By the Rev. W. H. Jones. 53 
Aubrey relates concerning our town, besides one or two very brief 
notices of buildings, to which we have already referred, is con- 
tained in what he calls a “simple old woman’s prophecie of old 
Mother Bloker of Bradford.” Though he inserts it in his manu- 
script, yet, in a letter,? still preserved in the Bodleian Library at 
Oxford, addressed to his friend Mr. (afterwards Bishop) Tanner, he 
says, “Pray doe me the favour to blott it out,” deeming it too 
modern for insertion. However, here is the old dame’s prediction ; 
it may amuse some of our readers. 
“ Bristowe shall sinke and Bath shall swimme, 
And Bradford be a Haven-towne.” 
At present there are no signs of its accomplishment. 
It was, moreover, towards the latter end of this century that 
Tuomas Brac, an attorney of Woolley, contrived to keep the good 
people of Bradford in a state of excitement by some of his perform- 
ances.” He has been already noticed in the pages of this Magazine 
(vol. iii. 370) as having urged the apprehension of a certain Law- 
rence Braddon, whom he saw stopping “at an inn door at a town 
called Bradford to drink a glass of cider,” on what may now seem 
to us rather insufficient grounds, viz., that he “looked like a dis- 
" affected person, by wearing bands and cuffs, and therefore, in that 
dangerous time, ought to be examined.” No long time afterwards, 
however, the said Thomas Beach, who is said to have been “an 
attorney notorious in his country and generation,” himself got into 
trouble. In January, 1677-8 (80th Car. II.), in conjunction with 
Simon Deverell, bailiff of Bradford, he committed a breach of privi- 
lege in assaulting and wounding Mr. Hall, a member of the House 
of Commons, and also Mr. Hall’s servant, threatening at the same 
time to do him further mischief. ‘This occurred during a sitting 
of Parliament. Mr. Beach was accordingly placed immediately in 
the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms. 
On the 22nd of F ebruary he acknowledges his offence, and craves 
o> a RT a fi ee 
Tanner MSS. Bodleian. 126. 
* Thomas Beach was ancestor of the Beach family at West Ashton and Wool- 
ley. His wife was one of the ‘Martyns’ of East Town in the parish of Steeple 
Ashton. He was buried at Steeple Ashton, 
