Category: Clubs and Societies

Monday 6th April 1992

Danny Howell writes:

The guest speaker at the April 1992 meeting of the Warminster History Society, held at Warminster Library, was Mr Michael Stratton, who lives at Stockton. He farms at Manor Farm, Stockton, and East Farm, Codford, in the Wylye Valley.

His lecture, on Monday 6th April 1992, was on how English farming changed from centuries of the three-field system to the enclosed farming of the last century.

People in the Middle Ages had used a three-field system. Each parish had three large fields which were divided up into plots, 2 to 3 yards wide but quite long. Each plot was worked by one man and he had to grow the same crop as the others in each third. One large field was wheat, the next was barley, and the last third was left fallow. The crops were rotated each year.

The rotation system worked successfully for hundreds of years. What ended the system was poor fertility, new methods, and the evolution of science to improve the land. And during the 18th and 19th centuries the population increased, which meant much more food was required.

The system was changed by Act of Parliament in the 18th century. The peasantry were dispossessed, common land was enclosed, and large units were formed and these were farmed by one man. New methods came in and these were more economic. There was an eight-year rotation sytem: wheat, barley, turnips, swedes, wheat, barley, and then two years down to grass. This was to help control pests and diseases.

Sheep were used for fertility. The sheep would eat the grass on the downlands during the daytime, and then be brought into the farm fields at night; when their droppings would help to fertilise the land. As a result the downland became very poor in fertility, but this helped the wild flowers grow well.

Up to Christmas the sheep fed on turnips, and then on swedes (which were frost hardy) later in the new year. After the swedes had been eaten the land would be ploughed and sown with spring barley. In May the turnips were sown. June to July was haymaking time. August was corn harvest time. And then the wheat was sown in October to November.

In Victorian times you would expect a yield of one tonne of wheat per acre, but now with modern technology you would expect a yield of 3 tonnes of wheat to the acre.

Michael Stratton concluded by saying that Victorian farming had been very successful.

July 1990

Danny Howell writes:

Seventeen members of the Warminster History Society, accompanied by three dogs, took an enjoyable evening walk over Whitesheet Hill, near Kilmington.

Their guides were Society member Mr. Chris Bubb, who is a gardener for the National Trust at Stourhead, and Simon Evans who looks after Whitesheet Hill for the Trust. Mr. Bubb gave the walkers an insight into the archaeological remains on the hill, and Mr. Evans enlightened everyone with facts about the flowers and plants.

The hill is certainly rich in flowers and grasses, and can boast 95 different species including orchids, chalk milkwort and salad burnett. This is the result of controlled grazing by sheep and rabbits.

Britain’s uncultivated downland acreage has decreased dramatically since 1940, but 70% of what is left is in Wiltshire, thanks to the National Trust and the Ministry of Defence.

Whitesheet’s Iron Age hill fort is an impressive almost triangular feature. It is surrounded for half its circumference with a triple bank and ditch on its flatter north-east side. A single rampart complements the remaining steep slope. The fort appears to have seen three phases of construction during its lifetime. The National Trust own about half of it. The double fence of the Mere/Stourton parish boundary crosses the fort.

Just outside the camp overlapping a ditch, is a large bell barrow, opened by Richard Colt Hoare and William Cunnington in 1807. They found that it had been excavated before, but a skeleton was still in situ.

A further 14 burial mounds lay scattered over the fort, including bowl barrows. Some of the mounds, dating from Bronze Age times, have been damaged by quarrying. Chalk was extracted during the 1800s and before.

Next to the clearing (now used as a car park) below the hill, a cottage stood until about 1900. A limeburner called Gatehouse once lived and worked there. It is just possible to see the remaining foundations of the cottage.

An unusual circular earthwork within the hill fort, and measuring some 20 paces across, still baffles archaeologists. Colt Hoare suggested that it might have been a “tree ring”, although the tree was not in existence during his time.

Another explanation for the feature is that it was once used as the site of a beacon. Whitesheet Hill was recorded as Beacon Hill on Saxton’s Map of England and Wales in 1576.

Just as interesting at Whitesheet are several pillow mounds. These are near to the western foot of the hill and are of later date than the nearby strip-lynchets.

The majority of the pillow mounds are low rectangular mounds and two are constructed up a steep slope. They date from the Middle Ages and just after, and served as places where rabbits were kept and reared for food.

Also nearby is a Celtic field system.

Recent excavations by Wessex Water for laying a pipeline between Ilminster and Codford, have come close to Whitesheet and revealed more archaeological finds, shedding new light on how Iron Age man used to live. The discovery of snail shells dating from Neolithic times suggests that the area was once wooded.

Whitesheet Hill, at just over 800 feet high, gives fine views in all directions, particularly to the south and south-west. The Black Mountains of Wales can be seen on some evenings, particularly after stormy weather.

Clearly visible was a clearing through a clump of trees on an adjacent hillock. This is the result of an aeroplane crash in 1945. A Dakota taking off from the now disused airfield at Zeals failed to gain sufficient height and hit the trees, killing 21 people.

All that remains of the aerodrome at Zeals today is the former control tower, now converted into a private residence.

The whole of the parish of Kilmington could be seen from Whitesheet, including the straight alignment of the Hardway and Long Lane, which form part of the former London to Barnstaple drove road. This is shown as a stagecoach route on Ogilvy’s Map, and is one of the oldest trackways in England.

Members descended the hill by way of the old coach route, passing an ancient milestone. Some took the opportunity to call in at the Red Lion, at Kilmington, which is a former drovers’ pub.

Kilmington is traversed by old drove roads, and once featured many small paddocks where cattle were kept overnight while the drovers rested. A house near the present Home Guard Club in Kilmington was once a pub called The Jolly Drover. It closed about 1900.

A pint and a natter brought the evening to a close, and a vote of thanks for an interesting stroll was given by Mrs. Margaret Durham.

“Visual Environmental Changes Of Wiltshire Villages” was the subject of Bryan Woodruffe’s lecture given at the January 1990 meeting of Warminster History Society.

Strictly speaking, this was not an historical subject, as it relates to the present. However, members found Mr. Woodruffe’s lecture absorbing, with its clear and unbiased presentation of the facts and statistics. His slides showed a county-wide pattern of change in the making.

“The primary cause of change is greater affluence,” explained Mr. Woodruffe. “People can choose where they live because they can afford to commute to work.”

The accepted term for the movement of population to the villages from the towns is ‘counter-urbanisation’. It is happening all over Europe and also in America and Australia.

“Not all villages grow at the same rate,” said Mr. Woodruffe, “and the planners tend to go with the trend, rather than to try to reverse it. They feel that if a parish is declining, it must be with good reason.”

“In most cases, Wiltshire villages have grown without spoiling the overall visual effect,” he added. His thinking was that the undulating countryside can accommodate development, if some care has gone into its conception. Often the inappropriate planting of non-idiferous trees (noteably Cypress Leyandii) stands out as eye-sores more than any new building.

Out of the 300 villages in the county, perhaps 15 to 20 have an unfortunate rash of modern houses, the Ministry of Defence and local councils being the worst culprits, was Mr. Woodruffe’s opinion.

“Listed buildings benefit from current prosperity,” said Mr. Woodruffe, “with newcomers wanting to buy and refurbish old buildings.” In most cases the results were satisfactory and enhanced the overall look of the village.

He thought that the church and the school were still focal points for village life, and when these were closed the community suffered. Very few chapels remained outside the towns, and while some had been converted to private residences, others had been demolished, including what had been the oldest Baptist chapel in Wiltshire.

Mr. Woodruffe’s slides were a wonderful reminder of the beauty of this county, and he left his audience with a feeling of optimism for the future.

At next month’s meeting of the Warminster History Society, Danny Howell will present another of his slide shows.

Monday 4th September 1989

At a meeting of the Warminster History Society on Monday 4th September 1989, Mr. Norman Rogers was the guest speaker.

Mr. Norman Rogers’ lecture on Wessex Dialects was a delight. His dry sense of humour, combined with a thorough and scholarly knowledge of the subject, made for an entertaining evening, and stirred the memories of members who, like Mr. Rogers, had been brought up with the sounds of broad dialect.

Some phrases were incomprehensive to an unpractised ear but this is not surprising as vowel sounds are changed, consonants sometimes added and sometimes omitted, and many words are outside the vocabulary of those who know only Received Standard English.

The origin of dialect probably goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. Language changes continuously but now it is changing more slowly than ever before. It is an illogical muddle which makes it a fascinating subject.

Mr. Rogers showed maps illustrating the areas in which certain sounds and words are commonly used. From these one could see that there is not necessarily a “Wessex Dialect” but a “West Country Dialect” as the language spoken has many similarities from Hampshire to Cornwall. The extreme west of Cornwall is excluded. Here English was a replacement language when Cornish ceased to be spoken 200 years ago, and people are more likely to speak Received Standard English.

Sadly, the West Country Dialect does not carry prestige. To prove his point Mr. Rogers said that one of the local commercial radio stations has advertisements in London, Liverpool and other far-flung accents but none in its own local dialect areas.

Report written by Danny Howell.