Some Natural Observations Made in the Parishes of Kinardsey and Donington in Shropshire, by the Reverend Mr. George Plaxton. Communicated by Mr. Ralph Thoresby, to Dr. Hans Sloane, R. S. Secr.

VI. Some Natural Observations made in the Parishes of Kinardsey and Donington in Shropshire, by the Reverend Mr. George Plaxton. Communicated by Mr. Ralph Thoresby, to Dr. Hans Sloane, R. S. Secr. SIR, YOU have oftentimes desired me to give you an Account of such Observations as I had made in my Parishes in Shropshire, and in some of the neighbouring Villages; my poor Remarks are hardly worth your notice, however to shew you that I cannot deny you anything, I now send them, or some part of them. Anno 1673, I was presented to the Vicarage of Sheriffe-Hales, and also to the Rectory of Kinnardsey, the former in the Counties of Salop and Staff. The other wholly in Shropshire. November 6. I was inducted into the Parsonage of Kinnardsey, where I was incumbent for so Years and upwards; at my Induction I found a great many Aged People in the Parish, upon which I took the Number of the Inhabitants, and found that every sixth Soul was Sixty Years of Age, and upwards, some were 85 and some 90; this I could not but wonder at, considering that the Town was surrounded with a large Morass, overflowed in Winter, and that you could not come into the Parish any way upon Arable Land. At my Entrance there, I found neither Gentleman nor Begger, nor any sort of Dissenter from the Church; there had been no Law Suit amongst them in the Memory of Man, nor was any commenced menced during my Incumbency as Rector there, for above Thirty Years together; they have but one way to the Town and Parish, the rest they hire from Lords of the adjacent Manors. The Morasses or Moors are of a great extent, and the Parish was surrounded with them, the Village was called Kinnardsey or Kinnardus his Island; ei, ea, ey, all these are Watry Terminations: Thus the next Parish was Eyton, the Town upon the Waters, Falney, or Edwyney, Edwin's Island, Butterey, or Butterey, the Island of Butter, being a long Grazing Tract of Land, with some others of the like ending. All that vast Morass was called, the Weald-Moor, or the Wild Moor, that is, the Woody Moor: Thus the Wood-Lands of Kent are called the Weald of Kent; the Wolds of Yorkshire most probably have been Woody formerly, and called the Wealds, for the Word Weald or Wold is by our Saxon Masters render'd Woody; and I have been assured from Aged people, that all the Wild Moors were formerly so far overgrown by Rubbish Wood, such as Alders, Willoughs, Salleys, Thorns, and the like, that the Inhabitants commonly hang'd Bells about the Necks of their Cows, that they might the more easily find them. These Moors seem to be nothing else but a Composition of such Sludge and Refuse as the Floods left upon the Surface of the Ground, when they drain'd away, and yet this Sediment is full three or four Foot thick; for I have often observed, that the Black Soil cast up by Moles, or digged out of the Ditches, was a meer Composition of Roots, Leaves, Fibres, Spray of Wood, such as the Water had brought and left behind it; in Digging they often find Roots and Stumps of Oaks three or four Foot under the Surface, and they are very common in the bottom of their Ditches and Drains: The Soil is peaty, and cut up for Fewel in some part of the Lordship; in the bottom of these Peat Pits, they find Clay, Sand, and other sorts of Earth. These Grounds have have been formerly much higher, for I have observed Oaks and other Trees, where the present Soyl is so much shrunk and settled from them, that they stand upon high Stilts, and are supported from the great Fibres of the Roots, so that Sheep may easily creep under them. That great Tract, called formerly Vasta Regalis, is now by Draining become good Pasturage, and yields my Lord Gower, the Owner of it, a considerable Rent, his Ancestors having purchased the Royalty from one of the Earls of Shrewsbury: It yields great Quantities of Hay, tho much of it is of such a nature, that it will dry up a new Milch-Cow, starve an Horse, yet will it feed an Oxe to admiration; and I have heard some Grassiers say, they could not by their best Upland Hay feed an Oxe so fat, as the Moor-Hay would do; this, I suppose proceeded from its dry and binding Quality that made the Oxen drink much. One thing I must further observe to you, within the Parish, about half a Mile from the Church, there is a pretty Farm call'd The Wall, which I judge was formerly a British Fortification; 'tis encompassed with a Morass, and raised up from Sand, broken Stones, Gravel, and Rubbish to a great height and breadth, being (as I measured it) above 1900 Yards in Compass, and 16, 18, and 20 Yards in Breadth: In some places it seems to have been Built before the Moors became Boggy, for I could never find any way over the Moors, by which they could carry those vast Quantities of Earth, Clay, Sand and Rubbish to raise that mighty Rampire. In that Parish I was the Sixth Rector from the Days of Henry VIII. As to my Rectory of Donington, to which I was presented Anno 1690. I found there as many Old People as I did at Kinnardsey, nay, I may say more; and in the two Parishes I had but a difference of three in the Number of the People; at Kinnardsey I had 135 Souls, at Donington 138; 138; of the 135 I had 23 Aged 60 and upwards, of the 138, 24; both which Numbers Multiplied by 6, the one at Kinnardsey was 138, the other at Donington would have been 144. I had nothing very remarkable at Donington, save the Royal Oak, which stood at Boscobel within the Parish, and the Owners thereof paid 6 s. 6 d. yearly, in lieu of their Tythes and Offerings: The Royal Oak was a fair spread thriving Tree, the Boughs of it were all lined and covered with Ivy; here in the Thick of these Boughs the King sate in the Day-time with Colonel Carlos, and in the Night lodged in Boscobel-House, so that they are strangely mistaken, who judged it an old hollow Oak, whereas it was a gay and flourishing Tree, surrounded with a great many more; and as I remember in Mr. Evelyn's History of Medals, you have one of King James I. or King Charles I. where there is a fine spread Oak with this Epigraph, Seris Nepotibus Umbra; which I leave to your Thoughts. The People here live to great Ages; I saw in one House three Healthful People, whose Ages numbed together made 278, and I think they lived some Years after; they were the Man and his Wife, and his Wife's Brother. I was at Donington about 13 Years and some Months; in all that time I Buried but 27 People, of which Number 4 came from Neighbouring Parishes, 4 were Young ones, and of the remaining 19 the youngest was about 60, and the eldest 95 Years of Age. I was there the fourth Legal Incumbent in Succession from the Reformation; and as I remember at one Triennial Visitation of the Bishop, we had neither Burial or Wedding to return into the Registry at Litchfield: The Country is very Healthful in those Parts, and tho it seems to the Eye of a Traveller to be but of a moderate height, yet in riding between Donington and Wolver-Hampton, which is but five Miles, you cross four Rills or Brooks in the Compass of three Miles. Miles, two of which run into the South-West Seas, viz. to Severn and Bristol, the other two hasten to Trent and Humber, and so into the Northern Ocean. The Poor Remains of the Royal Oak are now fenced in by an handsome Brick-Wall, at the Charge of Basil Fitz-Herbert Esquire, with this Inscription over the Gate, (upon a Blue Stone) in Golden Letters. Feliciissimae Arborem quam in Asylum Potentissimi Regis Caroli Secundi Deus Opt. Max. per quem Reges regnant, hic crescere voluit, tam in perpetuum rei tanta Memoriam, quam in Specimen Firmæ in Reges fidei, Muro cinctam Posteris Commendant, Bazillius & Jana Fitz Herbert. Queras Amica jivi. 'Twas put up about Twenty or Thirty Years ago, but the Place deserved a Nobler Memorial; I have writ it in such Lines as they have cut it, and as the Letters now stand; a few Years will ruine both the Wall and the Inscription. The Emblematic Medal my good Friend alludes to, is the XLVIth in Mr. Evelyn's Numismata, which King Charles I. caused to be stamped in honour of the Inauguration of his Son, whereupon is the Royal Oak under Prince's Coronet, overspreading Subnecent Trees and young Suckers. SERIS FACTURA. NEPOTIBUS. UMBRAM. Reverse within the Garter of the Order is this Legend. CAROL. M. B. REGIS. FILIUS CAROL. PRINC. INAUGURATUR. XXII. MAII. MDCXXXIX. The Inscription at Boscobel reminds me of one I had from the late Reverend Mr. Illingsworth, President of Emanuel College in Cambridge, which was Inscribed upon a Pillar erected by the Sea side. *Siste, viator, iter, vestigia prima secundus Posuit hic Carolus, quem redit exilio.* VII. An Account of the Cape of Good Hope, by Mr. John Maxwell: Communicated by the Reverend Dr. John Harris, F. R. S. THE Cape of Good Hope, which is part of Monomotapa, and the Southernmost part of Africa, lies in the Latitude of 34 Degrees 30 Minutes South, and 16 Degrees 15 Minutes East of London. It was first, that we know of, discovered by Bartholomew Diaz, A.D. 1493, under John II. King of Portugal. He gave it the Name of the Cape of Tempests, because of the Storms he met with there, with which 'tis not strange that it is sometimes troubled; as likewise with a Sea that runs very high, and makes it ill riding at Anchor there when the Wind is at North-West, seeing it is a Shread of Land stretch'd out into a vast Ocean on each side; but King John gave it the Name of Bona Esperanca, or of Good Hope, which it still retains;