At Calne was a fine high steeple which stood upon four pillars in the middle of the church.  One of the pillars was faulty, and the churchwardens were dilatory, as is usual in such cases. — Chivers, Esq. of that parish, foreseeing the fall of it, if not prevented, and the great charge they must be at by it, brought down Mr. Inigo Jones to survey it.  This was about 1639 or 1640:  he gave him 30 li. out of his own purse for his paines.  Mr. Jones would have underbuilt it for an hundred pounds.  About 1645 it fell down, on a Saturday, and also broke down the chancell; the parish have since been at 1,000 li.  Charge to make a new heavy tower.  Such will be the fate of our steeple at Kington St. Michael; one cannot perswade the parishioners to goe out of their own way. [In another of Aubrey’s MSS. (his “Description of North Wiltshire"), is a sketch of the tower and spire of the church of Kington St. Michael, shewing several large and serious cracks in the walls.  The spire was blown down in 1703, its neglected state no doubt contributing to its fall.  The following manuscript note by James Gilpin, Esq.  Recorder of Oxford (who was born at Kington in 1709), may be added, from my own collections for the history of this, my native parish.  “In ye great storm in ye year 1703, ye spire of this church was blown down, and two of ye old bells I remember standing in ye belfry till ye tower was pulled down in 1724, in order to be rebuilt It was rebuilt accordingly, and the bells were then new cast, with ye assistance of Mr. Harington ye Vicar, who gave a new bell, on which his name is inscribed, so as to make a peal of six bells.  On these bells are the following inscriptions:- 1.  Prosperity to this parish, 1726. 2.  Peace and good neighbourhood, 1726. 3.  Prosperity to ye Church of England, 1726. 4.  William Harington, Vicar.  A. R. 1726 (A.  R. means Abraham Rudhall, ye bell founder). 5.  Has no inscription, but 1726 in gilt figures. 6.  Jonathan Power and Robert Hewett, Churchwardens, 1726.” — J. B.]
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Sir William Dugdale told me he finds that painting in glasse came first into England in King John’s time.  Before the Reformation I believe there was no county or great town in England but had glasse painters.  Old ......  Harding, of Blandford in Dorsetshire, where I went to schoole, was the only countrey glasse-painter that ever I knew.  Upon play dayes I was wont to visit his shop and furnaces.  He dyed about 1643, aged about 83, or more.

In St. Edmund’s church at Salisbury were curious painted glasse windowes, especially in the chancell, where there was one window, I think the east window, of such exquisite worke that Gundamour, the Spanish Ambassadour, did offer some hundreds of pounds for it, if it might have been bought.  In one of the windowes was the picture of God the Father, like an old man, which gave offence to H. Shervill, Esq. then Recorder of this city (this was about 1631), who, out