Category: Warminster History Society and Dewey Museum

Information and pictures about Warminster History Society and the Dewey Museum.

No Finer Country ~ Lecture By Danny Howell

The Wiltshire Times And News, Friday 17 February 1989, reported:

Danny Howell’s current successful lecture tour of the area found him on home ground when he spoke to fellow members of the Warminster History Society on the upper reaches of the Wylye Valley under the title “No Finer Country’.

His reputation had gone before him, and there was standing room only in the meeting room of the Library. The excellent quality of his slides enhanced his relaxed delivery, full of anecdotes of the past – not the big moments of history, but the detail which makes the scene come alive.

The stream which runs by Sutton Parva was illegally dug as a marl pit, and on Good Friday 1439 several people were prosecuted for this.

The hollow elm at Tytherington was once used as pig sty. On one occasion in later years seventeen people crowded into it to have a tea party.

The Carriers at Stockton (in the First World War called the New Inn) used to serve many of the 35,000 troops stationed at Codford. To cope with the numbers, the men used to enter the pub by the back door, dip a jam jar into a bath full of ale, and go out of the other door to drink it in the street.

Residents of the village of Corton today may be surprised to discover that in the early 1800s the village was a lawless place, full of drunkeness and degrading sports, like badger baiting and “kick legs” where the calves of each opponent were savagely assaulted. The Baptists had several attempts at bringing their faith to these heathens before they were able to build a chapel in 1828.

One theory about the thatched cob walls which are peculiar to the county, and of which there is a good example at Corton, is that they were built at the time of the machine riots by rich clothiers and farmers to mark the boundaries of their properties. Once this was breached by rioters they were able to call out the militia.

The wonderful churches in the valley include Sutton Veny, with its 160 feet high spire, and Boyton, where the Gifford chapel has the remarkable wheel window, enclosing six circles which can still turn. The family included Walter, Archbishop of Worcester, and Alexander, the crusader. His tomb in the church bears an otter to commemorate his swim across the River Nile.

Sitting indoors on a bleak February evening it was impossible not to feel gratitude for the richness of the past and the beauty of the countryside in which the town now sits. The views from Cotley Hill above Heytesbury, where hill after hill rolls away, each with ramparts and barrows, its skyscapes, bird song and wild flowers, brought the evening to a close.

Next month the A.G.M. will be held.

The Monastic Church At Edington

Thursday 10th October 1985

The Monastic Church At Edington
The October 1985 meeting of the Warminster History Society was held at Warminster Library and was attended by 55 members. The guest speaker was Miss Penelope Carew-Hunt, of Edington, who gave a very interesting and enlightening presentation on the monastic church in Edington.

Acknowledged to be one of the most perfect of Wiltshire churches, the monastery and priory lies under the escarpment of Salisbury Plain. Built during the reign of Edward III, under the direction of William of Edington, the monastery was founded and endowed in July 1352. William was born in 1300 and became Lord Chancellor in 1362. The building was consecrated in 1361. Constructed from Bath stone, both the nave and chancel were planned to a cruciform layout, and the many and beautiful stained glass windows together with the Norman tower, enhance the beauty of the building, which is a landmark in West Wiltshire.

Smaller in scale than Malmesbury Abbey, the monastery houses many interesting features. Its heavy battlement type exterior gives it the appearance of being fortified, and with the priory in an adjacent site the whole complex forms a perfect example of one of the best monastic churches of its period.

The graceful lines within contain some mediaeval tombs; those at the west end having been salvaged from Imber.

William of Edington died in October 1366 and is buried in Winchester Cathedral.

Edington Church is now used for festivals of church music, which are well attended by many visitors, including from overseas.

A Tribute To Percy Trollope

Friday 27th September 1985

A Tribute To Percy Trollope
There was a special service of tribute at the Old Meeting House, Horningsham, on Wednesday 25th September 1985, for the late Percy Trollope, whose name between 1973 and the opening of the new Warminster Library [at Three Horseshoes Mall] in 1982, was synonymous with the study of Warminster history.

During those years, when a museum for Warminster was housed at the old Sexton’s Cottage behind St. Laurence’s Chapel [at High Street], it was to him that all notes and queries about the past of the town and district were directed.

As anyone who had ever cornered him in his “consulting rooms” on a Saturday morning will surely testify, if he was not always able to supply the information one sought from him, he rarely failed to answer a series of far more interesting questions one never thought to ask.

A glorious untidy mine of information was Percy Trollope’s mind, and a five minute glimpse of the workings frequently turned into a full morning’s exploration.

A farmer all his working life, he was born at Horningsham, and began his career as a pupil of Mr Pope at Rye Hill Farm, Longbridge Deverill.

In 1923 he emigrated to Canada, but after only a year (his son Clive says he couldn’t stand the weather) he came home, soon going into farming on his own account at Blackford, near Wincanton. 

That same year, 1928, he married Laura Dewey, whose father was the Warminster blacksmith Albert Dewey, and (more significantly in the light of later enthusiasms) whose uncle was Harold Dewey – headmaster, scholar and town benefactor.

In 1935 Percy and his wife moved to Broomclose Farm, Longbridge Deverill, as tenants, and there with their sons, Clive and Earl, they remained until he retired in 1970.

Percy’s love of local history made him a “public figure” two years later, when a letter was published in the Warminster Journal recruiting support for a local history group. The intention then was to begin to piece together a town archive, but in Mr Trollope, the founder chairman of the History Society discovered someone who had already gathered together the nucleus of a collection. In particular, Percy had managed to salvage many of Harold Dewey’s papers, the latter having died not long before, and that precious hoard was to form the major part of the Dewey Museum’s assets when it opened in 1973.

Meanwhile, Mr Trollope’s own researches concentrated on the history of the Pope family with whom he had spent his early farming years. Percy inherited John Pope’s mother’s diaries, a painstaking record covering the years from 1873 to 1913, and the deciphering of her handwriting became almost an obsession with him. That work he is thought to have completed before his death last week at the age of 83. Still continuing was his exploration of the history of Broomclose Farm, since Percy’s retirement in the hands of his son Clive.

‘Our Railway Heritage’ Featured In Warminster History Society Meetings

July 1985:

“Our Railway Heritage’ was the subject of this month’s talk for the Warminster History Society.

Mr. Graham Vincent is an expert photographer and showed beautiful slides under various headings.

First we saw steam engines with romantic and evocative names – The Duchess of Hamilton, the City of Wells, King George V, the Union of South Africa, and most famous of all, the Flying Scotsman.

In 1968 British Rail discontinued steam, but since 1971 several of their lines have been used again for this purpose, with enough passengers to make them profitable.

Many of Mr. Vincent’s slides were taken amid splendid scenery on the Settle to Carlisle line, which, sadly, is again under threat.

During the miners’ strike Mr. Vincent was able to achieve some spectacular smoke effects because the imported Polish coal created much blacker smoke than our own coal.

Station architecture could have been a subject on its own and the artifacts to be found on the station were very wide ranging. Gas lighting was used until the early 1970s and some oil lights survived even longer.

In the last few years fundamental changes have been taking place within British Rail, one of which is the introduction of electronic signal systems. New systems at Westbury and Exeter are making obsolete 29 boxes along the line. The Signalling Record Society is trying to preserve at least some of these. The box at Wellow near Bath is the last in existence of that particular kind and it is very much hoped that it will not be demolished.

During the last month there have been two History Society outings.

Mrs. Helen Rogers took a party of members on a conducted tour of Steeple Ashton. In spite of the rain this was a very interesting afternoon and we were fortunate to have such an excellent guide.

The most recent outing was to South Wales. A party of thirty-four visited Castle Coch and St. Fagan’s where they saw the Welsh Heritage Museum. This outing was a huge success.

In September Mr. Bryan Wood will talk on the “History of the Postal Service.’

Old Pictures Of Warminster

Saturday 10th November 1984

Danny Howell writes:

Old Pictures Of Warminster
On the evening of Friday 2nd November 1984, at Warminster Library, Warminster History Society launched their first book – Old Pictures Of Warminster.

I was fortunate to receive an invite to the launch, writes Danny Howell, which I was happy to accept and I went along with my Wylye Valley Life colleague, Neil Grant, to witness the occasion.

Andrew Houghton, one of the authors of the book, generously gave me a presentation copy, which I have reviewed for the Wylye Valley Life magazine, issue No.14, dated 16th November 1984.

Here is my review:

Every Picture Tells A Story
Last week saw the first publication by the Warminster History Society of an excellent collection of photographs of Warminster views, people and local events, taken between 1873 and 1944 (complete with additional drawings made prior to that), in an appropriately titled book called “Old Pictures of Warminster’. It’s a superb book, excellently produced and presented and that’s something all the more remarkable when you take into consideration the fact that many of these photographs were collecting dust and deteriorating in drawers and the backs of cupboards before they were donated to the Dewey Museum which was set up in 1972.

Other photographs were uncovered by friends and the History Society hope that this book will encourage others to look out their old photographs and who knows, perhaps this book will be the first of many more to come!

As Andrew Houghton said in his address to the Society and friends at the launch of the book at Warminster Library’s Meeting Room (itself the home of the Dewey Museum) last Friday (November 2nd), “the aim of the Society must always be to present the history of the town and the district to those who seek it and what better way than in book-form like this.”

Being Warminster born myself, I found the book particularly appealing and interesting. Even the photograph on the front cover told a story for me. It shows a fine view looking up East Street towards Boreham Road in 1912, complete with a horse and cart, several people and another horse (a piebald too!) outside of what was Sharp’s Tearooms (now Young’s carpet shop). This picture was interesting to me because my grandfather Harry Ball called in Sharp’s one day in 1918 and for the first time met my grandmother-to-be Norah Cutler and it was here their romance began.

Next to Sharp’s, at No.7 East Street, Mrs. Holton used to do dress alterations and next door to her was Mr. (Henry) George Sheppard’s Tobacco Shop. He was a little, crippled man in a chair and he also did umbrella repairs which accounts for the umbrella-shaped sign above his door.

Another photograph in the book shows the Ship Inn, which stood next to the Athenaeum until 1901 when it was demolished to open up the Close onto the High Street. Again, this was of particular interest to me because my great-great-grandmother Eliza Pressley was born just behind this inn, at Common Close, at 11 a.m. on the 5th January 1844.

I’m sure that many other Warminster people, especially the older ones, will have their own memories and tales to tell about each picture too, which makes the book so enjoyable. Mind you, that’s not to say you won’t enjoy the book if you’re not Warminster born and bred. Quite the contrary, you will enjoy it, because it’s fascinating to compare the Warminster scenes now to what they were in days gone by.

Some things haven’t changed at all, while others have changed completely, in some cases several times in a hundred years. One instance is where two of Warminster’s newest shops, “Homecharm’ and “Curry’s’ now stand on the south side of the Market Place. Most people will remember that recently a Tesco Supermarket occupied this site but even that is history now, having been and gone already. In the book we have a fine view of a procession moving through the Market Place, with the Town Band marching four abreast past “Wall’s Garage’ which stood here, and next to it can be seen a small shop called the “Central Fruit Stores’. Behind the band are several people wheeling bicycles which appear to be decorated with flowers and things and there’s even a man wearing a splendid hat, wheeling a penny-farthing. The picture was taken in about 1930.

Another photograph of the same site shows the Market House, a rather elegant building, pictured in 1922. It was built by the Marquis of Bath in 1855 and designed by T.H. Wyatt. In the cast iron arcades of its rectangular courtyard, grain sales produced a turnover of £10,000 a week during the early 1860s. Before the Market House was built, grain sales were transacted under the arches of several inns including the Old Bell (which in one photograph taken in the 1880s bears a sign calling it the Australian Hotel). Warminster Corn Market was rated second only to Bristol in the West of England in the 1830s but began to decline soon after. The building of the Market House revived the trade to what is was before but by 1894 the corn market was declared almost dead. Another photograph shows a complete view of the Market Place in 1880, with the weekly market in progress, complete with wagons loaded with sacks of grain and a large crowd of people outside the Market House.

Many of the street scenes show a lack of motor vehicles (how different today) but the book does include Warminster’s associations with transport, with both exterior and interior shots of the Warminster Motor Company in George Street, as well as charabancs, railway engines, traction engines and even the Warminster Spitfire.

There is also a marvellous series of portraits of individuals who made their own personal achievements in community service, commerce or industry in the town. They include Dr. Beaven, Claude Willcox, Harold Dewey, John Wallis Titt and George Wheeler to name but a few.

The townsfolk of Warminster are pictured throughout the book in numerous activities, some of which show their ingenuity; it would seem any national celebration was an excuse to deck the houses or buildings with garlands of flags, leaves and flowers, and even build amazing structures in the same way reaching across the streets. One caption tells us that such was the fervour of the locals to play their part in these activities, there were very few left to be spectators!

So fascinating are the 140 photographs, drawings and other illustrations in “Old Pictures of Warminster’ I can see many of us spending many an hour browsing through the book, thanks to the efforts of Jack Field, Andrew Houghton and David Dodge and the other members of the History Society, and we must thank those who took the photographs and kept them over the years to make this collection possible. I’ve found out already that this is one of those books you can’t put down and every time you look through it, you notice something different. Resident or not, I’d recommend it to anyone.

Half-Day Seminar Included A Thumbnail Sketch Of Longbridge Deverill

During June 1983, about thirty members of the Warminster History Society attended a half-day seminar organised by Dr. John Chandler, Local Studies Officer for Wiltshire, and he was supported by Mrs. Lesley Marshman of the Wiltshire County Archaeological Department, and Miss Penelope Rundle, Assistant County Archivist.

Besides speaking on their subject, they brought books and documents for study. Miss Rundle chose Longbridge Deverill as her place of reference and gave a delightful thumbnail sketch of villagers as gleaned from parish records.

The History Of Road Signs

At the June 1983 meeting of the Warminster History Society, Mr. Cross, who has had a life-long interest in road transport, gave an excellent talk titled “The History Of Road Signs” and delivered it with great humour and vigor. It was an evening of nostalgia for the many members who remembered the highway “furniture” which has now disappeared into history. It was as recently as 1974 that all signs were changed to those of UN Convention, and the octagon “Stop” replaced “Halt” in 1977. Mr. Cross has done a valuable service by recording, and where possible, collecting obsolete signs.

In his introduction, he stated all sorts of interesting facts: that after the introduction of the pneumatic tyre by Dunlop in the 1880s the surface of roads improved greatly; that the first road signs were small because of the speed at which they were read; that until 1927 all sorts of advertising signs littered the road sides (including “Stop” signs put up by private businesses to encourage custom); that the idea for cats’ eyes came from seeing light reflected off tram lines; and that, like the rest of Europe we adopted the triangle for the “Halt” sign, but in true British fashion it was the other way round until 1944.

Mr. Cross then showed slides accompanied by many amusing comments. He showed early milestones, finger posts and street signs, the latter very high to be read by drivers of coaches, and many curious and often confusing instructions for the early motorist.

It was a very enjoyable evening and it was hoped that Mr. Cross would make a return visit to talk about Wiltshire roads and turnpikes.

Bronze Age Palstave On Display At Warminster Dewey Museum

Friday 22 January 1982

A precious new find, by far the oldest man-made object to come its way, has gone on show at Warminster Dewey Museum.

It is a palstave, a Bronze Age axe head, circa 1400 BC, which was found on the Longleat Estate by amateur archaeologist and metal detector user Mr. Kenneth Yarde, who lives at 133 Horningsham.

Technically Lord Bath’s property and consequently on loan to the Museum, Mr. Yarde’s palstave is cast in bronze and measures about seven inches by two and a half. Its cutting edge is well preserved, and time has given parts of the ridge to which its shaft was once fitted a patina like polished marble.

Manned by volunteers and in the care of the curator Mr. Percy Trollope, the Dewey Museum, in Curfew Cottage, behind the Chapel of St. Lawrence, High Street, is able to open only for a short period each week.

But later this year the collection will be moved across the High Street and the Market Place to the new Library building at the Central Car Park end of The Three Horse Shoes Mall.

New Warminster Library And Dewey Museum Preview

On Monday 7 December 1981 the Warminster History Society was privileged to be given a detailed description of Warminster’s new library building and information on how it will be used.

Mr. Peter Pickup, the Assistant Director of Wiltshire Library And Museum Service; Mr. Martin Norgate, the Wiltshire Museums Officer; and Mr. John Hazel, the architect; showed the History Society the plans and each spoke on their own particular aspect.

National standards exist to decide the size of the building which is to serve the population of 16,000 or so of the town and also the large number of people who come from outlying villages to use the library.

The front entrance will be opposite Three Horseshoes Mall, and at the rear will be a garage for the mobile library, a courtyard and parking for 30 cars (a compulsory requirement).

In spite of a probable 30% increase in use, opening hours will stay as present and there will be no increase in staff. A new computer system will operate.

It is hoped that construction will end in late August 1982 and the opening will take place in November 1982.

Mr. Norgate, who has spoken to Warminster History Society before about his relationship as advisor to the Dewey Museum, gave practical information about the type of showcases the new museum will have and the facilities for providing displays.

The Museum will be open 28 hours a week instead of the present Saturdays only arrangement.

There will be a large storage space, in addition to a display area, a workroom for conservation work on artefacts, and another room where researchers can study books and newspapers.

On the ground floor, beyond the display area, will be a meeting room, which the Museum may be able to use for special exhibitions.

The Chairman of the History Society, Jack Field, said that the Society has now become a registered charity and may therefore be eligible for grants.

Miss Stewart-Bam is making a collection of books for the Friends of Wiltshire Museums, to raise funds for museums in the west of the county, and this should benefit the Dewey Museum.

There are various necessary articles which the initial budget is not able to provide.

The absence of Bob Hall, the Warminster Librarian, was regretted, and those present wished him well.

The meeting concluded with delicious mince pies and other refreshments kindly provided by Mrs. Adie, Mr. and Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. West and Mrs. Dodge.

The Warminster History is now looking forward to the interesting programme that has been arranged for 1982.