" [The inscription will be found in the Beauties of
Wiltshire, vol. iii. page 205. It fully details the above
circumstances.-J. B.]
Whilst the breaches were mending and the thunder showr arose, one
standing in the church-yard observed a black cloud to come sayling
along towards the steeple, and called to the workman as he was on the
scaffold; and wisht him to beware of it and to make hast. But before
he went off the clowd came to him, and with a terrible crack threw
down the steeple, sc. about the middle, where he was at worke.
Immediately they lookt up and their steeple was lost.
I doe well remember, when I was seaven yeares old, an oake in a ground
called Rydens, in Kington St. Michael Parish, was struck with
lightning, not in a strait but helical line, scil. once about the tree
or once and a half, as a hop twists about the pole; and the stria
remains now as if it had been made with a gouge.
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On June 3rd, 1647, (the day that Cornet Joyce did carry King Charles
prisoner to the Isle of Wight from Holdenby,) did appeare this
phenomenon, [referring to a sketch in the margin which represents two
luminous circles, intersecting each other; the sun being seen in the
space formed by their intersection.-J. B.] which continued from about
ten a clock in the morning till xii. It was a very cleare day, and few
took notice of it because it was so near the sunbeams. It was seen at
Broad Chalke by my mother, who espied it going to see what a clock it
was at an horizontal dial, and then all the servants about the house
sawe it Also Mr.
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