Category: Warminster: Default posts

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Tuesday 3rd June 1980, 7.30 p.m.
Medium Fair Theatre Company
“Sleuth” by Anthony Shaffer.
This classic, multi-twisted thriller takes us through
the bizarre mysteries of two minds dedicated to
revenge, two desperate men locked in a strange fight
that is both comic and tragic. First produced in 1970
and later made into a film with Sir Laurence Olivier
and Michael Caine, the play has won acclaim all
over the world.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Monday 2nd June to Saturday 28th June 1980
Members Exhibition
in the Arts Centre.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Friday 30th May 1980, 8 p.m.
Janusz Stechley, Piano Recital.
When Janusz Stechley won the Nawrocki Prize in the
1975 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, he had clearly
embarked upon an international career as a virtuoso
pianist. Born in Halifax, Yorkshire, his musical gifts were
soon recognised by his mother, under whose guidance he
began to learn the piano at the age of two. His first public
performance took place three years later, and while still
only eleven he was awarded a scholarship to the Warsaw
Conservatoire, since when he has studied under Eric
Harrison, Angus Morrison, Bernard Roberts, Ryszard
Bakst, the notable Chopin specialist, and John Barstow.
Recitals, broadcasts and recordings in Europe, in
addition to performances of the complete Beethoven
Sonata and Concerto cycles in this country, have already
testified to Stechley’s technical and interpretative
abilities, as well as to the extent of his repertoire.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Wednesday 21st May 1980
7.15 for 7.30 p.m.
Athenaeum Arts Club Annual General Meeting.
A.G.M.’s are important. This one starts with coffee and
is followed by an Open Forum – the only chance in the
year when we can discuss together the general outlook,
and perhaps what our ambitions should be locally.
We need your active support and interest
– do please come.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Friday 9th May 1980, 7.30 p.m.
Christopher Consani as “Van Gogh”
Rave reviews by the dramatic critics have been the lot
of this one-man show. The life of the artist is set against
over 100 projections of paintings and drawings.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Friday 2nd May 1980, 8 p.m.
Phillipa Bishop: Porcelain
Curator of the Holborne Museum, Bath, Mrs. Bishop
talks on Meissen porcelain and brings in for comparison
early English pieces such as Chelsea, Bow and Worcester.
Her lectures for the extra-mural department of
Bristol University are highly regarded.

Warminster Arts Club
at
The Athenaeum Arts Centre,
High Street, Warminster, BA12 9AE
Telephone 213891

26th Season 1979 – 1980

Friday 11th April 1980, 7.30 p.m.
Orchard Theatre Company
“To Be A Farmer’s Boy”
by C.P. Taylor.
Dartmoor is the setting for this major new play
which traces from documentary sources the story
of life on the land during the past fifty years.
Besides being a serious observation piece this play
contains a good deal of humour and will appeal to
theatregoers and to those with an interest in country
life alike.

Notes by John Halliday, written in 1980:

The Ursuline Convent, East Street, Warminster.

The Mansion [Yard House] at East Street, Warminster, was taken by Sisters from the Ursuline Convent of the Sacred Heart of Ploermel, with about six French boarders, to set up their Convent and a small school. (The Warminster Journal of 16 March 1907 says the Sisters took out a 21 years lease).

The Order, founded by St. Angela Merica of Brescia in 1537, was devoted to the poor, the sick, and the education of children. In the last one hundred years 350 such establishments had been opened in France, but a law of 1901 had suppressed such Orders, and circa 16,000 schools had been broken up.

The nuns “had never seen a tap before.” The property belonged to John Edmund Halliday, “a member of one of the oldest families in Wiltshire.” He was very kind to them, and as the little school prospered he took an active interest in their work. He allowed the cloister, still to be seen from East Street, to be built, as well as additional classrooms.

In popular parlance “The Mansion was called “Yard House’ as the two words ‘Yard’ and ‘House’ were used on the door posts under the bells!”
 
Yard House was probably built about 1891. It had 11 rooms downstairs and ten up, with bathroom and attic above, and one large and one small cellar below. Mr Halliday had cloisters built, classrooms downstairs and dormitories upstairs. Gas lighting, general  –  slit cut in wall to illuminate the front door.

Tradition says Charles II, fleeing from Worcester, slept one night at Yard House (an earlier building) on his way from Bristol to the south coast. There is a reference to the “King’s Bed” there.

The Sisters remained at Warminster till 1919. Eight died here and are buried in the north east corner of St. Denys’ Cemetery. The remainder returned to France after the First World War. The little chapel had served meantime as a parish church for Roman Catholic ceremonies of all kinds. The Sisters had chosen St. George as their Patron, in honour of their hosts. The corrugated iron chapel of the Ursuline Convent went to Chard, Somerset.

Burials at Upton Scudamore, 1975 – 1979

Arranged alphabetically by surname:

ARTHUR CHARLES COX, of Warminster, aged 86 years, 18 June 1975.

DAISY MARY ELLOWAY, of this parish, aged 65 years, 3 March 1978.

JONATHAN CHARLES FRY, of Swanage, aged 24 years, 26 November 1977.

PHILIP EDWARD GRAHAM, of this parish, aged 76 years, 19 June 1977.

SIDNEY CHARLES HALL, of this parish, aged 73 years, 24 October 1978.

HENRY HUGHES, of Thoulstone, aged 66 years, 4 October 1978.

ARTHUR SIDNEY KNIGHT, of Faringdon, aged 77 years, 13 December 1977.

LEONARD FRANK KNIGHT, of this parish, aged 72 years, 5 May 1979.

MICHAEL JOHN MEAD, of this parish, aged 8 months, 19 September 1978.

WINIFRED MAUD NOAKES, of Warminster, aged 74 years, 23 July 1977.

ETHEL LOTTIE PEARCE, of Warminster, aged 83 years, 20 March 1975.

BESSIE LOUISE PRICE, of Semington, aged 90 years, 6 December 1978.

A marble cross in the southern part of the churchyard at Christ Church, Warminster, has the inscription:

In loving memory of
William Frank Davis
who died 16th April 1975 aged 67 years.
Walter Bert Davis
Born 1st July 1909
Died 23rd July 1979
Rest in peace.