The Natural History of Wiltshire Part 13

Box, a parish so called in North Wilts, neer Bathe, in which parish is our famous freestone quarre of Haselbery: in all probability tooke its name from the box-trees which grew there naturally, but now worne out.

Not far off on Coteswold in Gloucesters.h.i.+re is a village called Boxwell, where is a great wood of it, which once in .... yeares Mr.

Huntley fells, and sells to the combe-makers in London. At Boxley in Kent, and at Boxhill in Surrey, bothe chalkie soiles, are great box woods, to which the combe-makers resort.

Holy is indifferently common in Malmesbury hundred, and also on the borders of the New Forest: it seemes to indicate pitt-coale. In Wardour Parke are holy-trees that beare yellow berries. I think I have seen the like in Cranborne Chase.

Hazel.- Wee have two sorts of them. In the south part, and particularly Cranbourn Chase, the hazells are white and tough; with which there are made the best hurdles of England. The nutts of the chase are of great note, and are sold yearly beyond sea. They sell them at Woodbery Hill Faire, &c.; and the price of them is the price of a busch.e.l.l of wheate. The hazell-trees in North Wilts are red, and not so tough, more brittle.

Coven-tree common about Chalke and Cranbourn Chase: the carters doe make their whippes of it. It growes no higher than a cherry-tree.

Buckthorne very common in South Wilts.h.i.+re. The apothecaries make great use of the berries, and the glovers use it to colour their leather yellow.

p.r.i.c.k-timber (euonymus).- This tree is common, especially in North Wilts. The butchers doe make skewers of it, because it doth not taint the meate as other wood will doe: from whence it hath the name of p.r.i.c.k-timber.

Osiers.- Wee have great plenty of them about Bemarton, &c. near Salisbury, where the osier beds doe yield four pounds per acre.

Service-trees grow naturally in Grettwood, in the parish of Gretenham, belonging to George Ayliffe, Esq. In the parke of Kington St. Michel is onely one. At the foot of Hedington Hill, and also at the bottome of the hill at Whitesheet, which is the same range of hill, doe growe at least twenty cervise-trees. They operate as medlars, but less effectually.

Pliny, lib. xv. c. 21. "De Sorbis. Quartum genus torminale appellatur, remedio tantum probabile, a.s.siduum proventu minimumq{ue} pomo, arbore dissimili foliis plane platani". Lib. xvi. cap. 18.- "Gaudet frigidis Sorbus sed magis betulla". Dr. Gale, R.S.S. tells me that "Sorbiodunum", now Old Sarum, has its denomination from "sorbes"; but the ground now below the castle is all turned to arable.

Elders grow every where. At Bradford the side of the high hill which faces the south, about Mr. Paul Methwin's house, is covered with them.

I fancy that that pent might be turned to better profit, for it is situated as well for a vinyard as any place can be, and is on a rocky gravelly ground. The apothecaries well know the use of the berries, and so doe the vintners, who buy vast quant.i.ties of them in London, and some doe make no inconsiderable profit by the sale of them.

At the parsonage house at Wyley growes an ash out of the mortar of the wall of the house, and it flourishes very well and is verdant. It was nine yeares old in 1686. I doe not insert this as a rarity; but 'tis strange to consider that it hath its growth and nourishment from the aire, for from the lime it can receive none. [In August 1847, I observed a large and venerable ash tree growing out of and united with the ancient Roman walls of Caistor, near Norwich. The whole of the base of the trunk was incorporated with bricks, rubble, and mortar; but the roots no doubt extended many yards into the adjacent soil.- J. B.]

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 Herefords.h.i.+re 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.

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 Glas...o...b..ry 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 Christma.s.ses, which I have seen. Elias Ashmole, Esq., in his notes upon "Theatrum Chymic.u.m", saies that in the churchyard at Glas...o...b..ry 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 Glas...o...b..ry; 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 Glas...o...b..ry. The souldiers did cutt downe that neer Glas...o...b..ry: the stump remaines.

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.

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 Glas...o...b..ry, 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", const.i.tute a princ.i.p.al branch of the work.

On these topics Aubrey was a.s.sisted by his friend Sir James Long, of Draycot, Bart., whose letters to him are inserted in the original ma.n.u.script. Besides the pa.s.sages 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 h.o.a.re's Modern Wilts.h.i.+re. - 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 Wilts.h.i.+re, 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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Carmarthens.h.i.+re 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.)

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 gra.s.se there is very short, and burnt up in the hot weather. 'Tis a saying, that conies doe love rost-meat.

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 Ess.e.x 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.)

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.

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:-