Category: About Warminster: Carson’s Yard

‘Wall’ Street Crash Fears Re-Awakened

Sunday 4th November 2012

From the Vision For Warminster website:

Residents campaigning to keep their cul-de-sac are once again anxiously waiting on news from a council about the future of a wall that a developer has been refused permission to knock it down.

In Carson’s Yard behind Warminster’s Market Place building is going on to offer six flats in a ‘car free’ development permitted on appeal a few years ago.

 The original applicant had sold the site on and the new owners have unsuccessfully asked for a change to the planning they acquired which needed demolishing a wall that separates Ridgeway Court from Carson’s Yard.

 Locals raised a petition and the local county councillor Andrew Davis asked for it to be called in fror decision by the planning committee but highways officers raised strong objections fearing that vehicles reversing could crash into pedestrians as there are no pavements so the revised plan was refused by a planning officer. The wall had to stay.

 “I am very anxious about all this,” says Margaret Broughton who delivered the petition to Trowbridge (pictured right). “We never imagined that when we moved here we would be looking at this.”

“What is going on?” asked Maya Fox. “I thought that they had been told No!”

 VFW’s Paul Macdonald visited Ridgeway Court on the morning that the wall was partially demolished and again on Saturday morning.

 “I am hopeful that this is just a temporary gap in the wall,” Paul told residents afterwards.

 “I see that the brick paving of the road surface has been lifted and replaced to allow connection to services into the Carson’s Yard site.

 “I also see that a lot of the bricks are neatly stacked the other side of the wall. Hopefully that means that they will also be replaced as they have not been thrown into the skip (pictured top).

 The planning officer who dealt with the latest planning application for the site was on holiday last week.

 “There may be a sting in the tail though,” warns former councillor and planning committee member Paul.

 “The developer can lodge an appeal against the refusal for his plans to connect their site to Ridgeway Court so the residents will need to keep a close eye on this.

www.vision-for-waminster.co.uk/news.html_82341.html

Searching For Items Made At The Wiltshire Foundry, Carson’s Yard, Warminster

A letter in the Wiltshire Times & News, Friday 6th November 1987:

Dear Sir,
May I beg some of the valuable space in the columns of your newspaper to trace the whereabouts of agricultural implements and other iron products made at the Wiltshire Foundry, Warminster, between 1816 and 1909?

I have just completed researching and writing a book (published on October 23) about this former foundry, which was situated at East Street, here in my home town.

The foundry was purchased in 1816 by a Scotsman, Hugh Carson (1784-1860), and a native of Wiltshire, Henry Miller (1788-1844). They were responsible for many of the iron mileposts and parish-boundary markers still to be seen within a wide radius of Warminster today.

Following Miller’s death, Hugh Carson continued as sole proprietor until November 1860 (one month before his death) when he handed the business over to his son, William Hugh Carson (1827-1880), and his son-in-law, John Vidler Toone (1823-1889).

The latter’s son, William Carson Toone (1856-1925), became the head of the firm in 1889. He emigated with his family to Canada in 1903, after selling the foundry to Messrs. Turner & Gray. They continued, also trading as Carson & Toone, until eventually closing the foundry in 1909.

The making of agricultural implements always remained at the fore of the Wiltshire Foundry’s activities, not only for the home market but also for export to France, Germany and New Zealand.

Among the thousands of items produced were ploughs, horse-hoes, horse-gears, cultivators, scarifiers, rollers, saw benches, sugar cane cutters, cider presses, root cutters and pulpers, and also hoists and pulleys.

One speciality was an automatic creep feeder for sheep, and another was a chaff-cutter complete with sifting and bagging equipment. Cheese presses were also produced, in ten different sizes, available as single, double and triple models.

Among the other items made by Carson & Toone were stoves and domestic appliances, gates, girders, drain covers, lamp standards, and gas and oil engines.

To date, I have found some good examples of the above items, all of which include the names “Carson and Toone” upon them, and I would love to find more of the foundry’s work. Perhaps some of your readers have in their possession, or know the whereabouts of artefacts made by Carson & Miller or Carson & Toone? I would be delighted to hear from them.
Yours sincerely,
Danny Howell,
Warminster.

Carson’s Yard, Warminster, 1980

In Christ Church, Warminster, The First 150 Years, a booklet published in October 1980, to celebrate the 150th birthday of Christ Church, the Rev. John C. Day (Vicar) writes:

Below the Ridgeway and leading into the Market Place is a lane known as Carson’s Yard, so called because here there was once a small iron works owned by one Hugh Carson, opened in the first years of the last century.

Qualifying Property: Copyhold Houses And Land At Carson’s Yard, Warminster

Electoral Roll : The list of Ownership Voters, Parliamentary Voters and Parochial Electors, for Warminster (Parliamentary) Polling District (Bb), Parish of Warminster, Wiltshire, 1894 – 1895, includes:

No. 16
Name of each voter at full length: William Jackson Brodribb.
Place of Abode: The Rectory, Wootton Rivers, Marlborough.
Nature of Qualification: Copyhold houses and land.
Description of Qualifying Property: Carson’s Yard, Warminster.

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