Chapter XV · 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.

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.

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.