This text was written by John Aubrey as he travelled around Wiltshire during the 1660s.
WESTPORT juxta Malmesbury. [1]
Before the late Warres here was a prettie Church, where there were very good windows and a fair steeple higher than the other, which much adorned the Towne of Malmesbury; in it were five tuneable bells, which Sir Wm. Waller melted into Ordnance, or rather sold; and the church was pulled down, that the enemie might not shelter themselves against the garrison of Malmesbury.
The church was dedicated to St. Mary. Here were three aisles, which took up the whole area. It is reported to have been more ancient than the Abbey. In the windowes, which were very good, were inscriptions which declared so much. [2]
As Westport, in the rode that goes towards Sherston, is an ancient building, which looks like an hermitage. [3] Q. de hoc. There are severall about Westport and Malmesbury.
This place is for nothing so famous as for the birth of my honoured and learned friend and country-man Mr. Thomas Hobbes. [4]
John Aubrey died before was able to research and publish the notes he made during his journey around Wiltshire. Some two hundred years later John Jackson undertook this task, and below is his corrections and updated information.
[1] Westport is now part of the town: being, as Aubrey elsewhere says, "the Parish without the West Gate: which Gate, now demolished, stood on the neck of land that joins Malmesbury to Westport."
The grange of Thornhill in this parish belonged to Malmesbury Abbey: and was granted in 1 Edw. Vi. to Sir William Herbert, the first Earl of Pembroke.
[2] In his "Life of T. Hobbes" written 1680, Aubrey says "Now is here rebuilt a church like a stable." To the body built between 1643 and 1680, an aisle was added a few years ago.
In the New Monasticon, vol. IV. p.402, under the head of St. Mary's Priory, Kington St. Michael, is a notice of a payment of 12 pence a year to that House, out of the rents belonging to St. Mary's Chantry, Westport
[3] Leland says The Hermitage was in the Kike of the town at the West end of the Parish Church. (?Burnevale Chapel.)
[4] At this point in his MS., Aubrey has some biographical memoranda of his friend, "the Philosopher of Malmesbury:" but as he afterwards used them in his "Life of Hobbes," (printed in "Letters from the Bodleian" vol. II. p.593) it will be sufficient to note here only such as more particularly relate to the town. In the Memoir alluded to, Aubrey is at great pains to describe minutely the site of the humble cottage in which Hobbes was born: and in the present MS. has left a sketch of it and a plan of the town, on purpose to identify the place without mistake. (See Pl. xxv. Letter A., and Plate xxvii. No. 388.) The sketch has survived the cottage, which was taken down some years ago. It stood at the corner of the Horse-Fair.
The Philosopher was second son of Mr. Thomas Hobbes, Vicar of Westport. "The Father," says Aubrey, "was one of the ignorant Sir Johns" (priests) "of Q. Elizabeth's time; could only read the prayers of the Church and the Homilies, and valued not learning, not knowing the sweetness of it. He was a cholerick man; and a Parson (who, I think, succeeded him at Westport) provoked him a-purpose at the Church door. So Vicar Hobbes stroke him, and was forced to fly for it, and, in obscurity beyond London, died." This family was established at Malmesbury. "The Vicar's elder Brother Francis had been Alderman" (the chief magistrate in those days). "He was a wealthy glover: a great trade there, and had been greater." Having no child, he maintained his nephew ("the Philosopher") at Oxford, and at his death gave him a pasture called the Gaston ground lying near to the Horse-Fair, worth £16 or £18 per annum.
At four years old Hobbes went to school in Westport Church: then to Mr. Evans, Minister of the town; and afterwards to Mr. Robert Latimer "a good Grecian, who being a Bachelor (of Arts) not above 19, taught him and two or three more ingeniose laddes after supper till 9: at his own house in Westport, where the broad place is, next door north from the Smyth's shop, opposite the Three Cuppes, as I take it," (see above. p. 102), "by whom he so well profited that at 14 years old he went a good scholar to Magdalene Hall in Oxford, and before he went did translate Euripidis Medea out of Greek into Latin iambiques. I have heard his brother say that when he was a boy he was playsome enough; but withall he had a contemplative melancholinesse. He would gett into a corner and gett his lesson presently. When young he loved musique and practised on the lute. In his old age too he used to sing prick-song every night when all were gonne and sure nobody would hear him, for his health, which he did believe would make him live 2 or 3 yeares longer. He was a tall man, rather more than six foot, hazel quick eie, which continued to his last. Higher that I am by half a head. He hath no countryman living now, 1677, hath known him so long as myself: nor of his friends doth know so much."
For the rest of Hobbes's Life the reader is referred to the work above-mentioned. He did not live in Malmesbury, but only visited it occasionally : ending his days under the protection of the Earl of Devonshire at Hardwick in Derbyshire. He was buried in the neighbouring Church of Ault Hucknall : where the following inscription is on his Tomb.
"Condita hic sunt ossa Thome Hobbes Malmesburiensis qui er multos annos servivit duobus Devoniae Comitibus, patri et filio. Vir probus, et fama eruditionis domi forisque bene cognitus. Obit A.D. 1679, mensis Decemb. die 4to aet. suae 91."
In John Aubrey's MS. of the present volume there is an original letter from his brother William Aubrey lying loose, containing as much information about Hobbes's kindred as he could obtain, from such of them as were surviving in 1680.
About 1660 Mr. William Hobbes, first or second cousin to the Pilosopher, was a great clothier at Malmesbury, and had an estate at Cleverton. There is still in Malmesbury Abbey Church, a brass to Edmund Hobbes, a Burgess 1606 : and the name often occurs in the Parish Registers, between 1590 and 1610. There is a portrait of the Philosopher at Hardwick : an engraving in the Antiquarian Repertory vol. I. 388: and a small one in the Frontispiece of his translation of Homer 12mo. 1677. He is said to have been pleased with an epitaph suggested by anticipation for his grave, "This is the Philosopher's stone." His works were a few years ago re-published by the late Sir William Molesworth.
This picture shows the position of Westport in relation to Malmesbury Abbey. St. Mary's is
the second church from the left - no. 2.
The birth place of Thomas Hobbes
This shows where the house was positioned - A.
These images are from the book Wiltshire Collections
by John Aubrey and John Jackson which was published by the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society in 1862. The book is
no longer covered by copyright regulations and the Society is happy for information from the book to be copied, although ask that an
acknowledgement to the Society is placed with the reproduction. The copyright of these images from the book is owned by Mandy
Ball so they are covered by copyright regulations - see our copyright conditions
of use. The Society can be contacted at: The Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, Long Street,
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