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 ye 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 naturall 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.
Quaere, 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 honble Charles
Lord Seymour, worth xxs. per acre, and better, a great quantity of it.
As to the green circles on the downes, vulgarly called faiery circles (dances), I presume they are generated from the breathing out of a fertile subterraneous vapour. (The ring-worme on a man's flesh is circular. Excogitate a paralolisme between the cordial heat and ye subterranean heat, to elucidate this phenomenon.) Every tobacco-taker knowes that 'tis no strange thing for a circle of smoke to be whiff'd out of the bowle of the pipe; but 'tis donne by chance. If you digge under the turfe of this circle, you will find at the rootes of the grasse a hoare or mouldinesse. But as there are fertile steames, so contrary wise there are noxious ones, which proceed from some mineralls, iron, &c.; which also as the others, cæteris paribus, appear in a circular forme. ___________________________________
In the common field of Winterbourn …… is the celebrated path called St. Thomas Becket's path. It leads from the village up to Clarendon Parke. Whether this field be sown or lies fallow, the path is visible to one that lookes on it from the hill, and it is wonderfull. But I can add yet farther the testimonies of two that I very well know (one of them my servant, and of an excellent sight) that will attest that, riding in the rode from London one morning in a great snow, they did see this path visible on the snow. St. Thomas Becket, they say, was sometime a cure priest at Winter-bourn, and did use to goe along this path up to a chapell in Clarendon Parke, to say masse, and very likely 'tis true: but I have a conceit that this path is caused by a warme subterraneous steame from a long crack in the earth, which may cause snow to dissolve sooner there than elsewhere: and consequently gives the dissolving snow a darker colour, just as wee see the difference of whites in damask linnen.
The right reverend father in God, Seth, Lord Bishop of Salisbury, averres to me that at Silchester in Hampshire, which was a Roman citie, one may discerne in the corne ground the signe of the streetes; nay, passages and hearthes: which also Dr. Jo. Wilkins (since Lord Bishop of Chester) did see with him, and has affirm'd the same thing to me. They were there, and saw it in the spring.
——— "ita res accendunt lumina rebus".- LUCRETIUS. ___________________________________