Anno 1581, there fell hail-stones at Dogdeane, near Salisbury, as big as a child’s fist of three or four yeares old; which is mentioned in the Preface of an Almanack by John Securis, Maister of Arts and Physick, dedicated to .....  Lord High Chancellor.  He lived at Salisbury.  “Tis pitty such accidents are not recorded in other Almanacks in order for a history of the weather.
        ___________________________________

Edward Saintlow, of Knighton, Esq. was buried in the church of Broad Chalk, May the 6th, 1578, as appeares by the Register booke.  The snow did then lie so thick on the ground that the bearers carried his body over the gate in Knighton field, and the company went over the hedges, and they digged a way to the church porch.  I knew some ancient people of the parish that did remember it.  On a May day, 1655 or 1656, being then in Glamorganshire, at Mr. Jo.  Aubrey’s at Llanchrechid, I saw the mountaines of Devonshire all white with snow.  There fell but little in Glamorganshire.
        ___________________________________

From the private Chronologicall Notes of the learned Edward Davenant, of Gillingham, D.D.:- “On the 25th of July 1670, there was a rupture in the steeple of Steeple Ashton by lightning.  The steeple was ninety-three feet high above the tower; which was much about that height.  This being mending, and the last stone goeing to be putt in by the two master workemen, on the 15th day of October following, a sudden storme with a clap of thunder tooke up the steeple from the tower, and killed both the workmen in nictu oculi.  The stones fell in and broke part of the church, but never hurt the font.  This account I had from Mr. Walter Sloper, attorney, of Clement’s Inne, and it is registred on the church wall.” [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.
        ___________________________________