36 AUBREY'S NATURAL HISTORY op WILTSHIRE. 



These clayy and marly lands are wett and dirty ; so that to poore people, who have not change of 

 shoes, the cold is very incommodious, which hurts their nerves exceedingly. Salts, as the Lord 

 Chancellor Bacon sayes, doe exert (irradiate) raies of cold. Elias Ashmole, Esq. got a dangerous 

 cold by sitting by the salt sacks in a salter's shop, which was like to have cost him his life. And 

 some salts will corrode papers, that were three or four inches from it. The same may be sayd of 

 marble pavements, which have cost some great persons their lives. 



The soil of South Wilts is chalke and white marie, which abounds with nitre ; and is inimique to 

 the nerves by the nitre that irradiates from it. 'Tis that gives the dampishnesse to the flowres and 

 walles of Salisbury and Chalke, &c. E contra, Herefordshire, Salop, Montgomeryshire, &c. the 

 soile is clear of any salt ; which, besides the goodnesse of the air, conduces much to their longsevitas : 

 e. g., 100 yeares of age in those parts as common as 80 in Wilts, &c. 



The walles of the church of Broad Chalke, and of the buttery at the farme there, doe 

 si loot out, besides nitre, a beautifull red, lighter than scarlet ; an oriental horse-flesh colour. 



The soile of Savcrnake forest is great gravelle : and (as I remember) pebbley, as on the sea side. 

 At Alderbury, by Ivy Church, is great plenty of fine gravelle ; which is sent for all over the south 

 parts of the countrey. 



At Sutton Benger eastward is a gravelly field called Barrets, which is sown every year onely with 

 barley : it hath not lain fallow in the memory of the oldest man's grandfather there. About 1665 

 Mr. Leonard Atkins did sow his part of it with wheat for a triall. It came up wonderfully thick 

 and high ; but it proved but fairc strawe, and had little or nothing in the eare. This land was here- 

 tofore the vineyard belonging to the abbey of Malmesb'ury ; of which there is a recitall in the grant 



<>f this mannor by K. Henry VIII. to Sir Long. This fruitful! ground is within a foot or 



lesse of the iiravell. 



-' 



The soil of Christian Malford, a parish adjoyning to Sutton, is very rich, and underneath is gravell 

 in many parts. 



The first ascent from Chippenham, sc. above the Deny hill, is sandy : e. g. Bowdon-parke, Spy- 

 parke, Sandy-lane, great clear sand, of which I believe good glasse might be made ; but it is a little 

 too far from a navigable river. They are y" biggest graines of sand that ever I saw, and very 

 transparent : some where thereabout is sand quite white. 



At Burbidge the soile is an ash-coloured gray sand, and very uaturall for the production of good 

 turnips. They are the best that ever I did eate, and are sent for far and neere : they are not tough 

 and stringy like other turnips, but cutt like marmalad. 



Quajre, how long the trade of turnips has been here ? For it is certain that all the turnips that 

 were brought to Bristoll eighty years since [now 1680] were from Wales ; and now none come 

 from thence, for they have found out that the red sand about Bristoll doth breed a better and a 

 bigger turnip. 



Burbidge is also remarqueable for excellent pease. 



The turf of our downes, and so east and west, is the best in the world for gardens and bowling- 

 greens ; for more southward it is burnt, and more north it is course. 



Temple downe in Preshut parish, belonging to the right honfele Charles Lord Seymour, worth xx s 

 per acre, and better, a great quantity of it 



