The Natural History of Wiltshire Part 24

At Wilton is a very noted faire for sheepe, on St. George's Day also; and another on St. Giles's Day, September the first. Graziers, &c.

from Buckinghams.h.i.+re come hither to buy sheep.

Wilton was the head town of the county till Bishop Bingham built the Bridge at Harnham which turned away the old Roman way (in the Legier- booke of Wilton called the heepath, i. e. the army path), and brought the trade to New Sarum, where it hath ever since continued.

At Chilmarke is a good faire for sheep on St. Margaret's day, 20th July.

Burford, near Salisbury, a faire on Lammas day; 'tis an eminent faire for wooll and sheep, the eve is for wooll and cheese.

At the city of New Sarum is a very great faire for cloath at Twelf- tyde, called Twelfe Market. In the parish of All-Cannings is St Anne's Hill, vulgarly called Tann Hill, where every yeare on St. Anne's Day (26th July), is kept a great fair within an old camp, called Oldbury.*

The chiefe commodities are sheep, oxen, and fineries. This faire would bee more considerable, but that Bristow Faire happens at the same time.

* [Aubrey errs in stating "Oldbury Camp" to be on St. Anne's Hill; those places being nearly two miles apart. - J. B.]

At the Devises severall faires; but the greatest is at the Green there, at Michaelmas: it continues about a week.

MARKETTS. - Warminster is exceeding much frequented for a round corn- market on Sat.u.r.day. Hither come the best teemes of horses, and it is much resorted to by buyers. Good horses for the coach: some of 20li. + It is held to be the greatest corn-market by much in the West of England. My bayliif has a.s.sured me that twelve or fourteen score loades of corne on market-dayes are brought thither: the glovers that work in their shops at the towne's end doe tell the carts as they come in; but this market of late yeares has decayed; the reason whereof I had from my honored friend Henry Millburne, Esq. Recorder of Monmouth.

[The reason a.s.signed is, that Mr. Millburne "encouraged badgars" to take corn from Monmouths.h.i.+re to Bristol; whereupon the bakers there, finding the Welsh corn was better, and could be more cheaply conveyed to them than that grown in Wilts.h.i.+re, forsook Warminster Market. - J. B.]

My bayliff, an ancient servant to our family, a.s.sures me that, about 1644, six quarters of wheat would stand, as they terme it, Hindon Market, which is now perhaps the second best market after Warminster in this county.

I have heard old men say long since that the market at Castle Combe was considerable in the time of the staple: the market day is Munday.

Now only some eggs and b.u.t.ter, &c.

Marleborough Market is Sat.u.r.day: one of the greatest markets for cheese in the west of England. Here doe reside factors for the cheesemongers of London.

King Edgar granted a charter to Steeple Ashton. [Aubrey has transcribed the charter at length, from the original Latin. - J. B.]

The towne was burnt about the yeare ....... before which time it was a market-town; but out of the ashes of this sprang up the market at Lavington, which flourisheth still. [Lavington market has long been discontinued in consequence of its vicinity to the Devizes, which has superior business attractions.-J. B.]

At Highworth was the greatest market, on Wednesday, for fatt cattle in our county, which was furnished by the rich vale; and the Oxford butchers furnished themselves here. In the late civill warres it being made a garrison for the King, the graziers, to avoid the rudeness of the souldiers, quitted that market, and went to Swindon, four miles distant, where the market on Munday continues still, which before was a petty, inconsiderable one. Also, the plague was at Highworth before the late warres, which was very prejudiciall to the market there; by reason whereof all the countrey sent their cattle to Swindown market, as they did before to Highworth.

Devises. - On Thursday a very plentifull market of every thing: but the best for fish in the county. They bring fish from Poole hither, which is sent from hence to Oxford.

[At this place in Aubrey's ma.n.u.script is another "digression"; being "Remarks taken from Henry Milburne, Esq. concerning Husbandry, Trade, &c. in Herefords.h.i.+re". - J. B.]

PART 1I.-CHAPTER XIV.

OF HAWKS AND HAWKING.

[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 Constantinopolita.n.u.s, 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.]

QUaeRE, Sir James Long of this subject, for he understands it as well as any gentleman in this nation, and desire him to write his marginall notes.

[From Sir James Long, Dracot.] Memorandum. Between the years 1630 and 1634 Henry Poole, of Cyrencester, Esquire (since Sir Henry Poole, Baronet), lost a falcon flying at Brook, in the spring of the year, about three a'clock in the afternoon; and he had a falconer in Norway at that time to take hawks for him, who discovered this falcon, upon the stand from whence he was took at first, the next day in the evening. This flight must be 600 miles at least.

Dame Julian Barnes, in her book of Hunting and Hawking, says that the hawk's bells must be in proportion to the hawk, and they are to be equiponderant, otherwise they will give the hawk an unequall ballast: and as to their sound they are to differ by a semitone, which will make them heard better than if they were unisons.

William of Malmesbury sayes that, anno Domini 900, tempore Regis Alfredi, hawking was first used. Coteswold is a very fine countrey for this sport, especially before they began to enclose about Malmesbury, Newton, &c. It is a princely sport, and no doubt the novelty, together with the delight, and the conveniency of this countrey, did make King Athelstan much use it. I was wont to admire to behold King Athelstan's figure in his monument at Malmesbury Abbey Church, with a falconer's glove on his right hand, with a k.n.o.bbe or ta.s.sel to put under his girdle, as the falconers use still; but this chronologicall advertis.e.m.e.nt cleares it. [The effigy on the monument here referred to, as well as the monument itself, have no reference to Athelstan, as they are of a style and character some hundreds of years subsequent to that monarch's decease. If there were any tomb to Athelstan it would have been placed near the high altar in the Presbytery, and very different in form and decoration to the altar tomb and statue here mentioned, which are at the east end of the south aisle of the nave.- J. B.] Sir George Marshal of Cole Park, a-quarry to King James First, had no more manners or humanity than to have his body buried under this tombe. The Welsh did King Athelstan homage at the city of Hereford, and covenanted yearly payment of 20li. gold, of silver 300, oxen 2,500, besides hunting dogges and hawkes. He dyed anno Domini 941, and was buried with many trophies at Malmesbury. His lawes are extant to this day among the lawes of other Saxon kings.

PART II.-CHAPTER XV.

THE RACE.

HENRY Earle of Pembroke [1570-1601] inst.i.tuted 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 once perhaps in twenty yeares. The shorter begins at a place called the Start, at the end of the edge of the north downe of the farme of Broad Chalke, and ends at the standing at the hare-warren, built by William Earle of Pembroke, and is four miles from the Start.

*[In the civic archives of Salisbury, under the date of 1585, is the following memorandum:- "These two years, in March, there was a race run with horses at the farthest three miles from Sarum, at the which were divers n.o.ble personages, and the Earl of c.u.mberland won the golden bell, which was valued at 501. and better, the which earl is to bring the same again next year, which he promised to do, upon his honour, to the mayor of this city". See Hatcher's History of Salisbury, p. 294. In the Appendix to that volume is a copy of an Indenture, made in 1654, between the Mayor and Commonalty of the city and Sir Edward Baynton of Bromham, relative to the race-cup. It recites that Henry Earl of Pembroke in his lifetime gave a golden bell, to be run for yearly, "at the place then used and accustomed for horse races, upon the downe or plaine leading from New Sarum towards the towne of Shaston [Shaftesbury], in the county of Dorset".

This would imply that the n.o.bleman referred to was not the founder of Salisbury Races. - J. B.]

It is certain that Peac.o.c.k used to runn the four-miles course in five minutes and a little more; and Dalavill since came but little short of him. Peac.o.c.k was first Sir Thomas Thynne's of Long-leate; who valued him at 1,000 pounds. Philip Earle of Pembrock gave 51i. but to have a sight of him: at last his lords.h.i.+p had him; I thinke by gift. Peac.o.c.k was a b.a.s.t.a.r.d barb. He was the most beautifull horse ever seen in this last age, and was as fleet as handsome. He dyed about 1650.

"Here lies the man whose horse did gaine The bell in race on Salisbury plaine; Reader, I know not whether needs it, You or your horse rather to reade it."

At Everly is another race. Quaere, if the Earle of Abington hath not set up another?

s...o...b..ll-play is peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and a little part of Somerset near Bath. They smite a ball, stuffed very hard with quills and covered with soale leather, with a staffe, commonly made of withy, about 3 [feet] and a halfe long. Colerne-downe is the place so famous and so frequented for s...o...b..ll-playing. The turfe is very fine, and the rock (freestone) is within an inch and a halfe of the surface, which gives the ball so quick a rebound. A s...o...b..ll-ball is of about four inches diameter, and as hard as a stone. I doe not heare that this game is used anywhere in England but in this part of Wilts.h.i.+re and Gloucesters.h.i.+re adjoining.

PART II.-CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE NUMBER OF ATTORNIES IN THIS COUNTIE NOW AND HERETOFORE.

[A STATUTE was pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 vexation and prejudice of those counties; and it therefore enacts that for the future there shall be only six in Norfolk, six in Suffolk, and two in Norwich. (Penny Cycle, art. Attorney.) Aubrey adopts the inference that strife and dissension were promoted by the increase of attorneys; which he accordingly laments as a serious evil.

He quotes at some length from a treatise "About Actions for Slander and Arbitrements, what words are actionable in the law, and what not", &c. by John March, of Gray's Inn, Barrister (London, 1674, 8vo.); wherein the great increase of actions for slander is shewn, by reference to old law books. The author urges the propriety of checking such actions as much as possible, and quaintly observes, "as I cannot balk that observation of that learned Chief Justice (Wray), who sayes that in our old bookes actions for scandal are very rare; so I will here close with this one word: though the tongues of men be set on fire, I know no reason wherefore the law should be used as bellows". Aubrey remarks upon this:- "The true and intrinsic reason why actions of the case were so rare in those times above mentioned, was by reason that men's consciences were kept cleane and in awe by confession"; and he concludes the chapter with an extract from "Europae Speculum", by Sir Edwin Sandys, Knight, (1637,) in which the advantages and disadvantages of auricular confession are discussed.

- J. B.]

ME. BAYNHAM, of Cold Ashton, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, bred an attorney, sayes, that an hundred yeares since there were in the county of Gloucester but four attorneys, and now (1689) no fewer than three hundred attorneys and sollicitors; and Dr. Guydot, Physician, of Bath, sayes that they report that anciently there was but one attorney in Somerset, and he was so poor that he went a'foot to London; and now they swarme there like locusts.

Fabian Philips tells me (1683) that about sixty-nine yeares since there were but two attorneys in Worcesters.h.i.+re, sc. Langston and Dowdeswell; and they be now in every market towne, and goe to marketts; and he believes there are a hundred.

In Henry 6th time (q. if not in Hen. 7?) there was a complaint to the Parliament by the Norfolk people that whereas formerly there were in that county but five or six attorneys, that now they are exceedingly encreased, and that they went to markets and bred contention. The judges were ordered to rectify this grievance, but they fell asleep and never awak't since. - Vide the Parliament Roll. [See the above note.

In page 12 (ante) Aubrey states that the Norfolk people are the "most litigious" of any in England. - J. B.] 'Tis thought that in England there are at this time near three thousand;* but there is a rule in hawking, the more spaniells the more game. They doe now rule and governe the lawyers [barristers] and judges. They will take a hundred pounds with a clarke.

*[There are now upwards of three thousand attorneys in practice in the metropolis alone, to whom the celebrated remark of Alderman Beckford to King George the Third may be justly applied, with the subst.i.tution of another word for "the Crown", - "the influence of lawyers has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished."

- J. B.]