Hello, my name is Jade and I am currently on Placement at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre from the University of the West of England, as part of my History degree. I am working on a project that is looking at the possibility of children during World War One being evacuated to rural areas, such as Wiltshire. We do not know very much about this as it wasn’t government organised, and there are little records remaining. It seems that there was quite a large influx of Children from London following air raids in 1917, when Zeppelin airships were superseded by the deadly Gotha Biplanes. In the first raid in May 1917 there were 95 casualties and on the 12th of June 1917 100 bombs fell killing 162 civilians, including 16 Children at a school in Poplar which received a direct hit. This seems to have caused an unofficial evacuation of children and families.

In our documentary researches, we sometimes come across violent dramas that the long-gone occupants were involved in. These events are usually pretty sparse when looking at the history of a farmhouse. We were intrigued to find a rape case in the quiet and rural village of Bishopstone, near Swindon. Cue’s Farmhouse is a pretty thatched 17th century building constructed of the local chalkstone.  It was named after the Cue family who first to Bishopstone around 1780. The name of John Cue first appeared in a Bishopstone court book in 1775, when he was listed as a ‘leaze looker’. In 1780, the first available Land Tax return shows him occupying three pieces of land in the parish. In April 1797, John Cue died. With his wife Ann, according to the Parish Registers, he had four children, although it is possible earlier children might have been born elsewhere.

I thought it may be of interest to take a look on your behalf at the kinds of original documents visitors order out when they visit our search rooms, to give you an idea of the wide range of requests we receive for documents each day. I chose Tuesday 22nd October at random, and got peeking!

Many visitors pre-order material so that it is waiting for them when they arrive (a good idea if you have a lot to look through).

One such researcher was looking at some Great Western Railway plans for the stables next to Paddington Station.

They included a tenancy agreement for stalling dated 1905 (Ref: 2515/210 Box 128) and the elevation to London Street by the Engineers Works office in 1912 (2515/403/375).

Ordered out on the day was material from the Earl of Pembroke collection (Ref: 2057) including the account of H.M. Holdsworth with the Right Honorable George Robert Charles Earl of Pembroke for the estate of Wilts for one year as to rents to Michelmas 1880 (Ref: 2057/A1/99). Estate surveys (Ref: 2057/563) and a wages book (Ref: 2057/A5/32) were also of interest, and wages books may also give the name of an ancestor who worked on the estate.

As an MA student from Bath Spa University, on placement here at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, my first task has been to search the archive for First World War documents and photographs.

The opportunity to spend hours in the midst of archive documents is, for a history graduate like me, a complete joy. I’ve been impressed at the speed with which the production team retrieve items from the store rooms, and the helpfulness and expertise of the staff. The Centre is a wonderful facility.

Amongst many other papers, I came across a box of hundreds of letters, sent to a Miss Frances Baker, in her capacity as Honorary Secretary of the Salisbury branch of Queen Mary’s Needlework Guild, and dated from 1914 to 1919. The Guild was part of a national charity of ladies who raised money and used this to make and supply garments for the needy of their area. During the First World War, their focus shifted to service personnel of the British Army, Navy and Air Force, and in all theatres of war. Wiltshire people served in many different places, as far flung as the North Sea, France, Salonika, Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and Palestine. Later in the war, the Guild also took responsibility for sending parcels to Salisbury men who were prisoners of war in Germany.

A couple of weeks ago, the archaeology team visited the Operation Nightingale excavations at Barrow Clump. This is the second season of excavations on this Scheduled Monument. I’m going to talk about our site visit, but if you would like to know more about Operation Nightingale generally or the Barrow Clump excavation specifically, there is more information here: http://www.wessexarch.co.uk/barrow-clump

This excavation is being undertaken because the barrow (which is one of a large cemetery of Bronze Age barrows) is being badly damaged by badgers. Previous excavations had revealed that, in addition to Bronze Age remains, the site had an Anglo-Saxon cemetery that included some high status burials. The excavations have Scheduled Monument Consent, which means that only the specifically agreed works can take place. The barrow is still scheduled and so unauthorised works, including metal detecting, is illegal.

The team visited on a beautiful, sunny day. The first thing we were shown was the earlier ring ditch that is inside (and covered by) the later Bronze Age barrow.

Last March I wrote about planning an interpretive day course for the village of Atworth and made it an excuse to talk about Great Chalfield Manor and the Tropenell family, as Chalfield is now in Atworth civil parish. We held the day course last month, and very successful it was too. Course members, mainly Atworth villagers, spent an enthralling morning looking at books, maps and documents in the History Centre to discover the development of the village of Atworth over several centuries. It was a little complicated as there were three manors, the sites of which were fairly confidently identified, and the village itself was often referred to as being in three parts.

There’s a tithe barn, contemporary with that at Bradford on Avon, though only half its length; both were built by Shaftesbury Abbey, whose manor house or grange would have been here. Near the church is a triangular area, formerly a rectangle, which is called the market place. Folk memory and some evidence for penning indicated that sheep were sold here and it was thought likely that sheep fairs were held here as no market charter seems to have been granted.