The last Lady Abbese of Amesbury was a Kirton, who after the dissolution married to….. Appleton of Hampshire. She had during her life a pension from King Henry VIII.: she was 140 yeares old when she dyed. She was great-great-aunt to Mr. Child, Rector of Yatton Keynell; from whom I had this information. Mr. Child, the eminent banker in Fleet Street, is Parson Child's cosen-german. [The name of the last Abbess of Amesbury was Joan Darell, who surrendered to the King, 4 Dec. 1540. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Amesbury Hundred, p. 73. J. B.]
When King Charles II. was at Salisbury, 1665, a piper of Stratford sub
Castro playd on his tabor and pipe before him, who was a piper in
Queen Elizabeth's time, and aged then more than 100.
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One goodwife Mills of Yatton Keynel, a tenant of my father's, did dentire in the 88 yeare of her age, which was about the yeare 1645. The Lord Chancellour Bacon speakes of the like of the old Countesse of Desmond, in Ireland. ___________________________________
Mr. William Gauntlett, of Netherhampton, born at Amesbury, told me that since his remembrance there were digged up in the churchyard at Amesbury, which is very spacious, a great number of huge bones, exceeding, as he sayes, the size of those of our dayes. At Highworth, at the signe of the Bull, at one Hartwells, I have been credibly enformed is to be seen a scull of-a vast bignesse, scilicet half as big again as an ordinary one. From Mr. Kich. Brown, Rector of Somerford Magna, (At Wotton in Surrey, where my brother enlarged the vault in which our family are buried, digging away the earth for the foundations, they found a complete skeleton neer nine foot in length, the skull of an extraordinary size. - J. EVELYN.)
George Johnson Esq. bencher of the Middle Temple, digging for marle at Bowdon Parke, Ano. 1666, the diggers found the bones of a man under a quarrie of planke stones: he told me he saw it. He was a serious person, and "fide dignus". ___________________________________
At Wishford Magna is the inscription, "Hic jacet Thomas Bonham, armiger, quondam Patronus istius Ecclesiæ, qui quidem Thomas obiit vicesimo nono die Maii, Anno Domini MCCCCLXXIII (1473); el Editha uxor ejus, quæ quidem Editha obiit vicesimo sexto die Aprilis, Anno D'ni MCCCCLXIX. (1469). Quorum animabus propitietur Deus.- Amen." They lye both buried under the great marble stone in the nave of this church, where is the above said inscription, above which are their pourtraictures in brasse, and an escucheon now illegible. Beneath this inscription are the small figures of nine young children in brasse. This Mr. Bonham's wife had two children at one birth, the first time: and he being troubled at it travelled, and was absent seven yeares. After his returne she was delivered of seven children at one birth. In this parish is a confident tradition that these seven children were all baptized at the font in this church, and that they were brought thither in a kind of chardger, which was dedicated to this church, and hung on two nailes, which are to be seen there yet, neer the bellfree on the south side. Some old men are yet living that doe remember the chardger. This tradition is entred into the register booke there, from whence I have taken this narrative (1659). [See the extract from the register, which is signed by "Roger Powell, Curate there," in Hoare's Modern Wilts. (Hundred of Branch and Dole) p. 49.-J. B.] ___________________________________
On Tuesday the 25th day of October, Anno Dni 1664, Mary, the wife of John Waterman, of Fisherton Anger, neer Salisbury, hostler, fell into travell, and on Wednesday, between one and two in the morning, was delivered of a female child, with all its parts duly formed. Aboute halfe an hour after she was delivered of a monstrous birth, having two heades, the one opposite to the other; the two shoulders had also [each] two armes, with the hands bearing respectively each against the other; two feet, &c. About four o'clock in the afternoon it was christened by the name of Martha and Mary, having two pretty faces, and lived till Fryday next. The female child first borne, whose name was Elselet, lived fourteen days, and died the 9th of November following: the mother then alive and in good health.
[This narrative is accompanied by a description of the internal structure of the lusus naturæ, as developed in a post mortem examination; which "accurate account," says Aubrey, "was made by my worthy and learned friend Thorn. Guidot, Dr. of Physick, who did kindly communicate it to me out of his collection of medicinall observations in Latin.">[
Dr. Wm. Harvey, author of the Circulation of the Blood, told me that one Mr. Palmer's wife in Kent did beare a child every day for five daies together. ___________________________________
A wench being great with child drowned herself in the river Avon, where, haveing layn twenty-four houres, she was taken up and brought into the church at Sutton Benger, and layd upon the board, where the coroner did his office. Mris. Joane Sumner hath often assured me that the sayd wench did sweat a cold sweat when she lay dead; and that she severall times did wipe off the sweat from her body, and it would quickly returne again: and she would have had her opened, because she did believe that the child was alive within her and might bee saved. ___________________________________