John Aubrey (1626-1697) is best known as a biographer and antiquarian, but he was also a scientist. Begun in 1656 and shaped over four decades, Aubrey's Natural History  was the first systemat...

A countess, a brewer's son and two Transylvanians: the chymists and alchemists of Wilton House, Wiltshire.

John Aubrey (1626-1697) is best known as a biographer and antiquarian, but he was also a scientist. Begun in 1656 and shaped over four decades, Aubrey's Natural History  was the first systemat...

The Royal Society's copy of Aubrey's Natural History is the most complete version of the text in existence and for one more week it is out of the library and on show in Chippenham, open at his chapt...

Wenceslas Hollar made two pictures of an amphisbaena, a two-headed serpent. One was an allegory of civil strife. The other was drawn from life, under a piece of old timber in Mechlin. Only the imagina...

Following the life-stories of the most elite and rare of police records the author has turned the tables on those murder files which have found their way into the public domain and currently sit in re...

This is the first complete publication of Memoires of Naturall Remarques in the County of Wilts , derived from the fair copy prepared for the Royal Society in 1691, which is currently on display in ...

This is the first complete publication of Memoires of Naturall Remarques in the County of Wilts , derived from the fair copy prepared for the Royal Society in 1691, which is currently on display in ...

Are dragons real? John Aubrey was curious about the supernatural yet sceptical of wyverns. In the Natural History, he tested one dragon story and watched another grow.

Are dragons real? John Aubrey was curious about the supernatural yet sceptical of wyverns. In the Natural History, he tested one dragon story and watched another grow.

On the high limestone plateau above the village of Colerne in north Wiltshire, something remarkable used to happen.

In the early 18th century, a strange chain of events made a farmer's wife from Dymock in Gloucestershire the lord of the manor of Ledbury.

What is the strange beast carved over the door of a tiny south Wiltshire church? In the 1660s, mathematician and clergyman Lancelot Morehouse — friend of John Aubrey — set out to find the answer. He r...

Barberry still grows in the hedges of St Mary's Priory, Kington St Michael — planted by nuns before the Reformation, according to John Aubrey, and recorded by him well over a century later. It was sti...

On the high limestone plateau above the village of Colerne in north Wiltshire, something remarkable used to happen.

John Aubrey's radical vision of earth history, four hundred years on 'a direct path to the right understanding of the primitive world'

What is the strange beast carved over the door of a tiny south Wiltshire church? In the 1660s, mathematician and clergyman Lancelot Morehouse — friend of John Aubrey — set out to find the answer. He r...

What is the strange beast carved over the door of a tiny south Wiltshire church? In the 1660s, mathematician and clergyman Lancelot Morehouse — friend of John Aubrey — set out to find the answer. He r...

To mark the 400th anniversary of his birth, guest blogger Louise Ryland-Epton explores the radical ideas contained in John Aubrey's long-unpublished 'Natural History of Wiltshire'.

Did John Aubrey — writing in the 1680s — come closer to the truth about Salisbury Plain than anyone had realised? In his Natural History of Wiltshire he asked a question: was this vast open landscape ...

The importance of Aubrey's Natural History manuscript in the history of natural history is considerable and has not been sufficiently recognised. In part, this poor recognition has been due to John ...

The importance of Aubrey's Natural History manuscript in the history of natural history is considerable and has not been sufficiently recognised. In part, this poor recognition has been due to John ...