A phrase that is often used as is ‘you can never go back’. Well recently I have been putting this to the test whilst working on a new book. It’s a in ‘Then and Now’ photographic series and so I’ve been out taking photographs of Trowbridge from the same viewpoint as those taken 60 to 120 years ago. I was born in the town but haven’t lived there for 20 years and I’m seeing the town as it is now, as I remember it in the 1950s and ‘60s, and as it was in the early 20^th century.

 
None of the buildings in this picture from the 1880s of Stallard Street and the Town Bridge in Trowbridge are standing today. Although Bridge House on the right is still standing the bays in the picture are not as they were destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War.

We all realise that the pace of change has been far greater over the last few decades than ever before but it’s been very clear to me that the town I knew in the 1960s was quite close to how it was in 1900 and very distant from how it looks and feels today. The way of life, relationships, and human knowledge has changed so much that we regard the communities in which we live very differently to the way people only a generation or two ago did.

Some of the recent physical changes apply to many small to medium sized towns. The identical shopping malls, the out of town stores, the pedestrianised areas, the extensive car parks, and the heavy traffic. Old buildings will have been demolished in the 1960s and ‘70s, following on from pre-war slum clearance and the replacements probably look far more out of date than the original would.

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WBR’s latest exploits have led us to Highworth, in the north-east of Wiltshire. This pretty Cotswold town was planted in the 13^th century with a market place, main street and a church behind, laid out in a regular pattern. The property boundaries of the original burgage plots are still to be seen preserved in the modern boundaries.

We were called to look at 23 High Street, coincidentally just next door to the rather spectacular Inigo House, (which had no connection with Inigo Jones by the way, it is merely a very distinguished-looking town house) which Wiltshire Buildings Record looked at two years before.

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Just before Christmas WBR looked at a farmhouse in the hamlet of Southcott, within the parish of Pewsey. It was the usual story – an old farm which was worked by generations of farmers is no longer viable. The lands are sold off and the farmhouse is turned into a country hideaway for busy people. The transition from rural dwelling to sophisticated mansion necessitates a good lot of tweaking of the original fabric to bring it up to date, as well as extending the accommodation to provide services such as our rustic forbears would never have dreamed of (Southcott has a swimming pool and sauna!).

The hamlet of Southcott, c.1960
Ref: P48999

Part of our remit is to look into the history of those that lived there before, and take a peek at what they were doing, partly to inform us as to how the building might have been used at a particular time, and although not strictly necessary, what sort of people they were.

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Just lately the Wiltshire Buildings Record seems to have got involved in some big projects. Our latest commission in Salisbury is just such a one. Salisbury city centre is laid out in a grid pattern, all in one go, known as the Chequers. This ancient layout dates from around 1220, when work on St Mary’s Cathedral began. Each chequer has its own colourfully quaint name. Three Swans chequer and Three cups chequer stand side by side above Antelope chequer. Our present project is in Blue Boar Chequer, to the north of the market place.

One of the buildings in the Blue Boar Chequer

Imagine how excited we got, being given the chance to penetrate the interior of one of these historic chequers! As we amble along the myriad streets of Salisbury all we normally get to see are the shop fronts lining the edges, or modern interior shop fittings, and sometimes the historic fabric of the buildings, warts and all, where this has been kept and subsequently exposed in the current trend for nostalgia.

Lloyd’s Chemist is next to Debenham’s, and is sited on the south side of the Chequer, facing the Market Place. This tall, smart building was constructed in about 1740, no doubt replacing an older, timber-framed one, and contains a grand staircase, panelled walls and old fireplaces, none of which you can see from the shop. The front of the building was modernised in the later 19^th century, and the ground floor shop front in the middle of the 20^th century. To find out about the fascinating documents discovered within the buildings, please 'read more'...

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2010 is a significant year for several of Wiltshire’s museums, as they celebrate anniversaries of one sort or another.

To give you a reminder of some of the fantastic museums and collections on our doorstep here in Wiltshire, here is a rundown of the 2010 celebrations:

 
Medieval chess piece
Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum

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