Wilts Notes and Queries. 351 
agency of a single individual. This gentleman was the late Amram 
Saunders of Lavington, to whom the farmers and gentry of the 
neighbourhood presented, in 1827, an elaborate service of plate, for 
having accomplished the removal of eleven gates within a distance 
of three or four miles. 
SreepLe-Friyinc.—This exploit, accomplished by means of a 
rope, was performed in the year 1735 from the top of Bromham 
church steeple. It had long been a favourite exhibition in London, 
where it usually took place from the summit of Old St. Paul’s Church. 
In 1731, a seaman descended from Hackney steeple with a streamer in 
each hand. 
The following extract from an old letter relative to this trick, 
records 
HOW THE MEN OF BROMHAM PULLED THEIR OWN CHURCH SPIRE DOWN. 
“ Mankind, not satisfied with travelling on the elements of earth 
and water, have attempted to invade the air, from the days of 
‘Daedalus downwards. ‘Pennis non homini datis,’ (‘ with wings not 
given to man,’) they have hitherto essayed, unsuccessfully, the Art 
of Flying: notwithstanding Bishop Wilkins’s prediction that the 
time would come when a man setting out on a journey would ring 
for his wings, as heretofore for his boots. 
About 100 years ago, an adventurer of this kind travelled the 
country, making for money at different places the exhibition of a 
flight from towers and steeples. His method was to have a rope 
fixed to the top of the place from which he was to descend, and 
strained to a convenient place where he was to alight. A board, 
with a groove to receive the cord, was fixed to the breast of the 
‘aeronaut,’ and by this he was to descend headforemost to the point 
of alighting. Amongst other places he visited Bromham, and 
having solicited permission to ‘fly’ from the steeple, some idle 
people of the place, without consulting the clergyman, who was 
indisposed, gave him leave to perform. A time was appointed, the 
apparatus was fixed, and a mob assembled. The flyer ascended the 
steeple, made his plunge, and was half way down the rope, when 
some persons employed to strain it pulled it too hard. The top of 
the spire gave way, and came down. The aeronaut, luckily for 
himself, fell into a tree in the churchyard, and received but little 
