THE RACE.
HENRY Earle of Pembroke [1570-1601] instituted Salisbury Race;* which
hath since continued very famous, and beneficiall to the city. He gave
….. pounds to the corporation of Sarum to provide every yeare, in the
first Thursday after Mid-Lent Sunday, a silver bell [see note below],
of …… value; which, about 1630, was turned into a silver cup of the
same value. This race is of two sorts: the greater, fourteen miles,
beginnes at Whitesheet and ends on Harnham-hill, which is very seldom
runn, not once perhaps in twenty yeares. The shorter begins at a place
called the Start, at the end of the edge of the north downe of the
farme of Broad Chalke, and ends at the standing at the hare-warren,
built by William Earle of Pembroke, and is four miles from the Start.
*[In the civic archives of Salisbury, under the date of 1585, is the
following memorandum:—“These two years, in March, there was a race run
with horses at the farthest three miles from Sarum, at the which were
divers noble personages, and the Earl of Cumberland won the golden
bell, which was valued at 501. and better, the which earl is to bring
the same again next year, which he promised to do, upon his honour, to
the mayor of this city”. See Hatcher’s History of Salisbury, p. 294. In
the Appendix to that volume is a copy of an Indenture, made in 1654,
between the Mayor and Commonalty of the city and Sir Edward Baynton of
Bromham, relative to the race-cup. It recites that Henry Earl of
Pembroke in his lifetime gave a golden bell, to be run for yearly, “at
the place then used and accustomed for horse races, upon the downe or
plaine leading from New Sarum towards the towne of Shaston
[Shaftesbury], in the county of Dorset”. This would imply that the
nobleman referred to was not the founder of Salisbury Races.—J. B.]
It is certain that Peacock used to runn the four-miles course in five
minutes and a little more; and Dalavill since came but little short of
him. Peacock was first Sir Thomas Thynne’s of Long-leate; who valued
him at 1,000 pounds. Philip Earle of Pembrock gave 51i. but to have a
sight of him: at last his lordship had him; I thinke by gift. Peacock
was a bastard barb. He was the most beautifull horse ever seen in this
last age, and was as fleet as handsome. He dyed about 1650.
“Here lies the man whose horse did gaine
The bell in race on Salisbury plaine;
Reader, I know not whether needs it,
You or your horse rather to reade it.”
At Everly is another race. Quære, if the Earle of Abington hath not set
up another?
Stobball-play is peculiar to North Wilts, North Gloucestershire, and a
little part of Somerset near Bath. They smite a ball, stuffed very hard
with quills and covered with soale leather, with a staffe, commonly
made of withy, about 3 [feet] and a halfe long. Colerne-downe is the
place so famous and so frequented for stobball-playing. The turfe is
very fine, and the rock (freestone) is within an inch and a halfe of
the surface, which gives the ball so quick a rebound. A stobball-ball
is of about four inches diameter, and as hard as a stone. I doe not
heare that this game is used anywhere in England but in this part of
Wiltshire and Gloucestershire adjoining.