The name Shrewton, the village set in the middle of Salisbury Plain, means the sheriff’s farm; the sheriff being Edward of Salisbury, Sheriff of Wiltshire who held the manor in the late 12^th and early 13^th centuries. But the present village of Shrewton is made up of seven medieval villages and hamlets, three of which were separate manors in 1086. One of these was Maddington – the maidens’ farm. The maidens were the nuns of Amesbury Abbey, later Priory, who held land here from Saxon times until the dissolution in 1539.

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Did you know that pubs are closing at the rate of 12 a week? WBR has surveyed many pubs that have closed: The Tollgate Inn and The Barley Mow in Salisbury alone. Its not that we modern Brits have gone off drinking: the smoking ban and cheap booze sold by supermarkets have sounded the death knell. And so it has been for the Rodbourne Arms in Swindon, our latest job.

The Rodbourne Arms

It is interesting to find that when Swindon’s suburbs were growing there was a need perceived for a drinking place in Haydon Wick on the north side of Swindon. Although no reference has been found to the planning application which must have preceded the building of the pub, it would appear to have been built around 1903, since, on 11^th February 1904, the Justice Minutes’ Book recorded the application of Andrew James Lydford for an alehouse license for the Rodbourne Arms Hotel. He met considerable opposition from the formidable Temperance Movement, in the guise of The Swindon & District Temperance Council, the Free United Church, the British Women’s Temperance Association, and the G.W.R. Temperance Union.

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Hello, my name is Terry Bracher, Archives and Local Studies Manager and along with my colleague Laurel Miller, who is our Heritage Education Officer, one of my favourite jobs is to help co-ordinate one of the History Centre’s big annual events, which is our Open Day. It takes place on Saturday 1st October from 10am – 4pm. Last year we had over a thousand people visit the History Centre at our Open Day participating in a range of family fun activities and this year looks like being as popular.

The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre

Of course, a lot of planning goes into the event, but did you know that we start almost once the previous Open Day has ended? First we have to review the activities that took place and look at your wonderful and informative feedback to see what was successful and if anything worked less well, so that we can make improvements the following year.

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 Just recently I and a friend were offered the brilliant opportunity to work at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre for two days a week in August. Initially hoping to gain just some kind of work experience during the holidays, we expected very little, so to be able to access the archives and undertake research at one of the country’s best resources for history has been a great privilege.

Mere's celebrations for Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee

            What immediately has impressed us upon entry to the centre was the sheer enthusiasm of the staff, in particular Terry Bracher, who immediately set us out on a project. Due to the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth in 10 months, we were tasked with gathering as much information as possible about festivities that occurred in Wiltshire on the day of Queen Victoria’s same celebration a mere 115 years prior. This provided us with a fascinating insight into the life of a historian, as we were trawling through countless school log books, to occasionally find a golden nugget of information. For instance, we discovered that Church of England Schools seemed to value this day far more, with far more detailed accounts, possibly showing that even then the monarchy was not as widely received by the mass public.               

After initially utilising some of the 8 mile long archives for our research, we then moved on to the microfilm, giving us an example of how much media has changed over the last century. Still accessing information on the activities of June 20^th 1897, we used the newspapers to extract more detailed accounts of events such as the processions and street gatherings, in and around Wiltshire. For example, the Swindon Advertiser gave a terrific description of what the celebrations in London as well as Swindon, while another paper interviewed an Indian serviceman who was ‘mesmerised’ by the wonderful sense of occasion nationwide. Accessing terrifically vivid photos as well, we have been able to truly learn about a fascinating time in Britain’s history.

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Preservation goes hand in hand with conservation and, as part of the Archive Conservation team’s overview and collections care, a box survey was implemented in 1991. Still ongoing twenty years later, we are gradually surveying the contents of every box in the county archive. This enables us to monitor the condition of the archive, discard or replace unsuitable packaging, pins and staples, to make sure the contents are not packed incorrectly and to check that boxes are not over full.

Besides the important preservation and conservation aspect of the survey, it is also a wonderful opportunity to discover ‘lost’ treasures and to investigate collections unopened for many years, and in some cases perhaps decades. Some are yet to be fully catalogued.

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