Later last year I had the good fortune to look at a tiny tumbledown cottage of c1815 at Cloatley End, Hankerton. You might wonder why I considered this a treat, as the front wall had fallen down after several years of being abandoned, and the roof had collapsed over it, necessitating a very cautious crawl into the interior with a hard hat on to see anything of the inside. The answer is simple: The occupants of this house were so poor that very little was ever done to improve it, with the consequence that it was rich in original detail, despite its dilapidation. The present owner hopes to restore it, and put back as much of the original fabric as possible – no mean feat since the bricks of the front wall, which are hand-made odd-shaped wasters from the then local kiln up the road, now lie scattered about the site. These bricks were used to line the inside of thin rubblestone skin, much like builders do today, except the brick has been exchanged for concrete block.
 

View of the cottage

Entrance was directly into a small, unheated room containing the planked stair to the upper floor, now no more.  The inner room still had its plain hearth, the surround now gone, and old plaster lined the walls. The original floor, partition wall and roof timbers were still there, rough-hewn out of the round.

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I am currently researching items for my forthcoming talk at the History Centre on Crime and Punishment in Wiltshire (Thursday 14^th April) and come across a wonderful woodcut engraving of the pillory at Marlborough in an article on obsolete punishments by Llewellyn Jewitt in “The Reliquary” Quarterly Journal, January 1861.

The pillory was used for a range of moral and political crimes, most notably for dishonest trading - the modern equivalent of implementing trading standards.  Its use dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was known as “Healsfang” or “catch-neck”. In France it was called the pillorie.  It was well established as a use of punishment after the Conquest.  It was considered to be a degrading punishment with offenders standing in the pillory for several hours to be abused by fellow citizens, sometimes being pelted with all manner of organic material such as rotten eggs, mud and filth. If that was not enough, sometimes the offender was drawn to the pillory on a hurdle, accompanied by minstrels and a paper sign hung around his or her head displaying the offence committed.

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Hello, it’s Terry again. Further to my previous blog on notable animals in Wiltshire’s History, we now have a couple more vying for that top spot. First, and being a fan of the good old British moggy, I was pleased to have the Marlborough church cat brought to my attention. Yes, it is commemorated in stone, but it seems that it really did exist. Visitors to St Mary’s Church in Marlborough will be able to pick out the outline of a cat on the south porch. This corbel, dating to the fifteenth century, commemorates a church cat that saved her kittens from a fire. Perhaps the cat was originally employed to catch the church mice, but it goes into our top ten as our most heroic animal in Wiltshire’s history.


St Mary's Church, Marlborough

Also brought to my attention and no less deserving of our respect is the bear that was the inspiration for Winnie the Pooh.  During the Great War, 25,000 Canadian troops were stationed around Salisbury Plain 1915-16. Among their number were also four American black bears, mascots of the 2^nd Infantry Brigade, the Divisional Ammunition Park, the 2^nd Brigade and the 8^th and 10^th Batteries. When the Canadian troops left for France on 7^th June 1916, the bears were left behind in the care of the Zoological Society. From there they found their way to London Zoo.  One of the bears, named Winnie after its place of origin, Winnipeg, was brought from Canada by Lieutenant Harry Coleburn. Winnie remained at the Zoo until its death in 1934. There is some suggestion that this former Wiltshire four-legged resident inspired A A Milne to name his fictional bear after Winnie.  Winnie the Pooh was published in 1926.  However, later in their lives, neither Christopher Robin nor his father could remember the origin of the name. Despite this, there is a bronze statue of Winnie the Pooh with Lt. Coleburn, by Bill Epp, erected in 1992 behind the Reptile House of London Zoo. For this and being the most unlikely inspiration for a literary character that has brought pleasure to thousands of people and associated giftware (including an old cushion in my car and my wife’s old school pencil tin) Winnie goes straight to the top of our list …. Unless of course you know a more deserving animal…


The Canadian Tented Camp on Salisbury Plain

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