George Pocock, a school teacher and inventor who lived near the church, experimented with kites to power boats and carriages. In 1827, Pocock published The Aeropleustic Art or Navigation in the Air by the use of Kites, or Buoyant Sails, which advocated kites as transport. In good weather conditions, Pocock's charvolant (a carriage pulled by two kites rather than horses) carrying four people could reach twenty five miles an hour. Of the journey from Bristol to Marlborough, Pocock states:
‘This mode of travelling is of all others the most pleasant: privileged with harnessing the invincible winds, our celestial tandem playfully transpierces the clouds, and our mystic moving car swiftly glides along the surface of the scarcely indented earth; while beholders, snatching a glance at the rapid but noiseless expedition, are led to regard the novel scene rather as a vision than a reality.’
Pocock also ran a school, Prospect Place Academy, on St Michael's Hill.
