Wiltshire is home to many stories and tales of local hauntings, and many local history sections in libraries hold books on ghosts and folklore. Malmesbury is no exception. The abbey is possibly the first site that one would turn to for ghostly encounters, as it towers over the town as one of the few survivors of Henry VIII’s dissolution of monasteries due to its purchase by William Stumpe, who turned it into a parish church (Scanlan, 48). It is said that a former monk has been seen walking through the cemetery, and that monastic singing has been heard in the abbey itself.
Another famous haunted site in the town is the Kings Arms hotel and restaurant, where a deceased landlord seems to have never left his workplace.
Stourhead: Henry Hoare’s Paradise Revisited Dudley Dodd Head of Zeus, 2021 ISBN: 978178854620 319 pages £40
In his introduction to this publication James Stourton, Stour Provost, tells us of the author’s feeling of the garden as ‘enduring rather than timeless’. Dodd looks to capture these enduring changes, of the owners, the history and landscape of this iconic site, to help us learn more about it and how it came to be.
From Stourhead: Henry Hoare’s Paradise Revisited we learn more about the dominant characters who have shaped the life of the house and gardens. Dodd enables us to get closer to the Hoare family; entrepreneurs who managed to gain a standing in society. Their interest in art and culture is illuminated, as is their expansion of creativity towards the gardens too which led to rich imaginings and radical ideas. The Hoares, like many, toured Italy, bringing a little of the country back with them through the items they bought and the influences that helped develop the house and landscape.
The façade of the former Picture Palace, Chippenham as it looks today
Cinema as an art form has its origins in the late Nineteenth Century, when a range of techniques were developed to give paying audiences the impression of moving images beamed onto a screen. Most techniques deployed a machine through which a sequence of connected photos were driven. These amusements were usually presented by travelling exhibitors, who toured society gatherings, music halls or fairgrounds. By the 1900s photographs had made way for cellulose nitrate film which though effective in purveying motion, were also highly flammable. Following several fires the government was prompted to regulate this fledgeling industry
The resulting Cinematograph Act of 1909 gave local councils the power to grant annual licenses for the exhibition of films, provided safety precautions were in place. Breaches of these safeguards could result in a fine of £20 – a considerable sum to any proprietor. Demand for moving pictures was huge and following the Act various entrepreneurs invested their money in creating permanent cinema buildings. Though by no means complete, here are a few fine examples of early picture houses in Wiltshire.
Designs for frontage of the Queens Hall Cinematograph Theatre, Salisbury, 1910 (ref G23/760/22)
In 1910 two rival companies established cinemas in Salisbury, both located on Endless Street. On 24th August 1910 planning permission was submitted to build a new Electric Theatre situated at the north-east corner of Endless Street and Bedwin Street. The request was made by the Grampino Syndicate, based in London’s Crystal Palace, and was approved by the City of New Sarum on 1st September. Designs for the venue, to be known as the Queens Hall Cinematograph Theatre, show an impressive classical frontage, with three sets of welcoming doors. This was a single-screen venue, with seventeen rows of seats on the ground floor, plus a further six rows on an upstairs balcony. The upstairs foyer also had a small sweet shop, demonstrating that even at this early date refreshments were seen as an integral part of the movie-going experience.
George M Barbour Cromwell House Publishing, 2021 ISBN 978-1-80049-797-9 £14.95 107 pages (unpaginated), hardback
This collection of photographs represents the work of Wiltshire photographer JJ Hunt who had studios in Calne, Malmesbury and Ludgershall before settling in Marlborough where he established his photographic studio.
The title of the collection suggests that the photographs relate to north Wiltshire, but in fact they span the length and breadth of the county.
The images include street views, business premises, properties, local residents and events. Notable inclusions feature Draycot House (now demolished), Emma Vaughan, licensee of the New Inn, Amesbury, and the Marlborough mop fair c.1925.
The quality of the images are good and as clear as they can be, given the date of the originals and the laudable commitment by the author to manipulate them as little as possible. The photographs are interesting, and captions provide additional details, sometimes with quotes by JJ Hunt’s family at the time, which add further interest and a feeling of stepping back in time, giving a more intimate connection with the past.
The book forms part of a journey. The author is JJ Hunt’ great grandson and knew nothing of Hunt’s photographic career before researching his great grandfather’s life and work. I felt honoured to be able to join him, as a reader, at this journey’s end. JJ Hunt’s Wiltshire Camera manages to capture a Wiltshire lost to us. It is an interesting and enjoyable look back to a time long gone. A well-produced publication.
JJ Hunt’s Wiltshire Camera is available to view at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre or borrow via your local Wiltshire library, reference AAA.771.
Julie Davis County Local Studies Librarian Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre
About two miles north of Dilton Marsh is the ancient manor house of Bremeridge, which we were fortunate to be able to visit a month or so ago. It was once one of the smaller manors that made up the parish of Westbury. Its settlement dates from at least the late 12th century, and a hoard of gold nobles of Edward III (1327-77), Richard II (1377-99) and others were found outside the back door in 1877. It has a commanding view from its ‘brambly ridge’ of the valley north towards Fairwood and Rudge on the Somerset border.
The National Heritage List for England suggested this was an altered 18th century house, which its exterior features indicated. The only clue to its far more ancient beginnings were its monumental double-skin studded door, worthy of any church. As we looked, we realised that this door was still attached to a vestige of timber-framing that survived after the house was rebuilt in the late 18th century. As we looked deeper, we realised that buried within this substantial building was an original three-bay timber-framed yeoman farmhouse; deeply-chamfered beams, and the original through-passage could all be seen and deciphered in the original plan. It was in the roof that the whole story of the house was told, as it so often was.
At one end of the long range was the remains of a cranked collar and tie beam truss roof with angled struts, rather in the manner of goats’ horns. This was an indication that we were probably dealing with a house of the second half of the 16th century. Incidentally, in urban areas such as Salisbury the same kind of roof would not be seen after 1550. It is recognised that a time-lag effect operates whereby new fashions in building are often introduced in cities or other important sites, percolating down to towns and then villages and hamlets in due course. Here we speculate that the farmhouse, long in the ownership of Edington Priory, was rebuilt for a new owner some time after the dissolution of the monasteries between 1536 and 1541.
The Covid pandemic has affected us all. Last year the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre put out a call to arms, asking for contributions to a new collection that we are building; ‘Living in Lockdown: A Creative Response to Challenging Times’. We had an amazing response! A big thank you to everyone who has contacted us with material to include. It’s been exciting to look at the scope and variety of Wiltshire’s responses to the issues we face and continue to grapple with.
I’d like to share with you some of the material we have received to give an idea of not just the variety, but also to show how a collection is created, collated and preserved for the future here at the History Centre. We see our collections as the county’s treasures. The precious knowledge contained within them about you, our county’s residents and communities, and how we have faced the Covid challenge can now be discovered and studied by future generations thanks to your generosity and the facilities here at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre.
We began our collecting process by sending out details of the project Living in Lockdown via our website and social media channels, utilising the help of some of the other teams we work with, such as the communications team at Wiltshire Council. As soon as the material started to wing its way to us, we began entering it on a spreadsheet; basically an ‘accessions’ record to help us register all the material, document where it came from and where it is being stored at the History Centre. We soon built up hundreds of entries, with donations from History Centre staff and other teams within Wiltshire Council such as Wiltshire Libraries, plus local residents, groups, organisations and creative practitioners living and working in the county.
Many types of formats have been received (paper copies, digital images and documents, CDs) and types of material, from cards, booklets, local newsletters, official letters, drawings, newspaper articles, writing and poems - the list goes on…
The creativity that has come out of these dark times has been wonderful to see. From artworks to music, poetry, writing and photography – it shows how intrinsically intertwined creativity is within us as a positive response to challenge and change, and how valuable and essential culture is to us as human beings and communities. We feel honoured to play our part in this cultural experience.
The hand made ‘A Book of Pauses’ by Jennie Gilling of Warminster, created as a response to different aspects in the natural world that highlighted our human situation in 2020. Art work by Paul Thomas which formed a collection that was exhibited in Salisbury in 2021.
The type of material will determine where it will sit within the collection. The History Centre is home to an archive and a local studies library. They have distinctive specialisms, for example on a basic level, the library deals with published material and the archive unpublished, but there are also some crossovers, for instance photographs could sit within the Local Studies Historic Photograph and Print collection but also within the archive collection too. We also have a new digital repository for born digital works. This is great for us, as it means the History Centre is well placed to welcome all sorts of material. The only items we can’t take are 3D items which are better placed in one of Wiltshire’s fantastic museums!
Photographs taken during lockdown: mural in The Butts, Chippenham, 11.2020, photographed by Michelle Chapman, ‘The Ancestor’ in Amesbury, fully equipped with mask, 11.2020 and the Devizes snake stones, 7.2020, photographed by Wiltshire Library staff
The next stage in the collection’s journey will be for myself as the County Local Studies Librarian and one of my Archivist colleagues to assess the collection and formally decide where everything should be placed (this is called ‘appraisal’). This usually involves a lot of excitement and quite a bit of time, as I know I always find so much of interest, but I must take a proper look at it all – we have to spend time getting it right, don’t we!
The documents and creative items will go into the archives, with the books and pamphlets that have been published finding their home in the local studies library. We have yet to make a decision on the digital material, but it is safe to say it will be stored in the most appropriate location. Anything left over after this process will make a valuable addition to the Ephemera collection in Local Studies. We usually define it as a miscellaneous collection of materials that you might often throw out, but believe me, in the future, these items will be a fantastic source of information…
In his introduction to this publication James Stourton, Stour Provost, tells us of the author’s feeling of the garden as ‘enduring rather than timeless’. Dodd looks to capture these enduring changes, of the owners, the history and landscape of this iconic site, to help us learn more about it and how it came to be.
This collection of photographs represents the work of Wiltshire photographer JJ Hunt who had studios in Calne, Malmesbury and Ludgershall before settling in Marlborough where he established his photographic studio.
