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A Q&A from the Bishop

on Tuesday, 20 February 2024. Posted in Archives, Wiltshire People, Wiltshire Places

A new volume of the Wiltshire Record Society - Returns to the Bishop of Salisbury’s Visitation Enquiry 1864 - has been published and its author, our own Helen Taylor, introduces us to the clergy and communities it covers…

Bishop's Visitations
Meet the clergy
Services and congregations
Non-conformity and ‘dissent’
Education
Tell us your troubles…

Bishop's Visitations

The practice of episcopal visitations of English dioceses became widespread in the 13th century, partly to curb monastic abuses, but also to monitor the conduct of the clergy and laity. By the 15th century churchwardens were required to report problems of discipline in their parishes, and in the Elizabethan period questionnaires, described as ‘articles of inquiry’ were issued, and answered by churchwardens’ presentments. Alongside these presentments developed the practice of questioning the clergy. The 1864 return is the first of five, late-19th century returns that contain a wealth of information on the church buildings, patronage, clergy, their income, services, non-conformity, daily schools and Sunday schools in each of the churches in the Salisbury diocese.

By the 1820s the Church was in crisis. Attacks were mounted on its corruption, nepotism, income from livings to which no spiritual duties were attached and other financial abuses. The most notorious defect of the 18th-century church was pluralism, and the non-residence which resulted from it. Many livings were extremely poor; in Wiltshire at the close of the 17th century the average income was £80, just above the poverty line figure of £50 a year. By the early 19th century, £150 was considered the lowest salary acceptable for a reasonable standard of living. Salaries in the Salisbury diocese in 1867 ranged from a mere £22 at Ansty to £1250 pounds at Pewsey. The majority of the clergy were earning between £100 and £350.

Another reason for non-residence was the parsonage. Some parishes did not have a parsonage house, in others, it was not fit for habitation. In 1858, Bishop Hamilton noted 62 parishes in the Salisbury diocese without a resident incumbent. 27 of these held other benefices in the diocese, 13 had benefices in other dioceses, nine parishes had no residence and six clergy were suffering from ill-health. The pluralism problem took decades to solve, as once an incumbent was appointed, he was immovable until death.

Page with printed questions in top left and hand-written responses covering remainder of page
Example of Bishop's Visitation return WSHC ref D1/56/7

Wren: Wiltshire's son?

on Tuesday, 31 October 2023. Posted in Architecture, Archives, Wiltshire People

As we approach the end of the tercentenary of Christopher Wren’s death in 1723, the Wiltshire Buildings Record briefly considers England’s great architect and his architectural contributions in the county.

Figure 1 Christopher Wren by Edward Pierce. Marble. 1673. © Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Christopher Wren was born here in Wiltshire but his formative years were spent in Windsor and Oxfordshire. He was born in October 1632 in East Knoyle in the south of the county. His father, Rector Wren (also Christopher), had been rector at Fonthill in the 1620s and then at East Knoyle. The Wren family only lived at East Knoyle for a few years before Rector Wren became the Dean of Windsor in 1634 (installed in 1635,) meaning Wren left Wiltshire when he would have been only a toddler. His life in Windsor ended in 1642 following an attack on the castle at the beginning of the Civil War. Wren senior moved his family to live with his daughter and her husband, Dr. William Holder (who was also a rector and doctor in arithmetic and geometry) at Bletchingdon in Oxfordshire.

Although there are no buildings in Wiltshire built by Wren’s own hand, he left his mark in the county in several ways including the following two; on a thorough survey of Salisbury Cathedral and a programme of works at Longleat.

Local beekeeping association arcHIVE had me buzzing!

on Tuesday, 15 August 2023. Posted in Archives, Wiltshire People

With this Saturday marking World Honey Bee Day, what else could this blog bee about than our pollinator friends and the archives of the groups who look after them!
When I started my new job as the Principal Archivist at the History Centre in the middle of November, one of the first things I set out to do was work out what cataloguing backlogs there were and how my team could work through them. There is always a cataloguing backlog in a county record office, no matter how many staff you have or how efficient they are. A lot of the collections we have uncatalogued are only going to be possible to catalogue with the help of large external grants.

However, a lot of the smaller collections are not impossible to work on during the non-frontline work of the archivists at the History Centre. And, keen to keep my hand in, I thought I’d have a look to see if there was anything I could work on myself. It didn’t take long to find my first full catalogue of my tenure as Principal Archivist.

Three booklets spread in a fan shaped, two are blue and one green. The cover of the green booklet shows the full title "Honeybee Times Year Book 1989"

Collection 1409B was brought in to the History Centre at the beginning of 2022, but due to its size it was not catalogued immediately. It is not a huge collection – only ten boxes, but large enough not to be able to catalogue at the time of accessioning (when the initial review is done on items soon after they are deposited). That is, until I arrived, saw the name of the collection and wrote my name next to it straight away.

A Truly ‘Excellent Hospital’: Bowood House as a Red Cross Military Hospital During the First World War, 1914-1918

on Tuesday, 04 July 2023. Posted in Archives, History Centre, Military, Wiltshire Places

If you are a fan (like me) of the hit series Downton Abbey, you will be aware that during the First World War, some big country houses transformed their homes into military hospitals or convalescent homes. When it was realised that the number of war casualties was vastly underestimated, the country scrambled for more hospital accommodation. Therefore, some owners of country houses, as well as some universities and asylums, volunteered their homes to be transformed into these medical facilities. Bowood House on the Bowood estate that is adjacent to village of Derry Hill in Wiltshire, was one of these homes, and turned itself into a Red Cross military hospital. It was opened in 1914 by Maud Evelyn Petty-Fitzmaurice, the Marchioness of Lansdowne, wife to the 5th Marquess of Lansdowne.

An early colour postcard showing formal parterre gardens with a stately home buildings surrounding back and left of the garden
WSHC, P16236: Postcard of Bowood House in Calne Without, Wiltshire, 1907. The big main house to the right of the photograph was demolished in 1956. To the left of the photograph is the conservatory that contains the Orangery where the hospital was located. This part of the house is still accessible today.

Lady Lansdowne was a charitable woman, who had already financially assisted war widows whose husbands had been killed fighting the Boer War. She was also a member of the Council of the British Red Cross Society and a member of the Joint War Committee! When war was announced in 1914, she rolled up her sleeves and appointed herself as Commandant of Bowood Hospital. It was decided that the ‘orangery’ room in Bowood house (the bright and airy orange walled room, that is today full of marble busts and is accessible from the upper terrace) would be the perfect space to use for the wounded to heal. Interestingly, the room was previously used by the 1st Marquess as a conservatory for orange and lemon trees, quite a contrast from its new purpose! To begin with, Bowood merely received injured soldiers from the yeomanry, but as the war progressed, the hospital received soldiers from every rank.

Centenary of Chippenham’s John Coles Park

on Monday, 22 May 2023. Posted in Archives, Wiltshire People, Wiltshire Places

Today (23 May) marks 100 years since Chippenham’s John Coles Park was opened to the public, so I thought it might be interesting to delve into the park’s history.

John Coles was a chemist who came to Chippenham in the early 1870s – the 1875 Kelly’s Directory lists Coles as a “chemist & druggist, grocer & tea dealer” at 25 Market Place. Coles seems to have flourished in Chippenham and by 1907 his business had expanded to include the sale of wines and spirits, as well as “Coles’s pig powders” which, according to an advert in the Wiltshire & Gloucestershire Standard, promised to “keep pigs healthy, cure complaints” for one shilling per packet.

 Kellys Directory 1875 John Coles advert

Kelly’s Directory advertisement for John Coles’s chemist, 1875

He was soon taking part in the civic functions of the town, serving on the town council and becoming mayor for the first time in 1891, and then again in 1898 and 1914. When he died in 1916, Coles left £4,000 in his will for “the cultural and educational advancement of the people of Chippenham”. The town council first decided to form a committee to discuss “the best means of dealing with the legacy left to the town by the late Alderman Coles” on 1 July 1919, but little seems to have come of this until 1921, by which time the town council seems to have been intent on creating a new recreation ground for the people of Chippenham.

The Archived Ancient Woodlands of Wiltshire: Using Modern Mapping to Preserve our Natural Heritage

on Wednesday, 19 April 2023. Posted in Archives, Wiltshire Places

The ancient woodland inventory project was first launched in the 1980’s and put Britain (quite literally) on the map for woodland conservation. What started out as a successful pilot study in the Southeast of England, very quickly turned into a national project. However, since the initiation of the AWI, we have developed a more robust evidence base (Sansum and Bannister, 2018, p.7), meaning that we can now accurately portray our lost woodlands.

What are the aims of the AWI project?
Natural England are updating the ancient woodland inventory in hopes of utilising this as an evidence-based conservation and management tool. Mapping our woodlands is vital in terms of ecological preservation; we simply cannot preserve something that we’re not sure exists. The AWI will provide additional support for conserving woodlands that contain irreplaceable biodiversity and cultural heritage. With new advancements in technology, we will be able to continuously update the inventory, making it a sustainable resource for long-term projects.

Phase 2-3 South Wiltshire output, Feb 2023

What do we mean by ‘ancient’ woodland?
Woodlands today are broadly categorised as either “ancient” or “recent”. For this project, an ancient woodland is defined as an ‘area that has been continuously wooded since 1600 AD’ (Sansum and Bannister, 2018, p.9). This doesn’t mean that other woodlands are not important to us, or the project. Almost all habitats in some capacity have intrinsic and ecological value. Yet not all woodlands nationally have had the same level of protection or monitoring overtime, creating gaps in our landscape where further research is now required.

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