292 The Vale of Warminster. 
accounts, especially those of the keeper of the vineyard at Windsor 
Castle in the reign of Edward TII., in which every process of 
planting and grafting to that of barrelling the liquor is mentioned. 
What the quality of the liquor was I cannot say, but if it was not 
good wine, we may hope that it made good vinegar. 
Before we can pronounce a// our terraces to have been vineyards, 
there are a few things to be considered. There would surely have 
been more uniformity in the site and aspect. The terraces are at 
different elevations, some close under the edge of the downs, some 
in the middle, some quite at the foot, some on nearly level plaees. 
They face different ways, some north, some south, east, or west. 
Again, a soil mixed with chalk is not unfavourable for the vine, but 
would it grow where there is nothing else but pure chalk? Very 
few trees will. The woods and plantations which you see in different 
parts of Wiltshire on the tops ef high ground, such as at Grovely 
and Savernake, do not grow out of the chalk, but out of another 
stratum, gravelly and sandy, which overlies the chalk. Add to this, 
it is more likely that a vineyard, which requires very great attention, 
would, like a garden or orchard, be placed as near as could be to the 
owner’s house, and not stand here or there, or anywhere, away all 
about the hills. So many of these terraces are there, that, if vines 
grew upon all of them, Wiltshire must have been at one time a very 
Burgundy, or Champagne country, as to abundance. I have always 
believed it was famous for ale, not. for its. vintages, and I think 
so still: but that does not forbid the admission that some of the 
terraces were really used for vine-growing. In some places in this 
county, as at Wilcote, Bremhill, Chadenwich (near Mere), Colerne, 
Tockenham Wick, and others, the name of “ The Vineyards” is tra- 
ditionally preserved. In the city of Bath there is a street so called, 
where no doubt the thing once existed : and it is quite true that some 
of the more regular sets of terraces on the sides of the downs do very 
much resemble those on wine-growing hills abroad. But there are 
hundreds of these ledges, o¢ running in sets, but in twos and threes, 
or singly, everywhere and anywhere all about the downs, just under 
the brow, in the middle, at the very foot, which appear to have been — 
formed by the same cause and same process as that which formed _ 
