The Wiltshire Council Archaeology Service once again made a successful contribution to the recent national Festival of British Archaeology fortnight. The team led two guided walks and talks, this time in the south and east of the county.

At the first, in Mere, over half of the 100 participants from the two walks joined Clare King and David Vaughan, Assistant County Archaeologists, at Mere Castle and Whitesheet Down. Suggested by our friends in Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the event attracted a large contingent from readers of the AONB Newsletter, The Hart, while others had travelled from as far away as London and Dorset, indicating the continued popularity of these walks and a rapacious interest in archaeology and the historic environment.

Clare’s introduction to the history of this once-imposing edifice was well-received, prompting the usual widespread and interesting array of questions from the assembled group. The walk had started with a steep climb up the sides of Long Hill, a natural rise that was remodelled at its eastern end during the Middle Ages to form the enclosure castle. The earthworks exploited by these early castle-builders remain today as a striking presence in the local landscape and were repeatedly admired by the group as they completed the second part of their walk.

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Some of the most popular talks I give are those dealing with the meaning of inn and pub names. Currently we don’t have a great variety of pub names in Wiltshire but we do still have some interesting ones. The Green Dragon at Alderbury was used by Charles Dickens in Martin Chuzzlewitt, as he was staying nearby while writing this novel. Dickens used many hostelries in his books and in this case he renamed it the Blue Dragon; perhaps the sign was somewhat faded to a pale blue and he misinterpreted it as it would have been unlikely that the name was on the building.

 
The Green Dragon at Alderbury

The green dragon came from the earls of Pembroke and many of the early names used the badges of great families. The red lion of John of Gaunt, the black bear of the earls of Warwick and the white hart of Richard II are still common today. From the 18^th century the full coat of arms was often used so that in Fovant we have the Pembroke Arms. The association with the badge or coat of arms often indicated that the family owned the property or were the chief landowners in the area.

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