Wiltshire

“ The downes of Wiltshire are covered with mists, when the vales are clear from them, and the sky serene; and they are much more often here than in the lowest story or stage.
The leather covers of bookes, &c. doe mold more and sooner in the hill countrey than in the vale. The covers of my bookes in my closet at Chalke would be all over covered with a hoare mouldinesse, that I could not know of what colour the leather was; when my bookes in my closet at Easton- Piers (in the vale) were not toucht at all with any mouldiness. ”

“ That which we admire most is not always that which would be our choice. One might imagine, that after all that I have said about this fine county, I should certainly prefer it as a place of residence. I should not, however: my choice has been always very much divided between the woods of Sussex and the downs of Wiltshire. I should not like to be compelled to decide; but if I were compelled, I do believe that I should fix on some vale in Wiltshire. ”

“ They all know it "in a way"; they have seen Salisbury Cathedral and Stonehenge, which everybody must go to look at once in his life; and they have also viewed the country from the windows of a railroad carriage as they passed through on their flight to Bath and to Wales with its mountains, and to the west country, which many of us love best of all—Somerset, Devon, and Cornwall. For there is nothing striking in Wiltshire, at all events to those who love nature first; nor mountains, nor sea, nor anything to compare with the places they are hastening to, west or north. The downs! ”

“ A great treat was in store for us this morning, for we had to pass through Wilton, with its fine park surrounding Wilton House, the magnificent seat of the Herberts, Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery. Our first impression was that Wilton was one of the pleasantest places we had visited. Wiltshire took its name from the river Wylye, which here joins the Nadder, so that Wilton had been an important place in ancient times, being the third oldest borough in England. Egbert, the Wessex King, had his palace here, and in the great contest with Mercia defeated Beornwulf in 821 at Ellendune. ”

“ It has been necessary to omit much which the progress of scientific knowledge has rendered obsolete; and in the passages quoted, the object has been to select such as possessed the most general interest, as well as having direct application to Wiltshire. A good summary of the Geological characteristics of the county will be found in the article "Wiltshire," in the Penny Cyclopædia. Mr. John Provis, of Chippenham, contributed a similar sketch to the third volume of the Beauties of Wiltshire ”

“ What man on coming to such places and watching the rushing, sparkling, foaming torrent by day and listening to its splashing, gurgling sounds by night, does not resolve that he will live in no village that has not a perennial stream in it! This unblessed, high and dry village has nothing but the winter bourne which gives it its name; a sort of surname common to a score or two of villages in Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, and Hants. ”

“ South and North Wiltshire are wett and dampish soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and unwholsome dampe. Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the inhabitants doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my worthy friend George Johnson of Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say that he did observe in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and Denbigh, that men lived there as commonly to an hundred yeares as with us to eighty. ”

“ But William Scott, of Hedington, a very understanding man in these things, told me that since 1630 the fashion of husbandry in this country had been altered three times over, still refining.
Mr. Bishop, of Merton, first brought into the south of Wiltshire the improvement by burn-beking or Denshiring, about 1639. He learnt it in Flanders; it is very much used in this parish, and their neighbours doe imitate them: they say 'tis good for the father, but naught for the son, by reason it does so weare out the heart of the land. ”

“ But the other villages that cannot be named were in scores and hundreds, scattered all over Wiltshire, for the entire county was visible from that altitude, and not Wiltshire only but Somerset, and Berkshire and Hampshire, and all the adjoining counties, and finally, the prospect still widening, all England from rocky Land's End to the Cheviots and the wide windy moors sprinkled over with grey stone villages. Thousands and thousands of villages ”

“ Wiltshire is thus said to be divided between chalk and cheese, for the northern district [Pg 389] beyond the plain is a great dairy region. Let us journey northward from Salisbury across the plain, and as we enter its southern border there rises up almost at the edge the conical hill of Old Sarum, crowned by intrenchments. When they were made is not known, but in 552 they were a British defence against the Saxons, who captured them after a bitter fight and overran the plain. ”

“ Wiltshire consists of beautiful and extensive downs, and rich meadow and pasture lands, which support some of the finest dairies and farms that can be met with in the kingdom. The natives are a very strong and hardy set of men, and are particularly fond of robust sports; their chief and favourite amusement is backswording, or singlestick, for which they are as greatly celebrated as the inhabitants of the adjoining counties, Somersetshire and Gloucestershire. ”

“ Such a migration would perhaps be made by land, and some of these Wilte may have gone further. The name of the first settlers in Wiltshire has been derived by some authors from a migration of Wilte from near Wiltaburg, [20] and the name Wilsætan appears to afford some corroboration. It is certain that Wiltshire was becoming settled in the latter half of the sixth century, and such a migration may either have come direct from the Baltic or the Elbe, or from the Wilte settlement in Holland. ”

“ Their profession leadeth them to an acquaintance of herbes, and the taske being divided, would not be very troublesome; and, besides the pleasure, would be of great use. The apothecaries of Highworth, Malmesbury, Calne, and Bath (which is within three miles of Wilts) might give an account of the northern part of Wiltshire, which abounds with rare simples: the apothecaries of Warminster, the Devises, and Marleborough, the midland part; and the apothecaries of Salisbury the south part, towards the New Forest. ”

“ Wiltshire bought the sovereignty of the Isle of Man from the earl of Salisbury. In 1398 he became treasurer of England. His execution at Bristol was one of the first acts of Henry IV., and the irregular sentence of an improvised court was confirmed by that monarch's first parliament. Wiltshire's father, Lord Scrope, and his other sons were not included in the attainder, but received full pardon from Henry. Scrope, who was the builder of Bolton Castle, his principal residence, died in 1403. ”

“ The survival of the name and the folk-lore connected with it in Rügen and in Pomerania at the present day is important, in reference to the survival of the name in Wiltshire at the present time, and its wider existence in that county in the Anglo-Saxon period. Such a survival strongly supports the other evidence relating to Wiltshire settlers of Wendish descent. The original Wilsæte or Wilte settlers, being at least partly made up of Wends, would naturally bring with them to Wiltshire some of the mythology of Rügen. ”

“ Between 1823 and 1828 Duke contributed to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ chiefly on Wiltshire antiquities. In his ‘Druidical Temples of the County of Wilts,’ London, 1846, 12mo, he maintained that the early inhabitants of Wiltshire had ‘pourtrayed a vast planetarium or stationary orrery on the face of the Wiltshire downs,’ the earth being represented by Silbury Hill, and the sun and planets, revolving round it, by seven ‘temples,’ four of stone and three of earth, placed at their proper distances. ”

“ In 1295 Wiltshire was represented by no less than twenty-eight members in parliament, the shire returning two knights, and the boroughs of Bedwin, Bradford, Calne, Chippenham, Cricklade, Devizes, Downton, Ludgershall, Malmesbury, Marlborough, Old Sarum, Salisbury and Wilton, two burgesses each, but the boroughs for the most part made very irregular returns. Hindon, Heytesbury and Wootton Bassett were enfranchised in the 15th century, and at the time of the Reform Act of 1832 the county with sixteen boroughs returned a total of thirty-four members. ”

“ In considering the flowers we lose sight of the downs, and so in occupying ourselves with the details we miss the general effect. Let me then, once more, before concluding this chapter, try to capture the secret of this little river.
There are other chalk streams in Wiltshire and Hampshire and Dorset—swift crystal currents that play all summer long with the floating poa grass fast held in their pebbly beds, flowing through smooth downs, with small ancient churches in their green villages, and pretty thatched cottages smothered in flowers—which yet do not produce the same effect as the Wylye. ”

“ Introductory remarks—Wiltshire little favoured by tourists—Aspect of the downs—Bad weather—Desolate aspect—The bird-scarer—Fascination of the downs—The larger Salisbury Plain—Effect of the military occupation—A century's changes—Birds—Old Wiltshire sheep—Sheep-horns in a well—Changes wrought by cultivation—Rabbit-warrens on the downs—Barrows obliterated by the plough and by rabbits
Wiltshire looks large on the map of England, a great green county, yet it never appears to be a favourite one to those who go on rambles in the land. ”

“ This valley has on the north and east the familiar aspect of Salisbury Plain. On the south and west are those wooded hills that are seen also from the neighbourhood of Fonthill, and though both sides of the valley are made of the same material—the current chalk of Wiltshire—they are very unlike in their superficial scenery. The Wylye is perhaps the most beautiful of Wiltshire rivers, and although it has an important cross-country railway running close to it for the greater part of its length, the villages and hamlets upon the banks are peculiarly calm, secluded and unspoilt. ”

“ From Malmsbury I first came, at the end of five miles, to Tutbury, which is in Gloucestershire, there being here a sort of dell, or ravine, which, in this place, is the boundary line of the two counties, and over which you go on a bridge, one-half of which belongs to each county. And now, before I take my leave of Wiltshire, I must observe that, in the whole course of my life (days of courtship excepted, of course) , I never passed seventeen pleasanter days than those which I have just spent in Wiltshire. ”

“ In 1535 the archdeaconry of Salisbury included the additional deanery of Salisbury, while Potterne deanery had been transferred to the archdeaconry of Wiltshire. The deaneries of the archdeaconry of Salisbury have remained unaltered; Wiltshire archdeaconry now includes the deaneries of Avebury, Marlborough and Potterne; and the deaneries of Chippenham, Cricklade and Malmesbury form part of the archdeaconry and diocese of Bristol.
The inhabitants of Wiltshire have always been addicted to industrial rather than warlike pursuits, and the political history of the county is not remarkable. ”

“ The Hungerfords were seated in Wiltshire in the twelfth century, and Thomas's father sat for the county in the parliaments of 1331-2, 1333-4, and 1336. An uncle, Robert, sat for Wiltshire in the parliament of 1316, was a commissioner to inquire into the possessions of the Despensers after their attainder in 1328, and gave much land to the hospital at Calne in memory of his first wife, Joan, to the church of Hungerford, Wiltshire, and to other religious foundations. ”

“ Advertisement to the surveyor of Wiltshire, as to the mappe. - Let him make his two first stations at the south downe at Broad Chalke, which he may enlarge two miles or more; from whence he may ken with his bare eye to Portsmouth, all the Isle of Wight, to Portland, to the towers and chimny's of Shaftesbury, to Knoll-hill, to the promontory of Roundway-down above the Devises: to St. Anne's hill, vulgo Tanne hill, to Martinsoll hill, to Amesbury becon-hill, to Salisbury steeple, &c. When he comes into North Wiltshire his prospect will not be much shorter. ”

“ The average area of the large farmer’s land in Wiltshire seems to have been about 352 acres, and it is not unusual to find manors where there are only two or three customary tenants, while on some there were none at all. Wiltshire no doubt must not be taken as typical of all other counties, as the acreage of the leasehold farms held by men who had capital to spend could so easily be increased by drawing in great tracts from the rolling stretches of Chalk Down. ”

“ On this parke is a seate of my worthy friend George Johnson, Esqr., councillor at lawe, from whence is a large and most delightfull prospect over the vale of North Wiltshire.
Old Wiltshire country prognosticks of the weather:-
"When the hen doth moult before the cock,
The winter will be as hard as a rock;
But if the cock moults before the hen,
The winter will not wett your shoes seame."
In South Wiltshire the constant observation is that if droppes doe hang upon the hedges on Candlemas-day that it will be a good pease yeare. It is generally agreed on to be matter of fact ”

“ An important and deeply interesting institution of Devizes is the Wilts County Museum, in Long street, devoted to the natural history and the archæology of Wiltshire. The library contains a priceless collection of Wiltshire books, and the museum is rich in geological specimens,—richer even than the excellent museum of Salisbury; for, in addition to other treasures, it includes the famous Stourhead collection, made by Sir Richard Colt Hoare,—being relics from the ancient British and Saxon barrows on the Wiltshire downs. ”