Here at the History Centre, we take in new deposits all the time. Actively collecting for the future is equally important as taking care of all the documents that we already have, some going back to the 13^th century. Material comes in regularly from parish councils who need to deposit their minutes, churches who have a full parish register that needs to come to us, or any local sports or social group that would like their paperwork to be kept safe for future generations to see.

Sometimes we receive gifts from individuals, usually an item they have found in the loft! We are always pleased when people think of us as a good home for such items, as that document will be catalogued and stored safely, making it accessible to everyone. Recently, we were offered an architect’s specification for a new house in Warminster. House history is one of the most popular reasons for people visiting us, so this item was a very welcome addition to our collection.

The document is a 64 page A4 notebook. It describes in great detail every aspect of the building work, including picture rails, a hat and coat stand, and draught excluders! The architect was W. Cecil Glass of Frome and the builders were R. Butcher & Son of Warminster. The house was built in 1913 for Sidney Smith, who was a partner in Scott and Smith, corn and seed merchants based in the Market Place in Warminster.

Sidney’s new home, called The Croft (the name Chedlanger House was much later), was built on the Bath Rd in Warminster.

The 1^st edition ordnance survey map, sheet 51/4 dated 1887, shows the area as a field.

By 1910, when the inland revenue survey was produced, the 2^nd edition of the same map, dated 1901, shows a note on the plot to indicate that a house was built in 1913. 

The ledger that accompanies the map shows that plot no 1927 was a piece of land owned by a Thomas Trollope.

In 1838, an indexed survey of Warminster was made for the purpose of poor-rate evaluation. The accompanying large-scale map shows that there was an area of Warminster called Chedlanger Field.

Sidney’s house was built on plot 2005. The survey shows that this was a piece of pastureland occupied by William Elling. The owner was the Rev Charles Tapp Griffith, who was the master of Warminster Grammar School 1820-1840.

The 1921 census shows Sidney and his family living at The Croft.

The family lived here until Sidney died on 26^th February 1934. The 1939 Register shows that The Croft was occupied by seven individuals. The head of the household was the Rev James Herbert, a clergyman from Wales who retired to Warminster in 1936.

The name Chedlanger House was chosen by the couple who moved there c1949, Cdr Ronald and Mrs Doreen Jonas. The house came with 32 acres of land on which they ran a pig and poultry farm. A magnificent row of large elm trees died from Dutch elm disease in about 1970. The property was sold approximately three years later.

Cdr Jonas’s daughter, Meriel, has written some wonderful memories, which she is happy to share.

‘We moved from Alverstoke to Warminster in 1949, when my father, Commander Ronald Jonas, had been invalided out of the Royal Navy, after nearly 30 years’ service, with a persistent skin condition.

He and my mother bought Chedlanger and its 40 acres for £8,000. Properties at that time so soon after the end of World War II had an ‘allocation’ which allowed a certain number of livestock to be held there. Dad built sties for his pigs and was one of the first people to keep hens in battery cages. By modern standards these were luxurious, each hen having a cage all to itself. Of course, to a great extent they have now been outlawed in favour of free range or ‘barn’ accommodation.

We had a succession of Guernsey house cows to provide milk and cream. Mum (Doreen) raised goslings on the lawn, which were fattened and sold at Michaelmas or Easter, depending on how well they had grown.

The 40 acres were used for grazing, the occasional crop of potatoes and also for hay, which was piled into haystacks and thatched. In the winter it was cut with a huge triangular knife for feeding to the cow. The tractor was a little grey Ferguson (‘Fergie’).

The pigsties, which are shown on the map of Chedlanger on your website, were solidly built of rendered breeze blocks in two rows of five in what then became known as the Piggery Field. They were built by a local builder, Albert Forman. Dad was an accomplished draughtsman and would probably have become an architect if he had not been destined for the Royal Navy at the whim of his mother. He designed the sties himself and was so pleased with the finished product that he suggested the builder sign them with his initials and the date.

The correct spot was chosen above the centre sty door. When Dad returned later to view the result, he found a circle in the damp render with the inscription BF 1980. “You are a BF” was a favourite reproof of his, being somewhat less discourteous than calling someone a bloody fool, so he was mortified to have it inscribed upon his new buildings for posterity.

He said, “But, Mr Forman, I thought you said your name was Albert. So why have you put BF?”

“Yes, it is,” said Mr Forman, “but all my friends call me Bert.” The inscription remained.

Two men were employed full time at Chedlanger – Bill Lacey to tend the animals, milk the house cow and do most other farm work, and Ken Robbins to look after the large kitchen garden. Dad himself was a keen gardener and took delight in laying out new flowerbeds.

Mum had a cook-housekeeper to start with, Rose Hitchin, but Rose left in a huff one day after Mum inadvertently let down the clothes-airer onto Rose’s head. For a short while we had a French au pair, Marie-Therese, but she was homesick and soon returned to Paris.

After that, Hilda Lacey came daily ‘to do’. She was also a popular babysitter and taught my brother and me to play Whist. The Laceys had a boisterous family of three: a girl, Shirley, and two boys, Peter and Gordon, whom she adored, all crammed into a little bungalow two fields away in Gas House Lane.

Mrs Lacey would walk up through the fields every morning, cheerfully bustle around the house for four hours and then depart to get ‘Lacey’ his dinner at 1 o’clock. She brought a two-pint milk can with her each day to take home fresh, full-cream Guernsey milk from Diana, the house cow.

The tennis court, which is also shown on your map, was built by a company called En Tout Cas. Mum had had an inheritance from a maiden aunt and her dream was to have a tennis court. She had been in her house junior team at Sherborne School for Girls (now simply Sherborne Girls) in 1929 and although not particularly brilliant had continued to play whenever possible.

At the same time that the court was being laid, Dad was waiting eagerly for his recently planted apple trees to bear fruit. They were still very young, but one tree had managed to produce one apple. On pain of death my brother and I were forbidden to touch it. However, one day it disappeared. Mike and I both protested our innocence. Who had taken it?

Ken Robbins, the gardener, had an idea. At the same time, he and Lacey had been caponising (i.e. castrating) some male chicks to fatten for the table. This was done by simply injecting a pellet into the loose skin of the neck.

He wandered over to the En Tout Cas men when they were having their tea break and casually mentioned about the caponising.

“As an experiment, we injected a pellet into that apple,” he said. One of the men turned sheet-white. “Um… Does it have any effect on humans?” he managed to say. Mystery solved.

Dad’s love of shooting and fishing was encouraged in his youth by his Uncle Herbert. All through his service with the Royal Navy he had his rods and guns with him. Once he had settled in Wiltshire he managed the local shoot on Lord Bath’s adjoining land and fished Lord Bath’s stretch of the River Wylye at Longbridge Deverill, which he always referred to as ‘the Lord’s Bathwater’.

In 1973 my parents returned to a bungalow in Upton Lovell, selling Chedlanger to George Baker, who had farmed the land as tenant for several years. Dad enjoyed his retirement at Long Hyde, not least because of the river at the bottom of the garden. His ambition was to catch a trout before breakfast.

Helen Taylor, Senior Community History Advisor

Sources:

25” map sheet 51/4

1:2500 map ST8646

L8/1/128

L8/10/51

G16/995/1

H15/130/2 PC

1921 census

Alumni Oxonienses 1715-1886

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1938

Gover/Place-names of Wiltshire