What the heck is a lek?
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
Menu
How did someone lose such a large object? Perhaps it was stolen and then the thief got cold feet? Or perhaps the pro-royalist inscription was an embarrassment following the civil war?
This is a fine example of an English dagger. The reinforced point shows it is a serious killing weapon. Its quality indicates a private purchase, rather than a weapon issued to soldiery. It is inscribed with ‘Feare GOD; honor y King’ and ‘virtus post funera vivit’ (merit lives on after death), and the image of a knight and a king – presumably Charles I. The significance of the inscribed date of 1632 is a mystery. The dagger’s sheath of wood covered in leather also survived – one of the few organic objects in the Drainage Collection.
The Drainage Collection is made up of over 1,000 lost and discarded objects that have been discovered in the medieval water channels that once ran through the streets of Salisbury. They are a vivid reminder of the citizens, pilgrims, craftsmen, merchants and travellers going about their business in the city over many centuries.
Other weaponry in the Drainage Collection are three fragments of chainmail from the 14th century, many arrowheads, two medieval quillons (hand guards), three spearheads, and two gun locks. A 16th century toy musket and 18th century toy cannon are perhaps evidence of the fact that boys were taught to be soldiers from an early age. In 1512 it was ordered that boys be given bows and arrows to learn how to shoot.
Constructed in the 1220s, at the time of the Salisbury’s founding, the channels provided a water supply and drainage. The water channels flowed through most of the city’s streets, except some on the eastern side that lay on higher ground. Fed from the River Avon, the water flowed by gravity – initially running down the centre of the streets. This proved inconvenient for horse drawn carts, so the channels were moved to one side and pedestrian bridges added. To improve the channels’ foul conditions, a 1737 law threatened to fine inhabitants who threw their rubbish into them.
The fame and notoriety of the water channels was spread by writers. Lieutenant Hammond in his Short Survey of Western Counties, 1635, wrote: ‘Every street is here supplied … by pleasant little rivoletts which are knee deep gliding sweetly through her bowels, to wash and cleanse them.’ John Britton’s description in The Beauties of Wiltshire, 1801, states: ‘a placid stream flows through the principal streets, and greatly contributes to the cleanliness for which Salisbury is remarkable.’
There was clearly a conflict of opinion about the channels though. As early as 1654 John Evelyn described the water courses as dirty and ‘negligently kept, when, with a small charge, they might be purged and rendered infinitely agreeable.’ Daniel Defoe observed that the drainage ‘keeps the streets always dirty, full of wet and filth, and weeds, even in the middle of summer.’
Over time the water channels became dirty, smelly and a breeding ground for disease. In just three months in 1849, cholera claimed almost 200 victims – one in every 45 inhabitants.
In 1854 city officials began building deep drains for sewage and a piped water supply. This saved many lives and unearthed a vast array of objects – which became the founding collection of Salisbury Museum.
Males great bustards perform spectacular courtship displays, gathering at a ‘lek’ or small display ground to try to impress the females.
The great bustard has a dignified slow walk but tends to run when disturbed, rather than fly.
The hen-bird on display at The Salisbury Museum was one of the last great bustards to be eaten in the town!