Monday 5th March 1979
P.J. Parmiter & Sons Ltd.
Manufacturers of harrows and carriers, cultivators, elevators,
bale loaders, grain loaders, post drivers, rear end loaders,
silage cutters, log splitters, tillers, ridgers.
Tisbury, Wiltshire.
Telephone Tisbury (0747) 870 821.
Advertisement in The Young Moonraker 1977, the 1977 Year Book of the Wiltshire Federation of Young Farmers Clubs:
A. Brewer & Co. Ltd.
Agricultural Engineers and Implement Agents.
Phone Wilton 2141 (5 lines).
Main Dealers
Ford, Ransomes, New Holland, Clayson
Complete range of Agicultural Machinery.
Also “Brewers” Garden Machinery Centre
Newton Road, Churchfields
Phone Salisbury 6621 (3 lines).
Hand, Motor and Electric Mowers.
Garden Cultivators, Chain Saws.
Ransomes, Allen, Hayter, Howard, Flymo, etc.
Complete range of garden machinery.
Drive in. No parking problems.
Over one hundred years’ experience in mechanisation.
Wilfred Middlebrook in The Changing Face Of Warminster, first written in 1960, updated 1971, noted:
A really long-established business is represented by the Woodcock Engineering Works of John Wallis Titt And Co. Ltd. John Wallis Titt started the business in Portway, in a building that is still used as a workshop by Curtis And Son, the builders, funeral contractors and monumental masons. Titt moved to Woodcock in 1877, buying Woodcock House and the row of cottages that still adjoins the works. In those days Woodcock Road was mainly a mud track, and old-time employees of the firm recall how they used to hop from one hedgerow to the other in an effort to avoid the deep mud as one went to work at six in the morning. If the bell went before the works’ entrance had been reached, the unlucky workman had to cool his heels in the lane until nine o’clock. A similar practice was in force at the Crockerton Silk Factory in those days, when factory girls were locked out for several hours if they failed to enter the works before the bell went at six.
It was John Wallis Titt who finally made a proper road as far as the works, and it has fallen to the military authorities to carry it through to Boreham Crossroads. Titt was in charge at Woodcock from 1877 to 1903, in which time he built up the works and made a name in this country and abroad as a pioneer of wind engines. One of his earliest wind engines was erected at Boyle Hall, West Ardley, in Yorkshire, for generating electricity for lighting the mansion. Another large windmill and pumping plant was erected for the Italian Government at Margherita di Savoia, and was used for raising sea water for distribution in vapourising beds for the production of salt. With a wind velocity of around eighteen miles per hour, this installation could supply nearly 284,000 gallons of water per hour.
It is also interesting to recall that the firm of John Wallis Titt sunk the wells for the Heytesbury Waterworks in 1892. Lady Heytesbury turned the first sod on Bowlesbury Knoll with a solid brass spade with a boxwood handle inscribed ‘Presented to Lady Heytesbury on the occasion of turning the first sod of the Heytesbury Waterworks, July 12th, 1892. John Wallis Titt, Engineer.’ The sources of this ambitious scheme were detected and marked by a water diviner carrying a forked hazel rod.
Wilfred Middlebrook in The Changing Face Of Warminster, first written in 1960, updated 1971, noted:
John Wallis Titt & Co.Ltd.
A really long-established business is represented by the Woodcock Engineering Works of John Wallis Titt And Co. Ltd. John Wallis Titt started the business in Portway, in a building that is still used as a workshop by Curtis And Son, the builders, funeral contractors and monumental masons. Titt moved to Woodcock in 1877, buying Woodcock House and the row of cottages that still adjoins the works. In those days Woodcock Road was mainly a mud track, and old-time employees of the firm recall how they used to hop from one hedgerow to the other in an effort to avoid the deep mud as one went to work at six in the morning. If the bell went before the works’ entrance had been reached, the unlucky workman had to cool his heels in the lane until nine o’clock. A similar practice was in force at the Crockerton Silk Factory in those days, when factory girls were locked out for several hours if they failed to enter the works before the bell went at six.
It was John Wallis Titt who finally made a proper road as far as the works, and it has fallen to the military authorities to carry it through to Boreham Crossroads. Titt was in charge at Woodcock from 1877 to 1903, in which time he built up the works and made a name in this country and abroad as a pioneer of wind engines. One of his earliest wind engines was erected at Boyle Hall, West Ardley, in Yorkshire, for generating electricity for lighting the mansion. Another large windmill and pumping plant was erected for the Italian Government at Margherita di Savoia, and was used for raising sea water for distribution in vapourising beds for the production of salt. With a wind velocity of around eighteen miles per hour, this installation could supply nearly 284,000 gallons of water per hour.
It is also interesting to recall that the firm of John Wallis Titt sunk the wells for the Heytesbury Waterworks in 1892. Lady Heytesbury turned the first sod on Bowlesbury Knoll with a solid brass spade with a boxwood handle inscribed ‘Presented to Lady Heytesbury on the occasion of turning the first sod of the Heytesbury Waterworks, July 12th, 1892. John Wallis Titt, Engineer.’ The sources of this ambitious scheme were detected and marked by a water diviner carrying a forked hazel rod.
Wednesday 2nd January 1929
ALEC JOHN BUCKERIDGE TITT, Deceased.
Pursuant to the Trustee Act, 1925.
NOTICE is hereby given, that all persons having any claim against the estate of the above named, deceased, lately carrying on business at Woodcock Ironworks, Warminster, Wilts., under the name of John Wallis Titt & Co., Engineers and Ironfounders, and residing at Belmont, Boreham-road, Warminster aforesaid, who died on the 21st August, 1928, and probate of whose Will was granted on the 7th day of November, 192S, by the Salisbury District Probate Registry to Elsie Beatrice Titt, Colston Thomas George Hale and Edward Solomon Hare, the executors, are hereby required to send written particulars thereof to the undersigned, on or before the 15th day of March, 1929, after which date the executors will proceed to distribute the said estate, having regard only to the claims of which they shall then have had notice.—Dated this 2nd day of January, 1929.
G. E. VICARY, 40, Market-place, Warminster, Wilts., Solicitor for the Executors.
14th March 1874. The Warminster Herald has reported that John Wallis Titt has taken over Brown & May’s steam engine and machinery business at Portway, Warminster.
