Lob In The Landscape – Page 33

South & West Wilts Hunt Midsummer Night’s Ball At Stourhead, 1969

Programme Notes:

THE STOURHEAD ARABIAN KNIGHTS (All 1,001 of them) FOR THE MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S BALL ON FRIDAY 27^th JUNE 1969

The Arabian Knights
Had a great way of life
Their Knight life was super romantic
And girls would go far
To meet Ali ba ba,
They drove Aladdin’s Old Genie quite frantic.

But they didn’t shriek
If some bearded old sheikh
Took a fancy to one for his harem
Or some Bedouin Chief
Made a pass – not too brief
Or some similar action to scar’ em!

These Arabian Knights
Gave many folk frights,
In the days of the old Arabee.
But as well as the frights
There were gorgeous delights
– You must come to Stourhead just to see.

For these days (in your car)
You needn’t go far
To taste the delights of the East
And at Stourhead this year
(You’ll need no special gear)
We’ve arranged a most marvellous feast.

In Aladdin’s great cave
We’ll be running a rave,
And you know that it’s brimful of treasure.
And tho’ you don’t dance
You’ll go into a trance
At the sights we’ll pile up for your pleasure.

All the Thieves of Baghdad
Will be there, by Gad,
Peering out of their jars full of oil,
While for those below par
There’s a Hashish Pot Bar
Where the hubbley-bubbleys boil.

We’ve a carpet of magic
– A rather good gadget –
To waft you to far away places.
As you float through the air
You’ll get extra good fare
Such as Loquats with Honey and Maces.

And our strawberries and cream
Are really a dream,
As is Peacock and Persian Pilaw,
And Turkish Kebabs
Plus stuffed Basra Crabs,
Are a marvellous feast.

What a wow!
There’ll be black caviare
In a Caspian Jar,
And Kus Kus with Sesame seeds,
And Arabian Hare
You’ll find excellent fare
Served with Rahat Lakoum from the Medes.

And there’s yoghourt with su,
And tender kid stew,
Piroshki, and halva and rice,
And Zakuski’s a dish
That will cause you to wish
You could cook it yourself.
It’s so nice.

But enough of the food:
Now let’s get in the mood
Of the music you’ll dance ’till you’re dreamy.
You’ll hear dozens of bands
From some five or six lands
All whisked there by Aladdin’s old Genie.

We star Mr. E. Ros.
He is really our boss,
For his band is the best in the world.
And we’ve troops of great groups
To swing you in loops,
In a trice, off your feet, you’ll be whirled.

And young Zorba the Greek
Whose enchanting Museek
Will gladden your Terpsichore heart;
And you’ll love our steel band
From its far away land
Plus guitars from Hawaii to impart
Such a gorgeous warm glow
In your breast so you go
In gyrations and twists most calypso
‘Till Edmundo (the rotter!)
Steams the pace so much hotter
That you’ll yell for a rest ‘cos you drip so!

So you’ll guess from this tale
That you simply can’t fail
To enjoy this splendiferous party.
For this marvellous dance
Is the world’s greatest prance
But it’s YOU, our good friends, MAKE THE PARTY!

DO COME EAST TO OUR STOURHEAD FEAST.

OUR BUFFETS AND OUR BANDS
FOR THE
SOUTH AND WEST WILTS HUNT MIDSUMMER BALL
ON
FRIDAY 28^TH JUNE 1968
AT
STOURHEAD
(By the very kind permission of the National Trust)

IN STOURHEAD GULCH!

BANDS

1. The Sinnermen and Sara Folk Group – 10 p.m. to 10.45 p.m.

2. Edmundo Ros and His Orchestra –
10.45 p.m. to 11.45 p.m. 12.15 a.m. to 1.15 a.m.

3. Swingin’ Blue Jeans – 11.45 p.m. to 12.15 a.m.
3 a.m. to 3.30 a.m.

4. Noel and The Fireballs – 1.15 a.m. to 2 a.m.
and 3.30 a.m. to 4 a.m.

BUFFETS

AT WYATT EARP’S BAR
Red Gold Mousse (A creamy mousse of Tuna Fish).
Hangtown Fry
(Quiches of fried Oysters, Eggs and Bacon).
Grubstake Pate (A Pate of Livers).
General Cook’s Turkey
(Roast with Herbstuffing and Cranberry Sauce).
Blackhills Lightning Ham
(Baked in Whisky to an original miners recipe).
Long Tom’s Roast
(Sauerbraten with Devilled Sauce).
Cheyenne Salad (a Cole Slaw).
Hi Jolly Salad
(Green Salad with Onions and Cheese).
Placer Salad (with Sweet Corn and Pimentos).
Diggers Delight (a Golden Bean Salad).
Angels Camp Cake (Angel Cake).
Western Klondyke Pie
(made with Lime flavoured meringue).
Diamond City Mousse.
Strawberries and Cream.
Coffee.

AT CASEY JONES’ BAR
Custer City Salmon (fresh broiled Salmon Garni).
Rockerville Crab Cake (Crab Cake in Western style).
Lola Montez Mousse (made with avocado Pears).
Little Big Horn Chicken Loaf
(a fresh Chicken spiced Mousse).
Pork Bonanza
(Loin of Pork baked in a Piquant Sauce).
Pemmican
(North American Indian dried sliced meat).
Eureka Mill Pie (Veal and Ham Pie).
Kid Blizzard Salad (a Potato Salad).
Gold Road Salad
(a Salad of Celery, Apples, Bananas
and Nuts in Mayonnaise).
Deadwood Salad (a Broccoli Salad).
Fort Larami Cheesecake (a Rhubarb cheese cake).
Oro-Fino Brittle (a Brittle made with Peanuts).
Mountain Cake (a giant Chocolate cake).
Strawberries and Cream.
Coffee.

IN STOURHEAD HOUSE
UP IN THE PICTURE GALLERY

BANDS

5 Romeo Berti and His Orchestra
will play continuously from 10 p.m.

BUFFETS IN THE SALOON

DIAMOND LIL’S SALOON
Quails Eggs (fresh boiled or pickled).
King Prawns.
Red Caviar Madrilene
(Iced Consomme with Caviar and whipped Cream).
Log Cabin Salmon (smoked Salmon).
Chicken Casino (a Chicken Salad).
Cimarron Beef (Roast Ribs of Beef).
Billy The Kid’s Special
(smoked Turkey and other Game).
Outlaw Salad
(Succotash made with Sweet Corn and Lima Beans,
served with North American Indian Misickquatosh).
Salads.
Dips (Cheese and Potato crisp – American vegetable).
Aunt Allie Earp Pies (Pumpkin and Coconut Cream Pie).
Dodge City Blueberry Crumble.
Strawberries and Cream.
Coffee.

DOWN IN THE GOLD MINE
6 Dorris Henderson will play alternate half-hours.
7 Ruth and Kerry.

IN THE COLUMN ROOM
Old Ma Mavericks Pancake Stall
Nothing but Hot Pancakes with lots of exciting hot and cold fillings!
Chicken and Mushroom.
Bacon and Chives.
Prawn and Egg.
Kidney and Liver.
Lobster.
Mushroom.
Onion and Potato.
Apricot Jam and Rum.
Beef and Parsley.
Chocolate Ice Cream.
Asparagus.
Stem Ginger in Syrup and Cream.
Bananas.
Black Cherries.
Lemon Juice and Sugar.
Strawberries and Cream.
Coffee.

ON THE FOUNTAIN FLOOR

BANDS

8 Ginger Johnstone and His African Drummers (and a Witch Doctor)
AND
9 The Shell Tornados Steel Band
will play alternately hour by hour.

BUFFET
The Mexican “Buffet Chispa”
(Chispa is Mexican for Gold Nugget).
(This will be in a special Marquee
between the “Fountain Floor”
and “Stourhead Gulch” as will the Bar).
Three River Eels (Eels jellied and Garni).
Silver City Sardines (American Sardines).
La Luz Artichokes (a Vinegrette of Artichokes).
Socorro Tongue (a Garni of Tongue).
Golden Pig (stuffed Sucking Pigs whole).
Al Mogado Almonds (Roasted and sugared).
Strawberries and Cream.
Praire Chicken (a Spanish-American dish
garnished with Onion).
Kelly’s Salad (a georgette Salad).
Salad Batea
(Salad of green Peppers, Tomatoes and Parsley).
Bad Man’s Salad
(Lettuce with Olives and Fillets of Anchovie).
Gold Dust Cream
(a creamed custard with Vanilla and Egg).
Cookies (various).
Coffee.

RESEARCH NOTE
Our team of cooks have done much research as well as cooking! Many of tonight’s dishes are authentic reminders of the great days of the American Gold Rush. So are the names we have given them (see “The Bonanza Trail” by Muriel Wolfe and “The Earp Brothers of Tombstone” by Frank Waters and “The Dramatic History of the Golden Era of Western America”).

Our very grateful thanks are due to Mr. and Mrs. Alex Williams, Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Abbott, their team from Cook and Butlers Ltd. The Staff of Messrs. Hall and Woodhouse, and to all the cooks, butlers and waitresses, and helpers from Mere, Zeals and Stourton, who have made this Ball possible.

Bizarre Incidents At East Farm, Knook; Quebec Farm At Chitterne; And Parsonage Farm, Warminster

Arthur Shuttlewood, in one of his books – Warnings From Flying Friends – Flying Saucer Revelations, published by Portway Press in 1968, noted:

It was on Boxing Day of 1967, when farm worker Michael Coleman set off to feed a herd of cows on the hill overlooking Heytesbury, three miles from Warminster, that another example of the bizarre and unworldly sounds erupted without warning, scaring the beasts of the field as well as causing the phlegmatic employee concern.

He had distributed the food to the cattle and, turning his tractor round to face the wind and rain so that his seat would not get too wet, he dismounted from the machine and started to count the animals. Immediately his feet touched the earth, however, he heard a tremendous clatter of noise that shook the sides of the hill and almost made his topple off balance.

It was so unexpected and savage that he clung to the side of his tractor until it subsided. The weird buffeting of soundwaves he termed ‘much like giant hands shaking loads of galvanized sheeting all around. The cattle fled from their piles of food with feet flying and tails in the air. They were terrified.’

Michael pointed out that it was a rarity for cows to run from food, especially in bad weather. After the thunderclaps of noise abated, they were still reluctant to return, taking ten minutes or more to settle back to former equanimity and content.

‘It was funny, though,’ he told me sombrely. ‘Some cattle in the next field, no more than a couple of hundred yards from us, never even flinched.’ This surprised him considerably. They chewed the cud quite happily, unconcerned at blasting sounds nearby. Why?

Perhaps this was an earth tremor, I suggested, but Mr. Coleman was insistent that – although its effects made the ground tremble at its height – the loud sounds originated in the atmosphere. ‘It made my head and ears sing, it was so fierce,’ he told me. The geography of the hill fields supplied the answer.

The sounds were localized in one section; the adjoining field was around a curving slope of the hill. Mr. Coleman then recalled another unaccountable incident back in December of 1961, when he worked for farmer Harry Wales [Henry Wales]. [Quebec Farm]. The employees erected a new fence, digging in sleepers three feet into the ground to act as strainers.

Going to the field the next morning, they found that all the cattle had strayed from their pasture during night hours. The fence had been violently uprooted, the sleepers torn out and littering the area in jumbled confusion. Yet not one of the beasts was hurt and there were no tracks of any vehicle visible around the soil disturbance mounds.

In February of 1962, working for his present boss, Stanley B. Pottow [East Farm, Knook], by the same field only over the boundary, Michael found that a similar phenomenon had again struck one night. The employer thought the fence had been smashed by the impact of a vehicle driving through it.

No tracks of any transport were discovered, however; and no cattle were anywhere near the scene of devastation, so their footprints could not have obscured wheel marks. The tractor driver from Knook thought no more of these incidents, apart from their constituting unsolved minor mysteries, until he read a newspaper report that Geoffrey Gale, of Parsonage Farm (near Cradle Hill at Warminster) had suffered fencing damage in January and February of 1966.

An account of the latter appeared in The Warminster Mystery, precludes to sightings of UFOs with clockwork regularity over Cradle Hill itself, a few hundred yards from the farmhouse lying in the dip before the steep approach.

These happenings all took place in the same area, Michael revealed, practically on a direct line between Chitterne and Warminster. He saw nothing overhead at the material time. Nevertheless, he did experience a nasty electric shock on one occasion, while travelling on a tractor early one morning.

He attributed it to a shorting fault on the machine. Strange climax to this true story is: When the tractor and its engine was thoroughly examined by a specialist, its electrical wiring system was faultless.

Heaven’s Gate On The Longleat Estate And Jacob’s Ladder At Botany Farm

Arthur Shuttlewood, in one of his books – Warnings From Flying Friends – Flying Saucer Revelations, published by Portway Press in 1968, noted:

Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid could well be centres of power – not only in the direct physical or electromagnetic context, but also in the arcane or esoteric sense. On Lord Bath’s Longleat Estate at Warminster is a beauty spot venerated by the name of Heaven’s Gate; at nearby Botany Farm is a feature known as Jacob’s Ladder. Significant names which, Biblically, denote the ‘taking off’ point for the cherished and hoped-for ‘goal’ at ‘death’ and the means – the golden ladder – by which one ascends to the space vehicle taking the departed there . . . . .

F. & G. Sykes Ltd.

1968

F. & G. Sykes Ltd.
Poultry farmers, breeders and suppliers.
Biss Farm, Upton Scudamore.
Telephone 3144.

Orders, Accounts and Advisory (Dept.)
Warminster.
Telephone 3451, 3092 and 3175.

Minster Hatchery, Gas House Lane, Warminster.
Telephone 3097.

M. Howlett – Pig Breeder

1968

M. Howlett,
Pig Breeder,
Folly Farm, Folly Lane, Warminster.
Telephone 2580.

Purchase Of Boreham Farm Lane, Warminster

Correspondence by Warminster Urban District Council with regard the purchase of Boreham Farm Lane, Warminster, can be found in the archives at the Wiltshire And Swindon History Centre at Cocklebury Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 2QN. The correspondence is dated 1964-1968. The reference number is G16/132/40.

The South & West Wilts Hunt Summer Night’s Ball, 1966

Friday 24^th June 1966 at Stourhead.

Programme Notes:

Why you are here – 900 years after 24^th June 1066 !!!!!!!

“My great grandpapa’s great great grandpapa”, and this is YOU talking, “said that his own great great grandfather’s great great grandpapa was a man whose own great great grandfather’s great grandfather – King William of Normandy – spoke to King Harold at Hastings before Battle commenced, and said, “We’ll meet again in 900 years time as I have an idea that your great great granddaughter’s great great granddaughter will have a great great granddaughter whose great great great granddaughter will have a great granddaughter who’ll be dancing at Stourhead with my descendant grandson.” And all of that means quite a lot of people and is certainly why we are all here tonight!!!!

THE DÃ‰COR
Artist Charles and sculptress Sheila Bone gave up their idea of The Battle of Hastings in our Giant Marquee – The Invasion Fleet – The South Downs – The Archers – The Cavalry and Footsoldiers – to say nothing of King Harold and King William! They had thought to have a Castle, but found that in 1066 they didn’t exist (the idea was brought over by the Normans). So Charles has reproduced a Saxon Manor as the setting to house kitchens, mount our bands and serve our buffets. And here and there you’ll find touches of midsummer and madness, Shakespeare and Hawaii, and of course lots and lots of gorgeous flowers done by lots of friends who give them and concoct delightful arrangements.

THE FOOD
Our cooks – led by Mr. and Mrs. Williams (famous for their enterprising cooking in London as “Cook and Butler’ for occasions) and their family – Anna and some marvellous assistants from Zeals and Stourton – have been here for a week, brewing and stirring and mixing and boiling, and baking and laughing and *!*!*! to produce from our kitchens the wonderful menus you’ll see overleaf to celebrate this 900^th anniversary of 1066. We hope you enjoy it!

In those days our old Angleland was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons and Normans and Danes and of course Scots, to mention a few of the 1066 folk about. So you’ll find four of our buffets with some of the descendants of the dishes they used to enjoy. For instance, one interesting ancestral dish is Stargazey Pie, originally made with pilchards. The pastry covering was originally hot clay from the Saxon kilns and put on top of fish (or meat) to bake it. Then someone invented edible pastry, made of flour, with which the cooks covered the body of the fish but left the head sticking out. (To cut off the head, they thought, ruined the flavour). Families used circular pie plates. In mansions and town stalls the fish were laid side-by-side and sold by the yard! We could tell you a lot more from our gastronomic history books . . . . you’d be surprised how interesting they are.

Then you’ll find we’ve a buffet in honour of Shakespeare’s “Mid-Summer Night’s Dream”, and another to give honour to our Hawaiian and West Indian Bands.

THE BANDS
In the fray at Hastings

1000-1100 Humphrey Lyttleton;
1100-1145 The Quiet Five;
1145-1230 Humphrey Lyttleton;
1230-0100 Sounds Incorporated;
0100-0145 The Quiet Five;
0145-0230 Humphrey Lyttleton;
0230-0300 Sounds Incorporated;
0300-0345 The Quiet Five.

IN THE PICTURE GALLERY
Chappie D’Amato.

IN THE FOUNTAIN TENT –
(If it is a lovely night there will be dancing round the fountain outside) Don Sanford’s Hawaiians alternating with The Nightingales Caribbean Steel Band (from Genada, B.W.I.).

IN THE CELLARS
Graham Kilsey with his songs and guitar, alternating with John Trussler playing his own compositions on the piano.

Wylye Valley Hunt, 1966

Wylye Valley Hunt officials, 1966:

Kennels at Tytherington, near Warminster.

Master: Mr. H. Bennett Shaw, C.B.E.

Hon. Secretary: Lieut. Col. P.E. Langford, School of Infantry, Warminster, Wiltshire.

Beuemede, Bishopstrow

The Victoria County History Of Wiltshire, Vol.8, (published in 1965), page 9, notes that:

Beuemede was no doubt near Tunmead, a meadow which lay along the Wylye near Bishopstrow Mill, mentioned in c.1250.

Cley Hill Farm, Corsley

The chapter on Corsley in A History Of The County Of Wiltshire, Volume 8, Warminster, Westbury And Whorwellsdown Hundreds, originally published by Victoria County History, 1965, mentions that:

The farm of Little Corsley, now Cley Hill Farm, was held by the Carr family by c. 1545. In 1631 Thomas Carr had lost a lawsuit about it, and the sheriff was ordered to put Hopton Haynes in possession. Carr, assisted by ‘a multitude of base persons’, held the house by force; the sheriff could not persuade local gentry to help him, and had to send for ordnance and gunners from Bristol to batter the house.