The strawberries of Colerne

I have banged on about John Aubrey before in other posts - he is a bit of an English hero for me - so I was amazed and pleased to find this book in a charity shop yesterday.

Aubrey was an eccentric, mid-seventeenth century 'Antiquary' and is best known for his book of 'Brief Lives', revived by Roy Dotrice in a stage play by Patrick Garland back in the 1970s, and recently adapted for drama by Nick Warburton on BBC Radio 4. Whoever collated and edited the original manuscript for printing about 400 years ago had an epic task on their hands, which you would appreciate if you saw the sheaves of ragged and scrappy paper filled so completely with Aubrey's spidery writing that there are many tracts - added as an afterthought - running up the margins in both directions. That's the way his butterfly mind worked, and that is probably also the reason I identify with him. It also reflects the scarcity of paper at the time - Aubrey himself bemoans the loss of many older books from the libraries of wealthy estates - the pages were torn out and used as wadding for the new-fangled sport of 'shooting gunnes'.

Along with William Stukely, Aubrey was one of the first to take a proper, vaguely scientific look at the many pre-historic stone monuments that abound in the vast county of Wiltshire, his home county which borders on the eastern edge of Somerset, about 3 miles from the centre of Bath, my home town.

In mid 17th century England, Isaac Walton was peacefully writing 'The Compleat Angler' at the same time that Aubrey was writing his studies on Wiltshire, and they were both scribbling away during the height of the bloody English Civil War. It was around this time that a more scientific approach to history was being formulated to add reason to the superstitious folk-lore which had surrounded them since the Dark Ages, and the Royal Society was formed, putting all the great, experimental minds under one roof. You can still apply for membership of The Society of Antiquaries today, but sadly I don't qualify - you have to be serious about your chosen subject.

This makes this book sound dry, but it really isn't. The few bits I have read so far include a description of an abundance of delicious strawberries to be found in the woods of Colerne (about 4 miles from Bath) which were gathered by children, packed in boxes of tree-bark (killing the trees in the process) then taken down into town to be sold on the streets or at market. During WW2, most of those woods were destroyed to build an airfield which is still in use today, so I doubt if the strawberries survived.

All the animals (beastes) - both wild and domesticated - are described, and the famous local dignitaries are listed, along with the large houses which were their country seats. Holy springs which have since grown over or dried up are mentioned, and the main sources of 'free stone' are also counted, along with the various qualities of the quarries and their materials. 'Hartham Park' was the main quarry for freestone (stone which is not governed by the rules regarding 'ashlar' sizes, and which can be cut in any direction), and Hartham Park (near Corsham, Wiltshire) is still used today. I have about half a ton of it in my workshop right now.

This book was never printed or published in Aubrey's time, but was produced in 1847 for the Wiltshire Topographical Society. My copy is a facsimile re-print of that one, made in 1969. Anyway, this is beginning to sound like a book review, so I had better leave it at that.