Books: The Natural History of Wiltshire

J >> John Aubrey >> The Natural History of Wiltshire

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Whitty-tree, or wayfaring-tree, is rare in this country; some few in
Cranbourn Chace, and three or four on the south downe of the farme of
Broad Chalke. In Herefordshire they are not uncommon; and they used,
when I was a boy, to make pinnes for the yoakes of their oxen of them,
believing it had vertue to preserve them from being forespoken, as
they call it; and they use to plant one by their dwelling-house,
believing it to preserve from witches and evill eyes.
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Mr. Anthony Hinton, one of the officers of the Earle of Pembroke, did
inoculate, not long before the late civill warres (ten yeares or
more), a bud of Glastonbury Thorne, on a thorne at his farm-house at
Wilton, which blossomes at Christmas as the other did. My mother has
had branches of them for a flower-pott severall Christmasses, which I
have seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon "Theatrum
Chymicum", saies that in the churchyard at Glastonbury grew a wallnutt
tree that did putt out young leaves at Christmas, as doth the king's
oake in the New Forest. In Parham Parke, in Suffolk (Mr. Boutele's),
is a pretty ancient thorne that blossomes like that at Glastonbury;
the people flock thither to see it on Christmas-day. But in the rode
that leades from Worcester to Droitwiche is a blackthorne hedge at
Clayn, halfe a mile long or more, that blossomes about Christmas-day
for a week or more together. The ground is called Longland. Dr. Ezerel
Tong sayd that about Runnly-marsh, in Kent, [Romney-marsh?] are
thornes naturally like that at Glastonbury. The souldiers did cutt
downe that neer Glastonbury: the stump remaines.
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In the parish of Calne, at a pleasant seat of the Blakes, called
Pinhill, was a grove of pines, which gives the name to the seate.
About 1656 there were remaining about four or five: they made fine
shew on the hill.
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In the old hedges which are the boundes between the lands of Priory
St. Marie, juxta Kington St. Michael, and the west field, which
belonged to the Lord Abbot of Glastonbury, are yet remaining a great
number of berberry-trees, which I suppose the nunnes made use of for
confections, and they taught the young ladies that were educated there
such arts. In those days there were not schooles for young ladies as
now, but they were educated at religious houses.

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 sculptured representation of hunting the wild boar, over
a Norman doorway at Little Langford Church. This bas-relief is
engraved in Hoare's Modern Wiltshire. - J. B.]

I WILL first begin with beastes of venerie, whereof there hath been
great plenty in this countie, and as good as any in England. Mr. J.
Speed, who wrote the description of Wiltshire, anno Domini [1611],
reckons nine forests, one chace, and twenty-nine parkes.

This whole island was anciently one great forest. A stagge might have
raunged from Bradon Forest to the New Forest; sc. from forest to
forest, and not above four or five miles intervall (sc. from Bradon
Forest to Grettenham and Clockwoods; thence to the forest by
Boughwood-parke, by Calne and Pewsham Forest, Blackmore Forest,
Gillingham Forest, Cranbourn Chase, Holt Forest, to the New Forest.)
Most of those forests were given away by King James the First. Pewsham
Forest was given to the Duke of Buckingham, who gave it, I thinke, to
his brother, the Earle of Anglesey. Upon the disafforesting of it, the
poor people made this rhythme:-

"When Chipnam stood in Pewsham's wood,
Before it was destroy'd,
A cow might have gone for a groat a yeare-
but now it is denyed".

The metre is lamentable; but the cry of the poor was more lamentable.
I knew severall that did remember the going of a cowe for 4d. per
annum. The order was, how many they could winter they might summer:
and pigges did cost nothing the going. Now the highwayes are encombred
with cottages, and the travellers with the beggars that dwell in them.
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The deer of the forest of Groveley were the largest of fallow deer in
England, but some doe affirm the deer of Cranborne Chase to be larger
than Groveley. Quaere Mr. Francis Wroughton of Wilton concerning the
weight of the deer; as also Jack Harris, now keeper of Bere Forest,
can tell the weight of the best deere of Verneditch and Groveley: he
uses to come to the inne at Sutton. Verneditch is in the parish of
Broad Chalke. 'Tis agreed that Groveley deer were generally the
heaviest; but there was one, a buck, killed at Verneditch about an°.
165-, that out-weighed Groveley by two pounds. Dr. Randal Caldicot
told me that it was weighed at his house, and it weighed eight score
pounds. About the yeare 1650 there were in Verneditch-walke, which is
a part of Cranborne Chase, a thousand or twelve hundred fallow deere;
and now, 1689, there are not above five hundred. A glover at Tysbury
will give sixpence more for a buckskin of Cranborne Chase than of
Groveley; and he saies that he can afford it.
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Clarendon Parke was the best parke in the King's dominions. Hunt and
Palmer, keepers there, did averre that they knew seven thousand head
of deere in that parke; all fallow deere. This parke was seven miles
about. Here were twenty coppices, and every one a mile round.
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Upon these disafforestations the marterns were utterly destroyed in
North Wilts. It is a pretty little beast and of a deep chesnutt
colour, a kind of polecat, lesse than a fox; and the furre is much
esteemed: not much inferior to sables. It is the richest furre of our
nation. Martial saies of it -

"Venator capta marte superbus adest". - Epigr.

In Cranborn Chase and at Vernditch are some marterns still remaining.
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In Wiley river are otters, and perhaps in others. The otter is our
English bever; and Mr. Meredith Lloyd saies that in the river Tivy in
Carmarthenshire there were real bevers heretofore - now extinct. Dr.
Powell, in his History of Wales, speakes of it. They are both alike;
fine furred, and their tayles like a fish. (The otter hath a hairy
round tail, not like the beavers. - J. RAY.)
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I come now to warrens. That at Auburn is our famous coney-warren; and
the conies there are the best, sweetest, and fattest of any in
England; a short, thick coney, and exceeding fatt The grasse there is
very short, and burnt up in the hot weather. 'Tis a saying, that
conies doe love rost-meat.
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Mr. Wace's notes, p. 62.- "We have no wild boares in England: yet it
may be thought that heretofore we had, and did not think it convenient
to preserve this game". But King Charles I. sent for some out of
France, and putt them in the New Forest, where they much encreased,
and became terrible to the travellers. In the civill warres they were
destroyed, but they have tainted all the breed of the pigges of the
neighbouring partes, which are of their colour; a kind of soot colour.

(There were wild boars in a forest in Essex formerly. I sent a
Portugal boar and sow to Wotton in Surrey, which greatly increased;
but they digged the earth so up, and did such spoyle, that the country
would not endure it: but they made incomparable bacon.- J. EVELYN.)
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In warrens are found, but rarely, some old stotes, quite white: that
is, they are ermins. My keeper of Vernditch warren hath shewn two or
three of them to me.

At Everley is a great warren for hares; and also in Bishopston parish
neer Wilton is another, where the standing is to see the race; and
an°. 1682 the Right Honble James, Earle of Abingdon, made another at
West Lavington.
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Having done now with beastes of venerum, I will come to dogges. The
British dogges were in great esteeme in the time of the Romans; as
appeares by Gratius, who lived in Augustus Caesar's time, and Oppian,
who wrote about two ages after Gratius, in imitation of him. "Gratii
Cynegeticon", translated by Mr. Chr. Wace, 1654:-

"What if the Belgique current you should view,
And steer your course to Britain's utmost shore'!
Though not for shape, and much deceiving show,
The British hounds no other blemish know:
When fierce work comes, and courage must he shown,
And Mars to extreme combat leads them on,
Then stout Molossians you will lesse commend;
With Athemaneans these in craft contend."
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It is certain that no county of England had greater variety of game,
&c. than Wiltshire, and our county hounds were as good, or rather the
best of England; but within this last century the breed is much mix't
with northern hounds. Sir Charles Snell, of Kington St. Michael, who
was my honoured friend and neighbour, had till the civill warrs as
good hounds for the hare as any were in England, for handsomenesse and
mouth (deep-mouthed) and goodnesse, and suited one another admirably
well. But it was the Right Hon. Philip I. Earle of Pembroke, that was
the great hunter. It was in his lordship's time, sc. tempore Jacobi I.
and Caroli I. a serene calme of peace, that hunting was at its
greatest heighth that ever was in this nation. The Roman governours
had not, I thinke, that leisure. The Saxons were never at quiet; and
the barons' warres, and those of York and Lancaster, took up the
greatest part of the time since the Conquest: so that the glory of the
English hunting breath'd its last with this Earle, who deceased about
1644, and shortly after the forests and parkes were sold and converted
into arable, &c. 'Twas after his lordship's decease [1650] that I was
a hunter; that is to say, with the Right Honourable William, Lord
Herbert, of Cardiff, the aforesaid Philip's grandson. Mr. Chr. Wace
then taught him Latin, and hunted with him; and 'twas then that he
translated Gratii Cynegeticon, and dedicated it to his lordship, which
will be a lasting monument for him. Sir Jo. Denham was at Wilton at
that time about a twelve moneth.
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The Wiltshire greyhounds were also the best of England, and are still;
and my father and I have had as good as any were in our times in
Wiltshire. They are generally of a fallow colour, or black; but Mr.
Button's, of Shirburn in Glocestershire, are some white and some
black. But Gratius, in his Cynegeticon, adviseth:-

"And chuse the grayhound py'd with black and white,
He runs more swift than thought, or winged flight;
But courseth yet in view, not hunts in traile,
In which the quick Petronians never faile."

We also had in this county as good tumblers as anywhere in the nation.
Martial speakes of the tumblers:-

"Non sibi sed domino venatur vertagus acer,
Illæsum leporem qui tibi dente feret" -

Turnebus, Young, Gerard, Vossius, and Janus Ulitius, all consenting
that the name and dog came together from Gallia Belgica. Dr. Caldicot
told me that in Wilton library there was a Latine poeme (a
manuscript), wrote about Julius Caesar's time, where was mention of
tumblers, and that they were found no where but in Britaine. I ask'd
him if 'twas not Gratius; he told me no. Quaere, Mr. Chr. Wace, if he
remembers any such thing? The books are now most lost and gonne:
perhaps 'twas Martial.

Very good horses for the coach are bought out of the teemes in our
hill-countrey. Warminster market is much used upon this account.
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I have not seen so many pied cattle any where as in North Wiltshire.
The country hereabout is much inclined to pied cattle, but commonly
the colour is black or brown, or deep red. Some cow-stealers will
make a hole in a hott lofe newly drawn out of the oven, and putt it on
an oxes horn for a convenient tune, and then they can turn their
softned homes the contrary way, so that the owner cannot swear to his
own beast. Not long before the King's restauration a fellow was hanged
at Tyburn for this, and say'd that he had never come thither if he had
not heard it spoken of in a sermon. Thought he, I will try this trick.

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 wont to send for these trowtes for
his majesties eating.
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The eeles at Marleborough are incomparable; silver eeles, truly almost
as good as a trout. In ye last great frost, 168-, when the Thames was
frozen over, there were as many eeles killed by frost at the poole at
the hermitage at Broad Chalke as would fill a coule; and when they
were found dead, they were all curled up like cables. ["Coul, a tub
or vessel with two ears." Bailey's Dictionary.-J. B.]
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Umbers are in the river Nadder, and so to Christ Church; but the late
improvement of drowning the meadowes hath made them scarce. They are
only in the river Humber besides. [Aubrey's friend, Sir James Long,
mentions these fish as "graylings, or umbers". They are best known by
the former name. Dr. Maton states that they are still to be found in
the Avon, at Downton, where Walton speaks of them as being caught in
his time. Mr. Hatcher says that "the umber abounds in the waters
between Wilton and Salisbury". (History of Salisbury, p. 689.)-J. B.]
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Crafish are very plenty at Salisbury; but the chiefest places for them
Hungerford and Newbury: they are also at Ramesbury, and in the Avon at
Chippenham.

"Greeke, carps, turkey-cocks, and beere,
Came into England all in a yeare."

In the North Avon are sometimes taken carpes which are extraordinary
good. [Besides giving "the best way of dressing a carpe", Aubrey has
annexed to his original manuscript a piece of paper, within the folds
of which is inclosed a small bone. The paper bears the following
inscription: "1660. The bone found in the head of a carpe. Vide
Schroderi. It is a good medicine for the apoplexie or falling
sickness; I forget whether." Aubrey's reference is to "Zoology; or the
History of Animals, as they are useful in Physic and Chirurgery"; by
John Schroderus, M.D. of Francfort Done into English by T. Bateson.
London, 1659, 8vo.

When a boy I caught many of these fish in the pond at Kington St.
Michael, both by angling and by baiting three or four hooks at the end
of a piece of string and leaving them in the water all night. In the
morning I have found two, and sometimes three, large fish captured. On
one occasion "Squire White", the proprietor of the estate, discharged
his gun, apparently at me, to deter me from this act of poaching and
trespassing. - J. B.]
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As for ponds, we cannot boast much of them; the biggest is that in
Bradon Forest. There is a fair pond at West Lavington which was made
by Sir John Danvers. At Draycot Cerne the ponds are not great, but the
carpes very good, and free from muddinesse. In Wardour Parke is a
stately pond; at Wilton and Longleat two noble canals and severall
small ponds; and in the parke at Kington St. Michael are several ponds
in traine. [The latter ponds are supplied by two springs in the
immediate vicinity, forming one of the tributaries of the Avon. The
stream abounds with trout, many of which I have caught at the end of
the summer season, by laving out the water from the deeper holes.
- J. B.]
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Tenches are common. Loches are in the Upper Avon at Amesbury. Very
good perches in the North Avon, but none in the Upper Avon. Salmons
are sometimes taken in the Upper Avon, rarely, at Harnham Bridge juxta
Sarum. [On the authority of this passage, Dr. Maton includes the
salmon among the Wiltshire fish; but he adds, "I know no person now
living who has ascertained its having ascended the Avon so far as
Salisbury." Hatcher's Hist, of Salisbury, p. 689.-J. B.]
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Good pikes, roches, and daces in both the Avons. In the river Avon at
Malmesbury are lamprills (resembling lampreis) in knotts: they are
but..... inches long. They use them for baytes; and they squeeze these
knotts together and make little kind of cheeses of them for eating.

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 they doe not use dareing-glasses but catch these pretty
ætheriall birds with trammolls.

* ["Let his grace go forward, and dare us with his cap like larks."
- Shakspere, Henry VIII. Act iii. sc. 2.]

The buntings doe accompany the larkes. Linnets on the downes.
Woodpeckers severall sorts: many in North Wilts.

Sir Bennet Hoskins, Baronet, told me that his keeper at his parke at
Morehampton in Hereford-shire, did, for experiment sake, drive an
iron naile thwert the hole of the woodpecker's nest, there being a
tradition that the damme will bring some leafe to open it. He layed at
the bottome of the tree a cleane sheet, and before many houres passed
the naile came out, and he found a leafe lying by it on the sheete.
Quaere the shape or figure of the leafe. They say the moone-wort will
doe such things. This experiment may easily be tryed again. As Sir
Walter Raleigh saies, there are stranger things to be seen in the
world than are between London and Stanes. [This is the "story" which
Ray, in the letter printed in page 8, justly describes as, "without
doubt, a fable." - J. B.]

In Sir James Long's parke at Draycot Cerne are some wheat-eares; and
on come warrens and downes, but not in great plenty. Sussex doth most
abound with these. It is a great delicacie, and they are little lumps
of fatt.

On Salisbury plaines, especially about Stonehenge, are bustards. They
are also in the fields above Lavington: they doe not often come to
Chalke. (Many about Newmarket, and sometimes cranes. J. EVELYN.) [In
the "Penny Cyclopaedia" are many interesting particulars of the
bustard, and in Hoare's "Ancient Wiltshire, vol. i. p. 94, there is an
account of two of these birds which were seen near Warminster in the
summer of 1801; since when the bustard has not been seen in the
county.-J. B.]

On Salisbury plaines are gray crowes, as at Royston. [These are now
met with on the Marlborough downs.- J. B.]

" Like Royston crowes, where, as a man may say,
Are friars of both the orders, black and gray."
- J. CLEVELAND'S POEMS.

'Tis certain that the rookes of the Inner Temple did not build their
nests in the garden to breed in the spring before the plague, 1665;
but in the spring following they did.

Feasants were brought Into Europe from about the Caspian sea. There
are no pheasants in Spaine, nor doe I heare of any in Italy. Capt.
Hen. Bertie, the Earle of Abingdon's brother, when he was in Italy,
was at the great Duke of Tuscany's court entertained with all the
rarities that the country afforded, but he sawe no pheasants. Mr. Wyld
Clarke, factor fifteen yeares in Barberie, affirmes there are none
there. Sir John Mordaunt, who had a command at Tangier twenty-five
yeares, and had been some time governour there, a great lover of field
sports, affirmes that there are no pheasants in Africa or Spaine.
[See Ray's Letter to Aubrey, ante, page 8.]
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Bitterns in the breaches at Allington, &c. Herons bred heretofore, sc.
about 1580, at Easton- Piers, before the great oakes were felled down
neer the mannour-house; and they doe still breed in Farleigh Parke. An
eirie of sparrow-hawkes at the parke at Kington St. Michael. The
hobbies doe goe away at..... and return at the spring. Quære Sir
James Long, if any other hawkes doe the like?
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Ganders are vivacious animals. Farmer Ady of Segary had a gander that
was fifty yeares old, which the soldiers killed. He and his gander
were both of the same age. (A goose is now living, anno 1757, at
Hagley hall in Worcestershire, full fifty yeares old. MS. NOTE.)

Sea-mewes. Plentie of them at Colern-downe; elsewhere in Wiltshire I
doe not remember any. There are presages of weather made by them.
[Instead of "presages of weather," the writer would have been more
accurate if he had said that when "sea-mewes," or other birds of the
ocean, are seen so far inland as Colern, at least twenty miles from
the sea, they indicate stormy weather in their natural element.
- J. B.]-Virgil's Georgics, lib. i. Englished by Mr. T. May:-

"The seas are ill to sailors evermore
When cormorants fly crying to the shore;
From the mid-sea when sea-fowl pastime make
Upon dry land; when herns the ponds forsake,
And, mounted on their wings, doe fly aloft."

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," &c. &c. Aubrey says
that Dr. Thomas Willis mentions this medicine in his tractat De
Febribus, and describes it as a special remedy for the plague and
other diseases.-J. B.]

No snakes or adders at Chalke, and toades very few: the nitre in the
chalke is inimique to them. No snakes or adders at Harcot-woods
belonging to -- Gawen, Esq.; but in the woods of Compton Chamberleyn
adjoyning they are plenty. At South Wraxhall and at Colern Parke, and
so to Mouncton-Farley, are adders.

In Sir James Long's parke at Draycot-Cerne are grey lizards; and no
question in other places if they were look't after; but people take
them for newts. They are of that family. About anno 1686 a boy lyeing
asleep in a garden felt something dart down his throat, which killed
him: 'tis probable 'twas a little newt. They are exceeding nimble:
they call them swifts at Newmarket Heath. When I was a boy a young
fellow slept on the grasse: after he awak't, happening to putt his
hand in his pocket, something bitt him by the top of his finger: he
shak't it suddenly off so that he could not perfectly discerne it. The
biteing was so venomous that it overcame all help, and he died in a
few hours:-

"Virus edax superabat opera: penituaq{ue} receptum
Ossibus, et toto corpore pestis erat."- OVID. FASTOR.

Sir George Ent, M.D. had a tenant neer Cambridge that was stung with
an adder. He happened not to dye, but was spotted all over. One at
Knahill in Wilts, a neighbour of Dr. Wren's, was stung, and it turned
to a leprosy. (From Sr. Chr. Wren.)

At Neston Parke (Col. W. Eire's) in Cosham parish are huge snakes, an
ell long; and about the Devises snakes doe abound.

Toades are plentifull in North Wiltshire: but few in the chalkie
countreys. In sawing of an ash 2 foot + square, of Mr. Saintlowe's, at
Knighton in Chalke parish, was found a live toade about 1656; the sawe
cutt him asunder, and the bloud came on the under-sawyer's hand: he
thought at first the upper-sawyer had cutt his hand. Toades are
oftentimes found in the milstones of Darbyshire.
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Snailes are everywhere; but upon our downes, and so in Dorset, and I
believe in Hampshire, at such degree east and west, in the summer time
are abundance of very small snailes on the grasse and come, not much
bigger, or no bigger than small pinnes heads. Though this is no
strange thing among us, yet they are not to be found in the north part
of Wilts, nor on any northern wolds. When I had the honour to waite on
King Charles I.* and the Duke of York to the top of Silbury hill, his
Royal Highnesse happened to cast his eye on some of these small
snailes on the turfe of the hill. He was surprised with the novelty,
and commanded me to pick some up, which I did, about a dozen or more,
immediately; for they are in great abundance. The next morning as he
was abed with his Dutches at Bath he told her of it, and sent Dr.
Charleton to me for them, to shew her as a rarity.

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