|
This is chapter eight of a book by Ida Gandy,
The Heart of a Village, An Intimate History of Aldbourne. Published by Alan Sutton Publishing, Phoenix Mill, Stroud, Gloucestershire (£5.95). ISBN 0-86299-874-3
The book is described as a detailed history of the village of Aldbourne, where she lived for more than 25 years, drawn from the memories of older villagers. The cover picture is April in the Meadows by W H Bartlett. The book was first published in 1975 by Moonraker Press, Bradford-on-Avon, and the version this is taken from is copyrighted to Christopher Gandy, dated 1991. Ida Gandy is buried in Aldbourne churchyard. |
|
| EIGHT
Old Names and Old Inhabitants ALL villages possess intriguing lists of good country names; certainly Aldbourne does, its own starting as 'Ealinchurnam'. In old deeds and records occur titles of such flavour as Budge Bush, Cousinage Corner, Cathangers, Hobbs' Hill, Mushes, and White Shard (these two still so called), Hay Lynch, Penticoots (now Penticote, once probably Penticost), Bestroppa, Cow Crout Barn, Upham Moonlight, World's End (now Woodsend), White-shard and Rooks Wood. Beside this wood once stood a house bequeathed by Roger Walrond to his daughter in 1611, with the provision that she 'make sufficient estate'. Moonlight, an upland field, is a name still familiar to some old people and probably dates back to poaching days. Aldbourne surnames, too, cast their spell: Vockings, a very early one, may derive from 'Vikings'; Bacon is another early one. Bits of land in the East and West Common Fields were called after this family, and so was an eight-acre field. The first Bacon married Anne, in 1637, and other Bacons continued for 156 years. I always hoped to find one of the equally numerous Salts marrying a Bacon, but never did, though both had babies christened on the same day. Thomas Bacon kept the first village Post Office. Other suggestive names are Rye and Barley. In 16o1 Stephen Barley left his 'horse, beestes and sheep', to his two sons, and desired 'to be buried within the church of Auburne'. Then there are the Knackstones. John Knackstone indicted William Fowler for singing a libellous song about him in 1629, but though he read it out at the Quarter Sessions he lost his case. In 1734 a Knackstone, himself a Constable, is presented at the Manor Court 'for feeding his horses on the waste'. Hedges, Hawthornes, Elderfield, Alder, Hazel, Birch, Ivy and Woodruff are true country names. A Woodruff once kept the inn. The name is redolent of the little white flower that beautifies our copses, once treasured by housewives for scenting their linen-chests. Then there are Applefield and Orchard; Orchards were well-known as chairmakers, and previously as thatchers and woodmen. Eatwell seems appropriate for a time when food was still plentiful, For birds, we find Finch and Sparrow. A Sparrow's will was proved in 1599; another was living here in 1646; a Finch still earlier. Other good names are Corduroy and Bigbow. Occupational names are frequent. Fowler has already been mentioned. A downland village naturally always had a Shepherd, originally spelt Sheepherd; innumerable Palmers recall pilgrims carrying their willow wands. They are still with us. Naturally some surnames derive from places. 'Vize' crops up often from 1638 well on into the eighteenth century; Burford is another. Both link themselves with Aldbourne's big sales of sheep and wool. Devizes, formerly 'The Vize' held an important sheep market, and Burford was a flourishing wool town. Liddiard, in a variety of spellings, is a north Wiltshire place name, and has continued for over 300 years. Other evergreen families are Barnes, Barrett and Stacey. Jerrams, of Norman origin, have played a part for over 200 years. Among old village families no longer here must be mentioned the Motts, important landowners in the eighteenth century. An assessment in 1795 includes pieces of land, called Motts, as well as Motley Croft. William was a Churchwarden, and administered Richard Goddard's Charity. The Churchwardens' Accounts for 1715 record, 'Received of Mr. Mott two pounds for ye youse of ye poor gave by Mr Goddard. . . due at Mikelmas'. Goddards and Walronds, both exalted and humble, inhabited the village from earliest days. The Browns, to become Lords of the Manor in 1894, first appear in 1655, and continue in one of their numerous branches right on to the present day. Edward Coward, a noted Wiltshire farmer, writing of farming in the nineteenth century says, 'Of all farming families in the County the Browns were by far the most numerous and influential. . . There was a time when one could walk from Horton to Wantage, and scarce set foot on land not occupied by a Brown'. Brown, a solid country name, conjures up fustian, ploughed fields, the downs in winter, the dark trunks of elms. The Adee family, important in the seventeenth century, held special interests in the Chase. John Adee issued his own trade token, valued at one farthing and bearing a picture of three rabbits, in 1656. Turning from surnames to Christian ones, here are a few that people are not likely to choose again: Abigail, Arabella, Eunice, Triphena, Leah, Theophilus, Sharch, Gadislad, Zabulon (Absolom?), Zaccharias, Zephenia, Cornelius and Ephraim. Bible names were understandably popular in the mid-seventeenth century. SOME OLD INHABITANTS I start with four soldiers. Colonel Doyley, bearing one of the oldest village names, emigrated to Jamaica with other soldiers during the Civil War. He organised them with such skill combined with severity that he was able to colonise the island for Britain, and he became its first Governor. He judged the constitution of his own country as suitable for Jamaica. On retirement he chose St Martin-in-the-Fields, instead of Aldbourne. A second soldier, Robert Drewe, again of an old Aldbourne family, served in the 20th Foot, first in the Peninsular War, then at New Orleans after the American War of Independence, then back again to Europe and to peace on the island of St Helena where he helped to guard Napoleon. One wonders what he, a splendid-looking man 6 ft 2in. in height, thought as he watched that small frustrated figure pacing endlessly to and fro. When Napoleon died of cancer in 1821 Drewe was chosen, as one of the six tallest soldiers, to help carry the coffin. He himself enjoyed far more honourable retirement in his native village, where his tall old figure walking the countryside was a familiar sight. On one of his journeys to Hungerford to fetch his pension he sat down by the wayside and quietly died. Now comes John Wakefield, of the old Wiltshire Regiment, who suffered even greater hardship in the scorching heat and privation of our sadly mistaken war in Afghanistan. When he too returned to Aldbourne he talked of the terrible march to relieve Kandahar; of the crossing of the mountains between India and Baluchistan with a battery drawn by elephants; of the way the enemy attacked suddenly from behind the rocks. Scarcely was this ordeal over than he was caught up in the First Boer War, where on Majuba Hill his regiment suffered most grievous losses. But again an Aldbourne man showed the power to live an active life in spite of all he had previously endured, when he settled down in Lottage in a house which he named Kandahar. Not only did he often walk 16 miles a day as an auxiliary postman, but he gave physical instruction to the children and taught musketry to the young men. At his funeral in 1940 five soldiers carried his coffin and a bugler from his old regiment sounded the 'Last Post'. Another Aldbourne man became British Army Instructor in Unarmed Combat, and he, with five other wrestlers of international repute, gave an exciting demonstration in the Village Hall. The First World War produced worthy successors to Drewe and Wakefield. One, when a company of the Wiltshire Regiment was raked by fire from a machine gun, volunteered to silence it. When no bombs were available he found some left by the Germans, carried as many as he could round his neck, crawled to the gun, threw his bombs and destroyed it and its crew. A sniper caught sight of him, fired, and wounded him in the shoulder. He recovered and was awarded the D.C.M. And now for one last military hero, or rather, heroine; Maud Hawkins, later known by her code-name of 'Pat'. She married a Frenchman, and during the Resistance Movement they harboured many escaping prisoners and also transmitted messages to London. But for this she paid a heavy price. She was captured by the Gestapo, sent to Ravensbruck Concentration Camp and set to road-making, on a diet of bread made of horse-chestnuts and cabbage-leaf soup. Her weight, a very moderate one, halved in a few weeks. Nor was this all. A guard smashed a broomstick over her head, and left her with a broken hand and impaired sight and hearing (later, an operation in Switzerland restored her). Just before the war ended, deemed useless now, Pat was transferred to an extermination camp. All hope seemed gone, but mercifully, miraculously, the Americans bombed the gas chambers just in time to save her. No wonder she received the French Legion of Honour and the Croix de Guerre; also the American Freedom and the British Empire medals. A portrait of her wearing her decorations won a Gold Medal at the Academie Royale in Paris. She is someone in whom Aldbourne may well feel pride. Civilian inhabitants now come into the picture. Henry Martin (d. 1721) belonged to a family which lived at Snap. Though a lawyer, he was never well enough to attend the courts, so he took to writing for 'The Spectator', and because he contributed to the rejection of a treaty of commerce with France was rewarded with the post of Inspector General of Imports and Exports. Not a very inspiring person, nor closely knit with the village. Of those who were, none are more so than the 'Pizzies'. The name is intriguing and people used to say that the family came from Italy. But although there were Italians name Pizzi in north Italy (one a sculptor), the name is entirely English and derives from Pusey in Berkshire. It crops up in several surrounding villages in a variety of spellings such as Pizey, Puzey, Peasy, Pezey, and Pizzey; a Pizey is recorded at Hedgerley in 1591. The earliest Pizzies were probably Phebe, buried in 1679, and another of the name who acted as Churchwarden in 1663. From then onwards there are few years during the next 200 when Pizzies are not being born, married, or buried. They followed a variety of callings. One was a shoemaker, one a maltster, two were shepherds, one, William, a prosperous pioneer of the willow trade who carried on his business in Hightown. His father, Joseph (Joseph and Joshua were favourite Pizzie names), helped to add a bell to St Michael's., William was a devoted ringer who taught the village boys the art, and himself took part in the Grandsire Triples that celebrated Queen Victoria's accession . 'Pizzies', often well to-do, owned a bit of land called 'Pizzies' . Though some served as Churchwardens, others joined the Dissenters in the eighteenth century, but returned to the Anglican Church later. Caleb was baptised in 1818 aged sixty-five. Sadly at last the line died with two brothers, neither of whom left an heir. The elder was a shepherd at Manor Farm for many years; a little bent man, a lover of solitude, who found it both on the wide open downs and in his bungalow tucked snugly under them. When too old to tend the sheep he pushed the baby from the Manor about the village, and grew more sociable. One day, some Americans motoring past stopped for a better look at this old man with the perambulator. 'All straps, wrist-watches and cameras', as an onlooker described them, they sprang Out crying, 'Hold it, mister, hold it!' Click went their cameras. Perhaps old Pizzie and that baby girl are still shown in the U.S.A. to illustrate the 'quaintness' of English village life. His brother, Siddie, represents a different type; small but very upright, like a little ferret with sharp, bright, twinkling eyes. His skin grew walnut brown from weather and dirt. When someone visited him in hospital they were startled at sight of his white hands; hands always so dark before. Housework was not in his line, and his house was invariably filthy. Sometimes he would ask a neighbour in for a sip of port. Out came glasses thick with dust, but she never had the heart to refuse or to wipe her own first. When later he shared his home with another old man they each claimed their own half of the stairs. Siddie's side remained unswept; the other ostentatiously clean. He washed all his clothes once in six months, when the little yard became almost impenetrable. Siddie was a born poacher, and an adept at finding his way about in dark woodlands. Once, after working a while with two builders on a house near Savernake Forest he grew bored and set off to walk home alone on an autumn evening, grew tired and sat down under a tree. Word went out that he was missing, but an extensive search by the light of lanterns at last revealed him asleep, the leaves thick about him. Like a babe in the wood, they said. Siddie was often seen feeding a child on either side with sticky sweets from his pocket. At Carnival time he always appeared in some wonderful guise. Last of the Aldbourne Pizzies, he undoubtedly added much to village gaiety; we don't breed many such people now. It would be hard to find a family more unlike the Pizzies than the Goddards, originally 'God-hard', well established in the neighbourhood by the early sixteenth century as sheep farmers. In 1527 the Abbess of Lacock granted a lease of land at Upham to John Goddard, 'a woolman'. When the Monastery was dissolved Henry VIII gave John the land, and his son Thomas is believed to have rebuilt the old house. But the history of the Goddard family is too long, too complicated, to embark on here. It is enough to recall the tower that Richard helped to build, the bell inscribed with a prayer for his soul that still rings, the little footpath running between Lottage and Grazills; the imposing family monument in the church. The Walronds, another long-lasting family, have already come into the story. The Staceys are a prolific race. I have spoken of the shop and the lively lady who kept it. Her husband was both baker and bandmaster, who himself played a variety of instruments and took the Band to many a contest in a horse-drawn coach. Late at night he returned, not to sleep but to bake bread. Another Stacey also kept a shop where, among other delicacies, she sold pigs' trotters. But the sight of boys eating them outside and then scattering the bones about made her furious, and she gave up the sale of trotters. Entertainments were often livened by her monologues in rich dialect. Those in the know could buy a jar of her 'White Oils', considered an infallible cure for rheumatism and made from her own secret recipe. Her universally-loved daughter, and later her grandson, succeeded her. Then there are the Barnes. Billy Barnes, town-crier in the first half of this century, cried in a tailed coat with red binding and a tall beaver hat. He was a fine figure of a man, with a powerful voice, who came high in All England Town Crier competitions. For these he practised on top of the Southward, with a friend stationed on Greenhill, half a mile away, to listen. His voice came across clear as a bell. Once he was asked to broadcast because of his rich dialect. 'We all spoke it once', he said, 'till new folk came to the village with their brogues.' When the Parish Council shirked the sending out of notices Billy cried them at ii different places for is. a cry. Later when people refused to pay even enough for a drink of beer, he decided to retire. He is dead now but both his bell and his memory remain. Two women nature-lovers enriched the village. Emily Sophia Todd (1859—1949), a devoted botanist, gradually built up a herbarium that contained specimens of nearly every English wild flower. Her collection went to Swindon Museum, but has sadly disintegrated. Two plants that she discovered were named after her; one a variety of the Wood-cowwheat (Melampyrum sylvaticum), another a wild rose, Rosa Toddie. Her broad figure, clad in a tweed suit, was a familiar sight as she cycled about, her back tyre always flat. When eighty years of age, she waded barefoot in a marsh to reach a rare plant, and hung over a cliff after another while her companion, as thin as she was stout, precariously held her ankles. Muriel Foster, lover of all wildlife, especially birds, has already been spoken of. Among other well-remembered characters are five spinster sisters, noted for their charitable offerings of soups and jellies, and their Bible-readings to the sick and bedridden; also for their habit of walking in two pairs, while the fifth sister went her solitary way. But once they closed ranks: after a quarrel with the Vicar, they tramped together seven miles over the downs to Ashbury every Sunday for many weeks. Mrs Onion Jam lived in the cottage known as Lower Sixpenny. One year, overwhelmed by an enormous onion crop, she decided to use part of it for jam. 'But somehow,' she lamented, 'it doant zeem to taste right.' After that the title stuck, and her son, like herself a simple soul, was always called Billonions. Another example of the countryman's love of nick-names is found in that of 'Thunder and Lightning' given to a certain couple; she of a fiery nature, and he the one who growled back. Next door to Mrs Onion Jam lived Tommy Tucker. If he didn't actually sing for his supper, he could wax extremely merry after a drink at the inn. Early this century the Mail was driven from Swindon to Hunger-ford in a covered cart drawn by two horses. After the driver had been held up in the dark on the lonely road over the downs he took to carrying a pepper-pot and talking to himself continuously. This, he reasoned, would warn dangerous characters that he was not alone. At Aldbourne he always tied up his horses and took a drink at the Queen before going on to Hungerford. Of four men, one dead, three still alive, I will write a little more fully. Aldbourne has bred many people who have helped to sustain a fine countryside. One, whose name, Woolford, shows that his ancestors once warded off wolves from the sheep, for 50 years walked behind his plough, drove the wagons, and tended the horses. When the last was led away, in 1959, he accepted it philosophically, and with the dry humour so typical of his sort, he asked a neighbour, 'D'ye have a sausage for your breakfast?' 'On Sundays,' she replied. 'Then mebbe you'll be eating old Colonel before long,' said he. Yet he had been devoted to Colonel and to all his horses. In retirement his garden brought him immense satisfaction; the sight of the first leaves of a 'spud', the first broad beans, made his day. And he liked to sit beside his door gazing proudly at a row of rigid, flaunting gladioli. But he had, too, an eye for his white violets, and for an amazing bush of Love-in-the-Mist that had sprung up under his window. Surprisingly, since he left school at ten, he was an avid reader. Under the Greenwood Tree and Lark Rise to Candleford were among his favourites, as was the Bible. The Salvation Army with its cheerful music and simple faith attracted him more than any other religious body. He was never one to think 'this world is very evil' or that life is a desert to be crossed before the Promised Land can be reached. He loved it almost till the end; "Twould be a waste of time to die', he used to say. Another man, a dairy farmer now retired, remembers how, when he left school at twelve, he worked ten hours a day for 3s. a week, and sometimes felt so hungry that he would share a turnip with the sheep. In early days he made hurdles in the woods, where he grew familiar with a great variety of birds. His keen eye missed nothing, whether it be a kestrel overhead, a brambling in the hedge, or some small object on the ground. Once, as he ploughed round the site of the old windmill, he picked up a horsebrass engraved with a windmill. Other finds include a wealth of coins, one struck in the last year of Charles I; trade tokens; flint arrowheads; fossils, including a perfect Shepherd's Crown; and a large, shining, cone-shaped shell. One day his plough struck something hard. 'Stop!' he cried to his companion, 'there's summat here!' They ploughed deeper and up came a great thunderbolt, undoubtedly shed during a terrific storm a few days before. When harrowing he would detect strips of sickly yellow contrasting with the healthy green all round. 'Them young chaps scamping their work when they spread the muck', he would mutter. His ear was quick as a bird's to catch any strange sound. Once, standing by his gate, watching water streaming along after a downpour, he heard the chink of metal. He put his hand down and drew up a Victorian Jubilee Medallion. With a herd of over 50 cows, he knew each by name. He served on the Parish Council for 50 years, and nobody was more familiar with all Rights of Way, or guarded them more zealously. A second man still with us has also been a staunch Parish Councillor for even longer and chairman of it for 20 years, and has also served on both Rural and County Councils. He is a most deceptive person. His mild face, his slow, gentle voice when he took the chair at a difficult meeting would make newcomers think, 'Goodness! He'll never get through all this contentious business!' But calmly, patiently, firmly, he could always steer his way to the end. Other voices might be raised loudly, but it was the quiet one that prevailed. As a convinced Socialist— a true Christian Socialist— he met much hostility in the more intolerant past. Once, after he had raised his voice in protest at a Conservative meeting two indignant retired colonels threatened to withdraw their custom from his little shop for airing such dangerous views. 'That's your affair,' replied he. 'I don't try to sell my politics when I do business, but outside I have as much right as you to express my own opinions.' The colonels walked away muttering, but next morning their wives came to shop as usual. My third still-living man, whose name shows him to be of Norman origin, has sung for 70 years in the choir of the church which he has helped to keep in repair ever since, as a boy, he stood on his father's shoulder to mend the leaded windows. Furthermore, he played in the Band for quite ~o years, was Bandmaster for a considerable time, and in the First World War was one of a number of fellow bandsmen to cheer the hearts of their comrades with their music amid the mud and misery of Flanders. After enduring much pain with fortitude he has just had a leg amputated. We have an outstanding woman too; a fit survivor of the old Orchard family. Her parents kept the village post office for years, and she herself as a girl carried letters and telegrams by foot or on her cycle to the farthest bounds of the parish, including Snap, where grand old Rachel Fisher would refresh her with a cup of tea. She loves music and often sang as she went along. Later she and her husband also kept the post office. And no matter how busy she might be she has always found time both to lead and share in village activities. Another stout-hearted woman reared 13 children in a small cottage. The eldest was grown up when the last was born, and she would carry it, strapped in a basket on her cycle, to fetch the daily papers from Hungerford and so eke out the small family income. THE FEAST These had been magic words for the village ever since the Church Council meeting at Oxford in 1222 ordained that all parishes should keep their own Saints' Days as secular as well as religious festivals. At that time Aldbourne Church was still dedicated to St Mary Magadalen (of lower status now in the Roman Calendar), which led to the Feast being fixed for the first Monday after 22 July, and it has so remained ever since. Probably from very early days a Fair has arrived in the village, but unlike many others, it actually possesses no Charter. The word 'feast' is less magical perhaps now than when the villagers depended far more on their own resources for amusement. It was once a truly outstanding occasion, and old people talk nostalgically of what happened when they were young. Absent members of the family, former inhabitants and old friends, flocked back. Houses were redecorated, walls repapered with paper costing, in the early twentieth century, twopence a roll; brooms plied so vigorously that spiders were said to hold up traffic on the hill. 'Viggety' puddings, sometimes a yard long, tied in cloths, were boiled in the coppers or on the fire, together with a sheep's head, ham or bacon, and vegetables. One small boy, left to watch the cooking while his mother went to church, rushed to fetch her home. 'Please come quick!' he whispered, 'that old head be gobbling up the vegetables.' The Fair people, still usually called gipsies in those days, were not allowed to enter the village till after 7 p.m. on Sunday evening. But long before that boys ran out beyond Lottage, or along South or West Streets to lay their heads on the ground and listen for the sound of approaching horses. If a caravan was reported from another direction away they rushed to escort it in to the village. Great activity followed as one after another arrived. Horses were led off to drink at the Pond before going to graze in a nearby meadow. Then, on the slopes below Beech Knoll, came the Camp meeting, a religious ceremony inaugurated by a Derbyshire Methodist couple, who had formerly lived in a hamlet called Mow Cop; they so named their new home on Baydon Hill. People from all round attended, and the singing was extremely hearty. One old lady who had been promised a new dress for the feast got so worked up that her repeated cries of 'Alleluia' and 'Praise the Lord', so disturbed the congregation that the speaker admonished her: 'Now you just be quiet or there'll be no new dress for you.' Once, when the feast lasted two or three days, two speakers from Wanborough stayed with an old couple who had boiled a ham in their honour. Not one morsel remained when they departed. Always at daybreak next morning preparations were in full swing. The womenfolk made sweets at the back of their caravans in conditions that would have given a Food Inspector a fit today. A mother and two daughters from Buckland in the White Horse Vale, scrupulously clean and tidy in black dresses and white aprons in contrast to the gipsy women, also made sweets from a sticky mixture attached to the posts in front of the pond, and stretched out for yards before being cut up. Mussels, cockles, and winkles dressed with vinegar were on sale, as well as fried fish. A children's roundabout was either turned by hand, or by a pony, and a larger one by a small steam-engine. Other attractions included 'Phoebe', with a head and no body (a trick done by mirrors); the blacksmith from Whittonditch, who walked on upturned nails and put red-hot irons in his mouth; and, of course, fortune-telling. Because the village boys rushed about with water pistols, the girls wore clean print frocks but never their Sunday best; for years the Parish Council tried to stop this practice. The outstanding, if rather bloody, sport was the backswording which persisted into the 189os. Men fought each other with stout sticks on platforms of upturned beer barrels, till blood poured from their foreheads; and they queued up to wash themselves at the Pond. Two White Horse Vale champions paid half-a-crown to all who took them on, while a local Goliath acted as M.C. and himself fought any challenger. More promiscuous fighting began in the evening when beer, made from hops and malt in the village, flowed freely at only a penny a pint. Woe betide any foreigner who dared raise a scoffing cry of 'Dabchick' then: into the Pond he went. Nowadays the feast is a tamer, and of course, far more highly mechanised, affair. The Travellers, no longer Gipsies, are wonderfully tidy, and their gaily painted caravans have been replaced by ones luxuriously fitted. Their apparatus is far more elaborate, but also far more predictable: Inevitably the character of the feast has changed. Everything is bigger, faster, noisier, more glittering. The old gentle roundabouts with their beautiful gilt horses have been replaced by machines that whisk you round at break-neck speed; swing-boats soar higher and higher; a terrifying machine called an Octopus attracts the young, as also do the Dodgems. Still, the feast reunites families and renews old friendships, and the church, floodlit and beautiful, looks down on a scene it has witnessed for more than 750 years. |
| Aldbourne picture postcard village |
| The Aldbourne Chronicle by Maurice A Crane |