Friday 8th December 1972
Foxholes Reading Room, Crockerton
Built in 1891 for £120 by Carson and Toone of Warminster, on land leased from the then Lord Bath for the peppercorn rent of £1 yearly, which has continued until now, a landmark in Longbridge Deverill and Crockerton for 81 years has been steadily dismantled over the past five weekends by a Crockerton man and his two teenaged sons.
It is the Foxholes Reading Room, and the former Longbridge Deverill Primary School is now in use as a village hall replacing it. With the final removal of the old reading room, over the weekend, the land at Foxholes will be restored to the present Lord Bath. The original builders’ names partly live on at Carson’s Yard, off East Street, Warminster.
A member of the hall committee, former bricklayer, Brian Bonner, of 69 Jersey Hill, Crockerton, has been dismantling the Foxholes Reading Room with the help of his sons, Mark (15) and William (14), who are pupils at Kingdown School, Warminster. The Bonner family’s work has saved the committee some £50 in dismantling expenses. As much salvaged material as possible is being sold to farmers for outbuildings (the reading room was made of corrugated iron with wooden inner walls).
The only snags in dismantling were delays due to wet weather and having to handle big metal sheets in high winds. Mr. Bonner said he found the exterior in surprisingly good condition. Some items – none of them valuable – which had been lost for decades under the floor, were discovered, including table tennis balls, books, and the blade of an old-fashioned mortice chisel which was probably lost by one of the builders. The wooden handle of the chisel had rotted away.
Originally a reading room and club, the building at Foxholes began to be used as a parish hall about 50 years ago, being home to various organisations in the village. This continued until recent years, when a lack of car-parking became a problem and usage declined.