quaere, how long the trade of turnips has been here? For it is
certain that all the turnips that were brought to Bristoll eighty
years since [now 1680] were from Wales; and now none come from thence,
for they have found out that the red sand about Bristoll doth breed a
better and a bigger turnip.

Burbidge is also remarqueable for excellent pease.
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The turf of our downes, and so east and west, is the best in the world
for gardens and bowling- greens; for more southward it is burnt, and
more north it is course.

Temple downe in Preshut parish, belonging to the right honble Charles
Lord Seymour, worth xxs. per acre, and better, a great quantity of it.

As to the green circles on the downes, vulgarly called faiery circles
(dances), I presume they are generated from the breathing out of a
fertile subterraneous vapour. (The ring-worme on a man's flesh is
circular. Excogitate a paralolisme between the cordial heat and ye
subterranean heat, to elucidate this phenomenon.) Every tobacco-taker
knowes that 'tis no strange thing for a circle of smoke to be whiff'd
out of the bowle of the pipe; but 'tis donne by chance. If you digge
under the turfe of this circle, you will find at the rootes of the
grasse a hoare or mouldinesse. But as there are fertile steames, so
contrary wise there are noxious ones, which proceed from some
mineralls, iron, &c.; which also as the others, cæteris paribus,
appear in a circular forme.
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In the common field of Winterbourn ...... is the celebrated path
called St. Thomas Becket's path. It leads from the village up to
Clarendon Parke. Whether this field be sown or lies fallow, the path
is visible to one that lookes on it from the hill, and it is
wonderfull. But I can add yet farther the testimonies of two that I
very well know (one of them my servant, and of an excellent sight)
that will attest that, riding in the rode from London one morning in a
great snow, they did see this path visible on the snow. St. Thomas
Becket, they say, was sometime a cure priest at Winter-bourn, and did
use to goe along this path up to a chapell in Clarendon Parke, to say
masse, and very likely 'tis true: but I have a conceit that this path
is caused by a warme subterraneous steame from a long crack in the
earth, which may cause snow to dissolve sooner there than elsewhere:
and consequently gives the dissolving snow a darker colour, just as wee
see the difference of whites in damask linnen.

The right reverend father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury,
averres to me that at Silchester in Hampshire, which was a Roman
citie, one may discerne in the corne ground the signe of the streetes;
nay, passages and hearthes: which also Dr. Jo. Wilkins (since Lord
Bishop of Chester) did see with him, and has affirm'd the same thing
to me. They were there, and saw it in the spring.

------ "ita res accendunt lumina rebus".- LUCRETIUS.
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The pastures of the vale of White Horse, sc. the first ascent below
the plaines, are as rich a turfe as any in the kingdom of England:
e. g. the Idovers at Dauntesey, of good note in Smithfield, which
sends as fatt cattle to Smythfield as any place in this nation; as
also Tytherton, Queenfield, Wroughton, Tokenham, Mudgelt, Lydyard
Tregoz, and about Cricklad, are fatting grounds, the garden of
Wiltshire.
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In a little meadow called Mill-mead, belonging to the farme of Broad
Chalke, is good peate, which in my father's time was digged and made
use of; and no doubt it is to be found in many other places of this
country, if it were search't after. But I name it onely to bring in a
discovery that Sr Christopher Wren made of it, sc. that 'tis a
vegetable, which was not known before. One of the pipes at Hampton
Court being stop't, Sr Christopher commanded to have it opened (I
think he say'd 'twas an earthen pipe), and they found it choak't with
peate,* which consists of a coagmentation of small fibrous vegetables.
These pipes were layd in Cardinal Wolsey's time, who built the house.

* I believe that in ye pipes was nothing else but Alga fontalis
trichodes, (C. B.) which is often found in conduit pipes. See
my Synopsis.-[JOHN RAY.]

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Earth growing. - In the court of Mrs. Sadler's, the great house in the
close in Salisbury, the pitched causeway lay neglected in the late
troubles, and not weeded: so at lengthe it became overgrown and lost:
and I remember about 1656, goeing to pave it, they found,.... inches
deep, a good pavement to their hands.

In the court of my honoured friend Edm. Wyld Esq., at Houghton in
Bedfordshire, in twenty-four yeares, viz. from 1656 to 1680, the
ground increased nine inches, only by rotting grasse upon grasse. 'Tis
a rich soile, and reddish; worth xxs. per acre.
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The spring after the conflagration at London all the ruines were
overgrown with an herbe or two; but especially one with a yellow
flower: and on the south side of St. Paul's Church it grew as thick as
could be; nay, on the very top of the tower. The herbalists call it
Ericolevis Neapolitana, small bank cresses of Naples; which plant Tho.
Willis told me he knew before but in one place* about the towne; and
that was at Battle Bridge by the Pindar of Wakefield, and that in no
great quantity. [The Pindar of Wakefield is still a public-house,
under the same sign, in Gray's Inn Road, in the parish of St. Pancras,
London.- J. B.]

*It growes abundantly by ye waysides between London and Kensington.-
[J. RAY.]

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Sir John Danvers, of Chelsey, did assure me to his knowledge that my
Lord Chancellor Bacon was wont to compound severall sorts of earths,
digged up very deep, to produce severall sorts of plants. This he did
in the garden at Yorke House, where he lived when he was Lord
Chancellor. (See Sir Ken. Digby, concerning his composition of earth
of severall places.)

Edmund Wyld, Esq. R.S.S. hath had a pott of composition in his garden
these seven yeares that beares nothing at all, not so much as grasse
or mosse. He makes his challenge, if any man will give him xx li. he
will give him an hundred if it doth not beare wheate spontaneously;
and the party shall keep the key, and he shall sift the earth
composition through a fine sieve, so that he may be sure there are no
graines of wheat in it He hath also a composition for pease; but that
he will not warrant, not having yet tryed it,
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Pico's [Peaks.] - In this county are Clay-hill, near Warminster; the
Castle-hill at Mere, and Knoll-hill, near Kilmanton, which is half in
Wilts, and half in Somersetshire; all which seem to have been raised
(like great blisters) by earthquakes. [Bishop TANNER adds in a note,
"Suthbury hill, neer Collingburn, which I take to be the highest hill
hi Wiltshire".] That great vertuoso, Mr. Francis Potter, author of the
"Interpretation of 666,"† Rector of Kilmanton, took great delight in
this Knoll-hill. It gives an admirable prospect every way; from hence
one may see the foss-way between Cyrencester and Glocester, which is
fourty miles from this place. You may see the Isle of Wight, Salisbury
steeple, the Severne sea, &c. It would be an admirable station for him
that shall make a geographical description of Wilts, Somersett, &c.

†[The full title of the work referred to is a curiosity in
literature. It exemplifies forcibly the abstruse and mystical
researches in which the literati of the seventeenth century indulged.

"An Interpretation of the Number 666; wherein not only the manner how
this Number ought to be interpreted is clearly proved and
demonstrated; but it is also shewed that this Number is an exquisite
and perfect character, truly, exactly, and essentially describing that
state of government to which all other notes of Antichrist do agree;
with all knowne objections solidly and fully answered that can be
materially made against it". (Oxford, 1642, 4to.) So general were
studies of this nature at the time, that Potter's volume was
translated into French, Dutch, and Latin. The author, though somewhat
visionary, was a profound mathematician, and invented several
ingenious mechanical instruments. In Aubrey's "Lives", appended to the
Letters from the Bodleian, 8vo. 1813, will be found an interesting
biographical notice of him.-J. B.]

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 such mineral substances as were not metals under
the general term "fossills".

At present the term fossil is restricted to antediluvian organic
remains; which are considered by Aubrey, in Chapter VII. under the
name of "Formed Stones".-J. B.]

THIS county cannot boast much of mineralls: it is more celebrated for
superficiall treasure.

At Dracot Cerne and at Easton Piers doe appeare at the surface of the
earth frequently a kind of bastard iron oare, which seems to be a
vancourier of iron oare, but it is in small quantity and course.

At Send, vulgarly called Seen, the hill whereon it stands is iron-
oare, and the richest that ever I saw. (See Chap. II.)

About Hedington fields, Whetham, Bromham, Bowdon Parke, &c. are still
ploughed-up cindres; sc. the scoria of melted iron, which must have
been smelted by the Romans (for the Saxons were no artists), who used
only foot-blasts, and so left the best part of the metall behind.
These cinders would be of great use for the fluxing of the iron-oare
at Send.
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At Redhill, in the parish of..... (I thinke Calne) they digge plenty
of ruddle; which is a bolus, and with which they drench their sheep
and cattle for ......... and poor people use it with good successe for
...... This is a red sandy hill, tinged by {iron}, and is a soile that
bears very good carrets.
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Mr. John Power of Kington St. Michael (an emperick) told me heretofore
that in Pewsham Forest is vitriol; which information he had from his
uncle Mr. .... Perm, who was an ingeniose and learned man in those
daies, and a chymist, which was then rare.
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At Dracot Cerne is good quantity of vitriol-oare, which with galles
turnes as black as inke.

About the beginning of the raigne of King James the First, Sir Walter
Long [of Dracot] digged for silver, a deep pitt, through blew clay,
and gott five pounds worth, for sixty pounds charges or more. It was
on the west end of the stable: but I doubt there was a cheat put upon
him. Here are great indications of iron, and it may be of coale; but
what hopes he should have to discover silver does passe my
understanding. There was a great friendship between Sir Walter Raleigh
and Sir Walter Long, and they were allied: and the pitt was sunk in
Sir W. Raleigh's time, so that he must certainly have been consulted
with. I have here annexed Sir James Long's letter.

"Mr. Aubrey, I cannot obey your commands concerning my grandfather's
sinking of pitts for metalls here at Draycott, there being no person
alive hereabouts who was born at that time. What I have heard was so
long since, and I then so young, that there is little heed to be taken
of what I can say; but in generall I can say that I doe believe here
are many metalls and mineralls in these parts; particularly silver-
oare of the blew sort, of which there are many stones in the bottome
of the river Avon, which are extremely heavy, and have the hardnesse
of a file, by reason of the many minerall and metalline veines. I have
consulted many bookes treating of minerall matters, and find them
suite exactly with the Hungarian blew silver oare. Some sixteen or
eighteen yeares ago in digging a well neer my house, many stones very
weighty where digged out of the rocks, which also slaked with long
lyeing in the weather. I shewed some to Monsieur Cock, since Baron of
Crownstronie in Sweden, who had travelled ten yeares to all the
mines in North Europe, and was recommended to me by a London
merchant, in his journey to Mindip, and staied with me here about
three weekes. He told me the grains in that oare seemed to be gold
rather than copper; they resembled small pinnes heads. Wee pounded
some of it, and tried to melt the dust unwashed in a crucible; but the
sulphur carried the metall away, if there was any, as he said. He has
been in England since, by the name of Baron Crownstrome, to treat from
his master the King of Sweden, over whose mines he is superintendant,
as his father was before him. The vitriol-oare we find here is like
suckwood, which being layd in a dry place slakes itself into graine of
blew vitriol, calcines red, and with a small quantitie of galles makes
our water very black inke. It is acid tasted as other vitriol, and apt
to raise a flux in the mouth. Sir, yours, &c.

August 12, 1689. J. L".
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"In the parish of Great Badminton, in a field called Twelve Acres, the
husbandmen doe often times plough up and find iron bulletts, as big as
pistoll bulletts; sometimes almost as big as muskett bulletts". Dr.
Childrey's Britannia Baconica, p. 80. ["Britannia Baconica, or the
Natural Rarities of England, Scotland, and Wales, historically
related, according to the precepts of Lord Bacon". By Joshua Childrey,
D.D. 1661. 8°.]

These bulletts are Dr. Th. Willises aperitive pills; sc. he putts a
barre of iron into the smith's forge, and gives it a sparkling heat;
then thrusts it against a roll of brimstone, and the barre will melt
down into these bulletts; of which he made his aperitive pills. In
this region is a great deale of iron, and the Bath waters give
sufficient evidence that there is store of sulphur; so that heretofore
when the earthquakes were hereabouts, store of such bulletts must
necessarily be made and vomited up. [Dr. Willis was one of the most
eminent physicians of his age, and author of numerous Latin works on
medical subjects. The above extract is a curious illustration of the
state of professional knowledge at the time. - J. B.]
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Copperas. - Thunder-stones, as the vulgar call them, are a pyrites;
their fibres doe all tend to the centre. They are found at Broad
Chalke frequently, and particularly in the earth pitts belonging to
the parsonage shares, below Bury Hill, next Knighton hedge; but wee
are too fare from a navigable river to make profit by them; but at
the Isle of Wight they are gathered .from the chalkie rocks, and
carried by boates to Deptford, to make copperas; where they doe first
expose them to the aire

and raine, which makes them slake, and fall to pieces from the centre,
and shoot out a pale blewish salt; and then they boile the salt with
pieces of old rusty iron.
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In the chalkie rocks at Lavington is umber, which painters have used,
and Dr. Chr. Meret hath inserted it in his Pinax. ["Pinax Rerum
Naturalium Britannicarum, continens Vegetabilia, Animalia, et Fossilia
in hac Insula reperta". By Christopher Merret, M.D., 1666, 12mo.]
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In the parish of Steeple Ashton, at West Ashton, in the grounds of Mr.
Tho. Beech, is found plenty of a very ponderous marchasite, of which
Prince Rupert made tryall, but without effect. It flieth away in
sulphur, and the fumes are extreme unwholsom: it is full of (as it
were) brasse, and strikes fire very well. It is mundick, or mock-oare.
The Earle of Pembroke hath a way to analyse it: not by fire, but by
corroding waters.

Anno Domini, 1685, in Chilmark, was found by digging of a well a
blewish oare, with brasse-like veines in it; it runnes two foot thick.
I had this oare tryed, and it flew away in sulphur, like that of
Steeple Ashton.
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On Flamstone downe (in the parish of Bishopston) neer the Race-way a
quarrie of sparre exerts itselfe to the surface of the turfe. It is
the finest sparre that ever I beheld. I have made as good glasse of
this sparre as the Venice glasse. It is of a bright colour with a very
little tincture of yellow; transparent; and runnes in stirias, like
nitre; it is extraordinary hard till it is broken, and then it breakes
into very minute pieces.
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We have no mines of lead; nor can I well suspect where we should find
any: but not far off in Glocestershire, at Sodbury, there is. Capt.
Ralph Greatorex, the mathematical instrument maker, sayes that it is
good lead, and that it was a Roman lead-worke.
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Tis some satisfaction to know where a minerall is not. Iron or coale
is not to be look't for in a chalky country. As yet we have not
discovered any coale in this county; but are supplied with it from
Glocestershire adjoyning, where the forest of Kingswood (near
Bristowe) aboundeth most with coale of any place in the west of
England: all that tract under ground full of this fossill. It is very
observable that here are the most holly trees of any place in the
west. It seemes to me that the holly tree delights in the effluvium of
this fossil, which may serve as a guide to find it. I was curious to
be satisfied whether holly trees were also common about the collieries
at Newcastle, and Dr.. .. . , Deane of Durham, affirmes they are.
These indications induce me to thinke it probable that coale may be
found in Dracot Parke. The Earledomes, near Downton, (woods so called
belonging to the Earledome of Pembroke,) for the same reason, not
unlike ground for coale.

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