The old tradition is, that this church was “built upon wooll-packs”, and doubtlesse there is something in it which is now forgott.  I shall endeavour to retrieve and unriddle it by comparison.  There is a tower at Rouen in Normandie called the Butter Tower; for when it was built a toll was layd upon all the butter that was brought to Rouen, for and towards the building of this tower; as now there is a [duty] layd upon every chaldron of coales towards the building of St Paul’s Church, London:  so hereafter they may say that that church was built upon New-Castle coales.  In like manner it might be that heretofore, when Salisbury Cathedral was building, which was long before wooll was manufactured in England (the merchants of the staple sent it then in woolpacks beyond sea, to Flanders, &c.), that an imposition might be putt on the Wiltshire wool-packs towards the carrying on of this magnificent structure.  There is a saying also that London Bridge was built upon wooll-packs, upon the same account.

The height of Our Lady steeple at Salisbury was never found so little as 400 foot, and never more than 406 foot, by the observations of Thom.  Nash, surveyor of the workes of this church:  but Colonell John Wyndham did take the height more accurately, An° 1684, by a barometer:  sc. the height of the weather-dore of Our Lady Church steeple at Salisbury from the ground is 4280 inches.  The mercury subsided in that height 42/100 of an inch.  He affirms that the height of the said steeple is 404 foot, which he hath tryed severall times; and by the help of his barometer, which is accurately made according to his direction, he will with great facility take the height of any mountain:  quod N.B. [Col.  Wyndham’s measurement has been adopted as correct by most authors who have written on the subject since.- J. B.]

Memorandum.  About 1669 or 1670 Bishop Ward invited Sir Christopher Wren to Salisbury, out of curiosity, to survey the church there, as to the steeple, architecture, &c.  He was above a weeke about it, and writt a sheet or a sheet and a halfe, an account of it, which he presented to the bishop.  I asked the bishop since for it, and he told me he had lent it, to whom he could not tell, and had no copy of it.  ’Tis great pity the paines of so great an artist should be lost.  Sir Christopher tells me he hath no copie of it neither.

This year, 1691, Mr. Anth.  Wood tells me, he hath gott a transcript of Sir Chr.  Wren’s paper; which obtain, and insert here.  I much doubted I should never have heard of it again.

[Soon after writing this passage Aubrey probably obtained a copy of Sir Christopher Wren’s report, which he has inserted in his original manuscript.  It is dated in 1669, and occupies eleven folio pages.  In The History and Antiquities of the Cathedral of Salisbury, &c. (1723, 8vo.), it is printed, and described as “An Architectonical Account of this Cathedral”, by “an eminent gentleman”.  Part of the same report was printed in Wren’s Parentalia