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Last Orders at the Rodbourne Arms

Posted by: Blog Administrator on Sep 27, 2011

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

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 11th 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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Egypt on your doorstep

Posted by: Blog Administrator on Mar 1, 2011

Tagged in: world’s , World War II , Wiltshire Regiment , Wiltshire Heritage Museum , Wiltshire , Warminster Dewey Museum , War Office , Tim Burge – Museums Officer , The Battle of Egypt , Suez , Stourhead , St Boniface College , souvenirs , soul progress , Somerset , soldiers , Sir John Eldon Gorst , Sir Charles Nicholson , Sgt. A Holley , Romans , publication , postcards , Port Said , photograph , Pewsey Heritage Centre , people , papyrus scroll , Objects , national , museum , media , Medal – Chippenham Museum & Heritage Centre , Market Lavington Museum , manor , local , knife , jasper , Italy , international , India , images , HMS Superb , Gorst , Germany , fighting , February 2011 , famil , eyes , El Alamein , Egyptian Book of the Dead , Egypt , doorstep , documents , display , Devizes , country , collections.preserve , coins , Castle Combe , British protectorate , British consul general , attack , architect , Archaeological finds , Allied forces , Alexandria , album , afterlife , 2nd World War , 1st World War , 1943 , 1882

With the eyes of the world’s media currently focussed on the momentous events unfolding in Egypt I thought it would be interesting to see how this country is represented in Wiltshire’s museum collections.

 

Museums across the county exist to preserve and display the history of Wiltshire and its people as seen through objects, images and documents.

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And a Wiltshire New Year to You!

Posted by: Blog Administrator on Jan 4, 2011

Tagged in: Wiltshire , William Henry Tucker , wedding , wages , Trowbridge , treat , trade unions , Swindon , Sunday school , snow storm , Sir Edward Bayntun , schoolmasters , schoolboys , reverends , railway accident , polka , plague , New Year’s Eve , New Year , Lords , Lord Methuen , locomotive superintendent , Langley House , Langley Burrell , Kington St. Michael , Keren Wood , John Couzens , Jeffery Whitaker , Jackson’s Lane , Isambard Kingdon Brunel , inhabitants , Herbert Spackman , GWR , Graham Awdry , gauge , gardener , Francis Kilvert , flooded , experiences , Edwad Awdry , diary , Daniel Gooch , dances , Corsham Court , Corsham , Commonplace Book , clothier , Bromham , Bristol , Bratton , Bella Dixon , ball , authors , architect

 As the New Year is now upon us, I thought to take a look at how some of our previous Wiltshire inhabitants spent their New Years’ Day by taking a look at their diary entries. The authors’ backgrounds range from lords to schoolboys, schoolmasters to reverends, and how different their experiences of New Year were…

 Advert from the Wiltshire Times, 1st January, 1910, p.7

Advert from the Wiltshire Times, 1st January, 1910, p.7

It was the plague that was the main concern at the beginning of January in 1666 when Sir Edward Bayntun of Bromham noted in his Commonplace Book on January 6th  :




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