Category: Corsley: Gleanings

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

The Wesleyan Chapel at Lane End was built in 1769.

In 1849 it was rebuilt at the cost of just over £244.

Wesley preached in the chapel in 1799.

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

The Chapel at Longhedge [Corsley] was built in 1811.

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

St. James’s Chapel or St. Margaret’s Church. – St. James’s Chapel was built before the thirteenth century. It was later called St. Margaret’s Church.

In 1830 it was rebuilt.

In 1415 the people were permitted to bury at St. Margaret’s Churchyard instead of having to go to Warminster.

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

Kington Court Chapel or Little Corsley Chapel. – On the site of Cley Hill Farm [Corsley], Kington Court Chapel once stood.

The chapel belonged anciently to the Kington family and later to St. John’s Hospital, Wilton. It remained until the Reformation.

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

When the wool trade was dying out, a silk factory was set up at Whitbourne Moor and another at Lane End.

These factories lasted until the middle of the nineteenth century.

– Information included in a historical study of Corsley by resident Christine Watts, a pupil of Form IVa, Frome Grammar School, during the school’s autumn term 1955:

In Corsley Church there is an inscription to George Carey, who set up this sign at the Clothworker’s Arms:

George Carey – The Clothworker’s Arms in Corsley 1616 – G.M.C.

The inscription is with a monument and coat of arms, and is in Latin.

Georgii Cary:
Christianna M.D.C.C.

There were cloth mills near Cley Hill; at Dartford, now High House Farm, which used to be a dye house; and at Sturford, or Temple, which was also a dye works. The Dye House and the Dye House Pond still exist. There were white railings on which the wool was dried at Temple.

At Mill House Farm there was a wool factory where the wool was spun into yarn, dyed and prepared. The yarn was carried by the villagers to be woven in their own homes.

Teazels [ teasels ] were grown round Cley Hill and Norich woods [ Norridge Wood ], and were used for raking the material to give it a surface and to draw all the threads one way.

The sheep were dipped at Sheepwash.

When the cloth industry started to decline, wool was fetched from the dye-works at Colpert Road, Frome.

The Wiltshire And Swindon History Centre, at Cocklebury Road, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 3QN, holds the following document(s):

Seven deeds relating to The White Hart Inn, Corsley, with cottages at Lane End, and inventory and valuation 1930. Parties: Thomas Henry, 5th Marquess of Bath, Rendell. 1893-1930. Reference: 1075/001/56.

Victor Strode Manley, in his Regional Survey Of Warminster And District (several volumes compiled in the 1920s and 1930s but never published) included a selection of anecdotes that had been told to him by various people.

This anecdote concerns the village of Corsley, between Warminster and Frome:

The Royal Oak at Corsley is notorious for slow serving. The landlord said he was always glad when a charabanc passed by instead of calling. On one occasion a party was so annoyed at being served so slowly that some of them went behind the bar and served the party himself and paid the landlord what he liked. Another time a similar party called and some of the women asked for warm water for their drinks. The landlord went away to prepare it, but the water was so long in coming, that the party walked out without paying at all. Since then, whenever a charabanc is sighted, there is a hurried move to pull down the blinds in the hope that the inn will not be noticed.