KING OF BLOGS: Chippenham

Showing posts with label Chippenham. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: King Alfred

The building in front of you is the Chippenham Museum, not far from the Buttercross which we looked at for the letter B. What makes this of interest for the letter K is the plaque on the wall, which you can just see to the top left of the lady walking past.

You see the legendary King Alfred was here: he of burnt cakes fame. He was king of Wessex - one of the realms of England during the Dark Ages - and one of the more famous ones of those times.

During these times Chippenham was a villa regia aka a royal estate with a hunting lodge. The king would bring his court here to stay for hunting in the surrounding rich forest and also preside over matters of justice. The Anglo Saxon Chronicle states that the Anglo Saxon Witan, or parliament was held in Chippenham in 933.

During the ninth century, the kingdom of Wessex was under threat from Danish Vikings, who'd already captured the other three Anglo Saxon kingdoms. In 878, the Anglo Saxon Chronicle says:

This year, about midwinter, after Twelfth Night, the Danish army stole out to Chippenham, and rode over the land of the West Saxons, where they settled, and drove many of the people over sea.

In 879, King Alfred defeated the Danes at the battle of Ethandune, which is thought to be modern day Edington near Westbury. He then chased them back to their stronghold at Chippenham and lay siege. Thus peace was restored to the kingdom of Wessex and it's this defeat which went towards him earning the title King Alfred the Great.

Whilst the remains of buildings dating from Saxon times have been found close by where the pictured commemorative plaque is displayed, there's no real proof yet that this is indeed where the royal hunting lodge actually was.

However, a couple of mentions in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, one of the key documents we have of this poorly documented time, shows that Chippenham must have been of some importance. There's other evidence too, but that story is a better tale for next month :)

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the eleventh in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: John Coles

I've often wondered who exactly John Coles was and now have the answer courtesy of my research for today's post. He was a pharmacist who owned a pharmacy and general grocer's store at the top of the town where Coates' flower shop is now. There he made medicines, invalid wines and other products such as garish dyes, furniture polish, insect powder and 'Chippenham Scour Mixture', a cattle remedy. He was a keen supporter of secondary education and was Chippenham's Lord Mayor three times in 1891, 1898 and 1914, so he must have been well respected during his lifetime.

On his death in 1916 he left a legacy to the then Chippenham Borough which they used to purchase a suitable plot of land for the provision of a public park. When I was researching D for Donkey Field, the purchase of this land was also documented in the papers I was looking at: just over £4,000 for 15 acres of former farm land.

John Coles Park opened in 1923, which I believe makes it one of the younger parks of its type in this country, those resulting from a local benefactor. This kind of philanthropy was more common during Victorian times when the provision of open spaces became a popular way to improve a town and general public health. However, age doesn't really matter: its continued presence and use in the heart of the town is much more important.

Changes are afoot at the park this year which I hope to tell you more about in my regular Out on the Streets meme. The Town Council - who look after the park nowadays - have decided to apply for Green Flag status and to have a Friends of the Park scheme to help with upkeep. I'm expecting the latter to happen all over the country this year when the fallout from the round of local government spending cuts bites ever deeper.

Talking of Out on the Streets: look out for my kick-off post in early April where I'll be asking you to show us what's out and about re public planting in your neighbourhood.

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the tenth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Thanks to the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Chippenham is a railway town. He decided that his Great Western Railway line from London to Bristol - nicknamed 'Brunel's billiard table' at the time because the line is relatively flat compared to others in the UK - would be routed through the town and was also based here for a while whilst it was being built. When you visit many of our towns and cities, places of heritage are often marked with a blue plaque like the one above. The temporary presence of one of our greatest Britons ever was deemed to be of significance by the Civic Society.

The plaque is placed on a small building to the side of the railway station. This was Brunel's office which he used whilst supervising the works in Chippenham and the surrounding area. He left quite a mark on the town in 1841, but you'll have to wait until a later letter to see exactly what that was...

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the ninth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: History Centre

It's been really hard choosing this week's H because there are quite a few good ones to choose from as far as Chippenham's concerned. In the end I plumped for the History Centre because I went there for the first time whilst researching D for Donkey Field.

As you can see the centre is for the whole of Wiltshire and is one of the latest (and largest) public buildings to be built in the town. It's built on part of the old cattle market (which closed in 2004) close to the railway station and opened to the public in October 2007. The move of the various records held at Trowbridge (our county town) and Salisbury to Chippenham was quite controversial at the time because whilst Chippenham has relatively good transport links, it's neither in the centre of Wiltshire, nor is it the largest (which is Swindon) or the county town.

The History Centre is the focal point for all heritage services relating to Wiltshire and Swindon which includes the collections of the county's local studies library, museums service, archaeology service, Wiltshire buildings record and the conservation service. It has purpose built archive storage and research facilities and covers an area of about 5 football pitches (4,000 square metres) in size. All kinds of items are stored there: documents, film, microfiche, newspapers, video, CDs etc. etc. Some of the more unusual items can be found on the Records Office blog.

About 10,000 people use the archives each year, many of whom are researching their family history and have found links to Wiltshire. My visit was slightly different as I was trying to find out some of the history of a local name and area of land.

Like all visitors I had to register on arrival (unless they've done so already) and store my coat and bag in one of the lockers provided. No food or drink is allowed inside the archive area in order to help preserve the materials and I was only allowed to carry a notebook and pencil. I then asked one of the staff on duty about my query who then scurried off to find the right set of indexes for us to look through.

As my query was about land belonging to the previous Chippenham Borough Council, I was told at the outset that it was highly likely that the information I wanted would be at the Town Hall in the middle of town as the town council have decided to store those records there instead of making them available at county level.

However, there was just one likely looking reference in the index which I then ordered up from the archive storage area. I was then shown into the 'inner sanctum', the silent study area where a few people were seated at tables making notes from various books. After about 10 minutes my document arrived tied up with white ribbon and I was able to find just what I needed for my letter D :)

I'm hoping they'll have behind the scene tours for the national Heritage Open Days in September as this is the most fascinating of places.

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the eighth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.