Inspired by a recent display on Eddie Cochran at Chippenham Museum and Heritage Centre this blog entry is all about Wiltshire’s links past and present with the world of rock and pop.

 
Eddie Cochran

To commemorate 50 years since the famous rock and roll pioneer died in a car crash on Rowden Hill in Chippenham, earlier this year Chippenham museum put on a display of Eddie Cochran memorabilia. 'Read more' to find out how many other pop stars have been associated with Wiltshire over the years...

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Can you guess what it is? If a previous member of Wiltshire Buildings Record hadn’t identified this feature I doubt I would have been able to. The team was called to look at Littleton House, Littleton Pannell, in the parish of West Lavington.

The Feature in Question...

This old farmhouse had been owned by generations of Pococks who farmed the land for sheep and arable. The house itself goes back to the 17^th century at least, and successive owners have each put their own stamp on it. Narrow mullioned windows gave way to broad, airy sashes in the 18^th century, and chunky, louring beams to fine plastered ceilings in the 19^th century.

As time went on the living accommodation proliferated, with more specialised functions being carried out in different rooms. By the end of the 19^th century there were in addition to the usual reception rooms and kitchens a dairy, butler’s pantry, pump house, brew house, coal and wood house, as well as separate cellars for wine and for beer. To find out the identity of the feature, please 'read more'...

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Back in March we had an enquiry from a gentleman trying to establish the date of a couple of photographs of the bridge at Bradford on Avon. They were amongst his grandfather’s collection of 598 ‘magic lantern’ slides, many of which were unnamed. He had been unsure of the location of the photographs, but the bridge happened to be featured in a TV programme he was watching called ‘Country Tracks’, and it looked like a good candidate!
The first of two photographs of the bridge at Bradford On Avon
Our Ref: P53801  

Upon receipt of the images, it took just one look to realise that they were indeed of the bridge at Bradford. To try to date the images we used two books from our Local Studies Collection, ‘Bradford on Avon: a pictorial record’ edited by Harold Fassnidge and Peter Maundrell, and ‘Bradford in Avon in old Picture Postcards’ by Adrian Powell. Both included pictures of the bridge, one dated c. 1892 and the other 1900. Walter’s photograph showed some metal work in a cross pattern appearing on the blind house. The image of 1900 showed the cross in place but by about 1916 it had disappeared. The other image (taken in or before 1892) had been taken from a slightly different angle but showed the river bank without the ornate metal fence in the picture dated 1900. This fence was also missing in our photograph, suggesting a date of c.1890. 

His grandfather, Walter J Pearce, had been taking photographs from at least 1889, when he took some at the Paris Exhibition. He was part of a delegation of craftsmen sent by the Lord Mayor of London to report on his craft of painting, decorating and gilding. His grandson told us that Walter had actually climbed onto the outside of the Eiffel Tower to look at the paintwork; it had been painted lighter towards the top to make the tower appear slimmer! To discover more about the photographer and the bridge, please 'read more'...

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With the longest day and the solstice celebrations at Avebury and Stonehenge our thoughts have turned to summer and summers past. In a rural county this was an important time with a succession of harvests that involved whole families for many weeks. In the 19^th century the school summer holiday was known as Harvest Holiday and was often adjusted if the grain harvest was early or late.

18th century representation of a Wiltshire shepherd

Children were often kept away from school to help in the fields, bring refreshments to their working parents or look after younger siblings. Women who apparently had no job according to census records would work long hours in the fields at such seasonal work. To find out more about how the season has made its mark on the Wiltshire landscape, please 'read more'...

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“Hoodies can be Goodies”, “Think Twice, Think Positive”, “Take off your cover”, were just some of the campaign slogans created by Swindon students developing their own campaigns having been inspired by the example of the Suffragettes, Anti-slavery campaign or the campaign to improve Public Health.

At work on the project

Students at St Joseph’s Catholic College learned about the appalling conditions in Swindon in the 1850s and how public health campaigns helped to bring clean water and proper sewers. They then investigated modern day campaigning techniques before developing their own campaigns challenging the media stereotype of teenagers as vandals and criminals. Staff from the History Centre and school governor, Stan Pajak, had the difficult job of judging a winner from the excellent presentations. The students used rap, poems, posters, leaflets and some great slogans to get their message across. The winning slogan was “You tell us not to judge a race, so why would you judge a younger face?”. To find out more, please 'read more'..

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From June to December this year at museums across Wiltshire you will be able to see a photographic display of some of the county’s marvellous museum objects.

Thanks to a grant from Renaissance South West the Wiltshire Council Museums Advisory Service has been able to work with photography students from New College, Swindon to photograph collections at nine museums across the county. Please 'read more' to see exhibiton venues, dates and more examples of the photography.

Jurassic ammonite from Cricklade Museum
                           

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The World Cup in South Africa is almost upon us and I’m sure all you avid England supporters are already debating which players should be picked for the squad. As Wiltshire is not well known as a county that ‘sports’ England players; it may surprise you to know that we have produced a few over the years…

John Atyeo's England Shirt, c.1950s

Harold Fleming from Downton was born in 1887 and excelled at all kinds of sport, but was spotted playing football for his local church team by Swindon Football Club’s secretary/manager Sam Allen and invited for a trial. He played for Swindon Town, ‘drifting’ at inside right towards the forward line, balance and ball control being his main attributes.  In his time, Swindon Town were playing in an Edwardian version of today’s premier league. Harold played eleven times for England, but his official total was nine; quite impressive for his day. His best known achievement was in 1912 when he scored a hat-trick against Ireland. He remains the only full international England player to have played for Swindon Town.


George Marks' Baptism Entry, 1915

George Marks was born in Figheldean in 1915 and began his career at his local club, the Salisbury Corinthians, before joining Arsenal as an amateur (and later professional) in 1936. During World War II he served in the RAF but still managed to gain eight caps for England as their goalkeeper. After the war he was sold for £5,000 to Blackburn Rovers, a record fee for a keeper in those days.


Salisbury football match in Victoria Park, Salisbury, early 20th century
Ref: P7957

Peter John Walter Atyeo was born in 1932 in Standerwick, Somerset, moving to Dilton Marsh aged five. He played junior football for Wiltshire Schools and also for Westbury United FC, becoming semi professional at Bristol City FC in 1951 (where he has a stand named after him). He obtained offers from Arsenal, Liverpool, Tottenham, and AC Milan whilst at City; reputedly the Italians were willing to pay £50,000 for him. He played at inside right for England, his first match being against Spain in 1955 when England won 4-1. Whilst playing football Atyeo worked as a quantity surveyor and a trained mathematician, teaching at Kingsdown School, Warminster for 20 years. He also wrote for a Plymouth based newspaper, the Sunday Independent. To find out about our other England players, please 'read more'...

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Bribery, corruption, intrigue, rotten boroughs and riots …oh dear, that will be Wiltshire’s parliamentary elections in eighteenth and nineteenth century! Present events always give us an opportunity to take the long-view and here at the History Centre we have a range of resources on the political history of the county and borough, from excellent accounts published in the Victoria County History for Wiltshire to election squibs, poll books and original documents.

'The Antiquities of Malmesbury', described as 'A parliamentary election, as lampooned in 1792' in VCH Wiltshire Vol. 14, opposite p.221 (our Ref: P41146).

Wiltshire’s early claim to political fame was the impressive size of its parliamentary representation. Until 1832 it elected two Knights of the Shire (representing the whole county), two MPs for Salisbury, and two burgesses for each of its 15 boroughs, a grand total of 34 seats. Only Cornwall had higher. This was especially impressive given that many of the boroughs were the size of a village, and few of their residents could vote.  The most notable, of course, was Old Sarum, which retuned two MPs and in 1768, it is claimed, had an electorate of, er…one, though usually could count on seven. Other small boroughs included Great Bedwyn, Cricklade, Downton, Heytesbury, Hindon, Ludgershall and Wootton Bassett. Yet other towns like Bradford on Avon, Corsham, Trowbridge, and Warminster could not send representatives to parliament. To find out about the great political contest of 1818 and Marlborough making the national news in 1832, please 'read more'...

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As you may know, Wiltshire is one of the richest counties for archaeological monuments. There are over 2,000 monuments in the county which are scheduled, or considered to be of national importance.  As part of our work the Archaeology Service of Wiltshire Council works in partnership with English Heritage to implement a monument management programme. Every year we target a small number of scheduled monuments in need of a little “TLC”. Over the six years the programme has been running we have carried out work on over twenty sites including, scrub clearance on Neolithic long barrows and Iron Age hillforts, masonry conservation at a Roman bath house and a medieval castle keep.

The Archaeology team on a site visit to Oldbury Castle Hillfort at Cherhill

Our programme for this past year has focused on three sites in particular. At a Roman bath house near North Wraxall, 2,000 year old walls had been exposed a few years ago and were suffering damaged caused by the extremely cold winter last year. We employed a specialist masonry conservator to re-point and consolidate the walls prior to their backfilling. At the Iron Age hillfort at Fosbury we completed a three year programme of work involving scrub clearance on the ramparts by the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV). We also completed a five year programme of work on a Bronze Age barrow cemetery near Beckhampton which focussed on trying to exclude badgers from the burial mounds with the insertion of badger-proof fencing and artificial badger setts. 
If you spot any monuments in need of our help, please let us know!
[Additional images available, please 'read more'].

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After the success of the local(ish) Amy Williams and the continued determination and perseverance from Pewsey’s 2006 silver medal winner Shelley Rudman in this year’s Winter Olympics, I thought I would bring to light another of Wiltshire’s pioneering sportswomen. Fanny Williams played for Swindon Town ladies football team in the 1920s. Ladies football developed during World War I when the employees of munitions factories formed teams to play each other. The Football Association banned ladies football on their grounds but the English Ladies Football Association was formed in 1921. A national Challenge Cup competition was begun in 1925. Fanny’s boots are kept at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery.

Wiltshire can also be said to possess famous athletics stars of the past. Purton produced a famous athlete in James Kibblewhite, born in 1866.

James Kiblewhite running for Spartan Harriers in the two mile NCAA Championship, Manchester, 1890 Ref: P18380 Wiltshire Historic Photographic Collection, reproduced with kind permission from Purton Museum 

He began his athletics career in 1884 and enjoyed great success for over 10 years. In 1890 he was selected to run in London in front of King Edward and Queen Alexandra (then the Prince and Princess of Wales). He won many medals but one of his greatest achievements was breaking the three mile English Record and World Record in London. He was employed by the GWR works in Swindon by 1916 and had a son who was also a promising athlete.  Purton Museum holds many items of memorabilia relating to James Kibblewhite, including trophies, medals, gold chain and watch, and newspaper cuttings of his career which are well worth having a look at.

James Kibblewhite with his trophies
Ref: P18381Wiltshire Historic Photographic Collection, reproduced with kind permission from Purton Museum 
Please 'read more' to find out which town two of Wiltshire's famous cricketers played for...

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