28 AUBREY'S NATUEAL HISTORY OF WILTSHIRE. 



navigable." Two other pamphlets urging the importance of the project were published in 1672 and 

 1675 (see Gough's Topography, vol. ii. p. 366) ; and in 1687 a series of regulations was compiled 

 " for the good and orderly government and usage of the New Haven and Pier now made near 

 Christchurch, and of the passages made navigable from thence to the city of New Sarum." (See 

 Hatcher's History of Salisbury, pp. 460, 497.) The works thus made were afterwards destroyed 

 by a flood, and remained in ruins till 1771. Some repairs were then executed, but they were 

 inefficient ; and the navigation is now given up, except at the mouth of the river ; and even there 

 the liar of Christchurch is an insurmountable obstacle except at spring tides. (Penny Cyclopaedia, 

 art. Wiltshire.) As the Bishop dug the first spitt, or spadeful of earth, and drove the first 

 wheelbarrow, that necessary process was no doubt made a matter of much ceremony. The laying 

 the "first stone" of an important building has always been an event duly celebrated; and the 

 practice of some distinguished individual "digging the first spitt" of earth has lately been revived 

 with much pomp and parade, hi connection with the great railway undertakings of the present 

 age. J. B.] 



The river Adder riseth about Motcomb, neer Shaftesbury. In the Legeir booke of Wilton Abbey 

 it is wrott Nobbj-e, a Nodderi fluvii ripa. (hodie Adder-bourn, Nabbj-e, serpens, anguis, Saxonice. 

 Addar, in Welsh, signifies a bird.*) This river runnes through the magnificent garden of the Earle 

 of Pembroke at Wilton, and so beyond to Christ Church. It hath in it a rare fish, called an umber, 

 which are sent from Salisbury to London. They are about the bigncsse of a trowt, but preferred 

 before a trowt. This kind of fish is in no other river in England, except the river Humber in 

 Yorkesliire. [The umber is perhaps more generally known as the grayling. See Chap. XI. 

 Fishes. J. B.] 



The rivulet that gives the name to Chalke-bourn,f and running tlirough Chalke, rises at a place 

 called Naule, belonging to the farme of Broad Chalke, where are a great many springs that issue out 

 of the chalkie ground. It makes a kind of lake of the quantity of about three acres. There are not 

 better trouts (two foot long) in the kingdom of England than here ; I was thinking to have made a 

 trout pond of it. The water of this streame washes well, and is good for brewing. I did putt in 

 craw-fish, but they would not live here : the water is too cold for them. Tliis river water is so 

 acrimonious, that strange horses when they are watered here will snuff and snort, and cannot well 

 drinke of it till they have been for some time used to it. Methinks this water should bee admirably 

 good for whitening clothes for cloathiers, because it is impregnated so much with nitre, which is 

 abstersive. 



The river Stour hath its source in Sturton Parke, and gives the name [Stourhead, J. B.] to that 

 ancient seat of the Lord Sturtons. Tliree of the springs are within the park pale and in Wiltshire ; 

 the other three are without the pale in Somersetshire. The fountaines within the parke pale are 

 curbed with pierced cylinders of free stone, like tunnes of chimneys ; the diameter of them is eighteen 

 inches. The coate armour of the Lord Sturton is, Sable, a bend or, between six fountaines ; which 



* [Adar is the plural of Aderyn, a bird, and therefore signifies birds. J. B.] 



f Bourna, fluvius. (Vener. Bed. Hist. Eccles.) As in some counties they say, In such or such a vale or dale ; so in South 

 Wilts they say, such or such a bourn : meaning a valley by such a river. 



