Wiltshire

by Edith Olivier

  Originally a very large part of Wiltshire consisted of forests which automatically belonged to the Crown. For instance, the area now occupied by both Calne and Chippenham was included in the forests of Braydon, Chippenham, Melksham and Selwood. As villages grew up in the forest, they came under the authority of the King’s forest officials, who were sometimes called the stewards and sometimes the bailiffs; but as these villages increased in size and importance, there was often friction between these royal officers and the county officers with whom they came into contact. Calne is not mentioned in Domesday, but at that time Chippenham was already a flourishing place containing 113 royal tenants of arable land, 23 hog-keepers and 12 mill-owners.

  CALNE

  Calne is one of the ancient British words which survived the coming of the Saxons and were mostly the names of natural objects, hill, wood or river; and Calne was originally a river name. There is stark dignity in this monosyllable which for the last two thousand years has silently rejected any extension. The poet Drayton, writing in the early seventeenth century, is thinking of the river and not of the town when he says of the Braydon that she

  In her most quiet course

  Receives the gentle Calne.

  Later writers have described the town with more detail and less effect. Hartley Coleridge, for instance, says, “Calne is not a pretty place. The soil is clayey and chalky. The stream far from crystal.

  The hills bare and shapeless. The trees not venerable, and the town itself irregular, which is its only beauty.”

  Cobbett, as usual, depicts the town in words showing his own jaundiced view of life. He writes in 1825, “From Devizes I came to the vile rotten Borough of Calne.… I could not come through that villainous hole, Calne, without cursing Corruption at every step; and when I was coming by an ill-looking broken-windowed place called the Town Hall, I suppose, I poured out a double dose of execration upon it.”

  Charles Lamb, in his Essays of Elia, writes that when he was a homesick schoolboy at Christ’s Hospital, “In my dreams would my native town far in the west come back.… How I would wake weeping and in the anguish of my heart exclaim upon sweet Calne in Wiltshire.” When he was reminded that he had not been born in Calne, he replies that when writing of his “ native town” he “may be supposed to mean a town where I might have been born, or where it may have been desirable that I should have been born.… I shall be born in any place where it shall seem good to me.” The people of Calne may indeed be proud that their town is the native place in which Charles Lamb decided that it was “desirable that he should have been born”.

  In common with many Wiltshire towns and villages, the history of Calne was for centuries a history of wool and weavers, living on the thousands of sheep which grazed on the downs; but for over a hundred years now the main industry of Calne has been bacon-curing, and for most people the name now stands only for the last word in breakfast dishes. I believe, however, that the history of Calne contains something far more fantastic than a record of a flock of sheep or of a bacon factory, something which gives a very different impression to that given by Drayton’s “gentle Calne”. In the pedigree of Calne there must surely be at least one volcano, if not an earthquake, otherwise how to explain two dramatic incidents in the history of the town, the first of which took place in 978? The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says, “In this yeare all the chief witan” (Privy Council or National Council) “of the English Nation fell at Calne from an upper chamber, except the holy Archbishop Dunstan, who alone supported himself upon a beam. Some were grievously wounded, and some did not escape with life.”

  It has been suggested that this accident was not an act of God but a plot of the Archbishop’s, who thought he would get rid of some of his opponents, as the meeting seemed to be going against him. At the Wilts Archæological Meeting in 1886, Canon Jackson shrewdly remarked that this would have compelled much preliminary planning and arranging, “and if the carpenters and blacksmiths of Calne in A. D. 978 could carry out such a nice little effort on the sly, without this being talked of all over the town, the workmen of 978 must have had more control over their tongues than their brethren have nowadays”.

  It is not impossible for an earthquake to demolish a building and to kill everyone in it except the president. Such a thing did happen in the little mountain town of Bassana Vecchio, on the hills behind San Remo, at some time in the 1880’s. In one hour the town was wiped out. Nearly the whole population was collected in the church for the celebration of Mass. There was a little domed apse over the high altar, and beneath this stood the priest for the elevation of the Host. Before his eyes the roof of the church crashed down, killing the whole of his congregation, while he alone remained alive. Brilliant frescoes still remain on the walls, and the detached campanile stands to this day like a prayer lifted towards Heaven for those who on earth will pray no more.

  Another well-known catastrophe befell the church at Calne seven hundred years after Dunstan’s day. Aubrey describes this disaster, saying:

  “At Calne was a fine high steeple which stood upon four pillars in the middle of the Church. One of the pillars was faulty, and the Churchwardens were dilatory, as is usual in such cases.—Chivers, Esq., of that parish, foreseeing the fall of it if not prevented, and the great charge there must be by it if not prevented, brought down Mr Inigo Jones, to survey it. This was about 1639 or 1640. He gave him £30 out of his own purse for his pains. Mr Jones would have underbuilt it for £100. About 1645 it fell down, on a Saturday, and also broke down the Chancell; the parish have since been at £1000 charge to make a new heavy tower.”

  We cannot blame Dunstan for this, but may it not be that Calne stands on the line liable to seismic disturbances, or to some such force of nature, something which outlived Dunstan, the witan of his day, as well as “– Chivers, Esq.”, Inigo Jones and the dilatory churchwardens of theirs?

  This “heavy tower” still stands in the church at Calne, which otherwise dates back to the later Norman period, and contains additions coming from different centuries as late as 1470.

  CHIPPENHAM

  The name of Chippenham is a combination of two Saxon words—“ ceaping”, meaning buying and selling, and “ham”, a village. In Wyclif’s Bible, the translation of the verse about “the children sitting in the market place” is “the children sitting in the chepyng”. So Chippenham may really consider itself as the original Wiltshire market town.

  Chippenham suffered greatly in 878, the very worst winter in King Alfred’s reign, when the Danes imagined that they had really vanquished the whole of Wessex. They took possession of Chippenham, where “ they lived on the country”, and we know what devastation that implied for the whole of the neighbourhood. Meanwhile King Alfred had taken refuge at Athelney, whence he eventually collected his newly formed militia to meet him at Egbert’s Stone near Warminster. The troops met very surreptitiously, and the Danes, imagining that they possessed the whole of that part of the country, were enticed to leave Chippenham and meet the Saxons at Edington. Here there was a pitched battle which ended in the Danes taking refuge in the old camp on Bratton Down, from which King Alfred soon starved them out. Chippenham was saved.

  After the prosperous description of Chippenham in the Domesday Book, we get an occasional picture of the friction existing between the bailiff of Chippenham and the sheriff of the county. In 1275 it was reported to the Crown that the King’s “Bailiff was thwarted either by the sheriff of the county or by the principal landowners under the crown within the parish”; for instance, “ One Nicholas Hamund imprisoned by the bailiff on a charge of larceny had been released by the sheriff.” The jury add in their report, “ How much the sheriff got from Nicholas they do not know”.

  In 1553 we learn that, “ In the midst of the street of this town standeth a Yeldehall or church house alone by itself from all other houses, and to which the inhabitants had repaired time out of mind, and therein kept their church ales and plaies, and have had their meetings for Making of ordinances for th
e said town.”

  Though this building is described as having stood by itself, eventually the whole place came to be called the “ Shambles, or Market Place”—a far less charming word than the old “ceaping”, and it meant that the main thing sold in the market was butcher’s meat.

  In the town records we find a good deal about the “ordinances made for the said town”. Among other things the bailiff had to be sure that the town chandlers made their candles of sufficient light, and also it was enacted that anyone using “ill language” to the bailiff was fined three and fourpence, and was shut up in the Guild Hall chamber two days and two nights. No person was “to allow” a tub or pailful of water to stand at his door between the first of May and the twelfth of September; and in 1556 Mr Norwey, the tailor, was bound in the sum of twenty pounds to discontinue making “ hosen of outragyous greatnes”, for the Queen’s Majesty had commanded “that no Taylor or hosier put into the outside of the upper stock of any hoses but one yarde and one quarter or Clothe, Carsey, or other stuffe of that quality, and in compasse but one yard and half a quarter for the tallest persones of stature, and for persones of less stature to make less”.

  The present town hall was built during the last century by a Mr Neeld who was the member for the borough.

  Chippenham Church has a certain amount of Norman work in it, but it has been greatly restored. The most interesting parts of it are the chapels of St Catherine and the Hungerford Chapel. Successive centuries have “modernised” the town so that many of its old beauties exist no more, but in spite of that the first coup d’œil as one enters the town over the bridge and looks down the main street contains much charm.

  DEVIZES

  The first sight of Devizes makes it clear that it has been for generations the home of completely civilised people. Its situation has great natural beauty, standing on a little hill with, over against it a few miles to the south, the great chalk escarpment of Salisbury Plain. On its other side Devizes can look upon the smiling charm of the Pewsey Vale, meandering through some of the most famous pasture land in England, and ending in another chalk barrier, the Marlborough Downs. Wiltshire people are right to say that Devizes stood between “ the chalk and the cheese”; but there is more to it than that. Given the site, the Devizes people have made of their town a little masterpiece of planning, although, as Leland said at the beginning of the sixteenth century, “the beauty of it is all in one street and the market is very celebrated”. It was a triumph of design to make this one street terminate with the Town Hall, round which the traveller must make his way before the very celebrated market breaks upon his vision. Except for the nineteenth-century brewery at its end, this market place is a model of civic building, the private houses quietly secure in their proportions and the commercial buildings well-balanced.

  One of the charms of Devizes (or “The Vize”, as the country people say) is its name, which in form and in content is quite unlike the name of any other place in England. Its origin is doubtful, so that etymologists might argue over it for centuries; and they have. Could any word so musical be possibly derived (as was once thought) from “ Theodulveside”? Only because that is the kind of name with which the science of place-names delights in shattering any theory derived from the sound of a word. However, that truly Wiltshire historian, Canon Jackson, concludes his discussion on the name of Devizes by reassuring us with these historical facts:

  “When we find ‘Ad Divisos’as the name of a place, grammar tells us that it must be a noun.… Why was such a name as ‘At the boundary’ given to the castle built at this spot about 1120? It was never on the frontier of the shire. So long as Wiltshire has been Wiltshire, this has been, as it is now, the very heart of the county. The parishes of Rowde, Canning and Potterne all, to this very day, run towards, and in ancient times met, at that point where Bishop Roger enclosed the Park (‘ Divisio’ is the Latin for a Park) and built a castle, to which he gave the name ‘Ad Divisos’.”

  Devizes does not appear in Domesday, for till 1120 the future “Park” was merely the point at which three parishes met; but the situation had been inhabited since the days of the Romans. I believe no trace of a definite villa has been discovered, but Roman “remains” have been found from time to time, beginning in 1714, when a famous cache of Penates was dug up. These were tiny images of Roman deities, each of them only about two or three inches in height, and though some can still be seen in the Devizes museum, most of them are now in the British Museum.

  The first outstanding figure in Devizes history is that vigorous man, Bishop Roger of Sarum, who built the castle and gave it its name. Henry I picked out this great churchman when he was only the parish priest of a village near Caen, and he at once marked him for promotion. Roger had been sent to conduct the camp service, and he won the King’s heart by preaching a uniquely short sermon. Henry at once decided that this was the very priest for him; but when he brought him back to England he soon discovered that Roger had other qualifications, and really more valuable ones, as well as brevity in preaching. He was successively made Bishop of Salisbury, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of the Realm. He was still in Salisbury when, as he himself said, he “ built the castle at Devizes as an ornament to the church”; and in Ordericus Vitalis’ History of England written about a century later, it is said of Devizes that, “ There is not a more splendid fortress in Europe.”

  This castle at once brought Devizes into the main stream of English history, and during one of its most turbulent periods. The town was in the thick of the fighting between Stephen and the Empress Maud, for she had a large following in the west. Much of Wiltshire suffered for its loyalty to her. Sarum was captured by Stephen’s army, and Wilton was burnt to the ground. The walls of Marlborough were battered down, and Trowbridge received the onslaught of all the most modern war-machines of the day. Heytesbury, where the Empress owned a palace, was for many months her headquarters, but no place suffered more than did Devizes, and no man more than its founder, Bishop Roger. Stephen took possession of the place for a time, when Florence of Worcester says that “the old bishop was confined in the crib of an ox-lodge at Devizes, and his nephew of Lincoln in a vile hovel more loathsome than the other”. The spirited old bishop declared that he would appeal to the Pope, and this soon brought Stephen to his knees, and he consented to do penance. But the fight was not over, and was still going on when Roger died, leaving the town still faithful to the Empress. The Devizes annals are full of her romantic adventures. She once arrived from Ludgershall riding “in male attire”, and escaped again “ laid in a coffin as dead, bound fast with cords, and so, as if it had been her corse, carried on a horse litter to the town of Gloucester”. Later the Empress made Devizes for a time her capital, when she gave the town its first charter, in which she is styled “the Empress Matilda, daughter to K. Henry, and Lady of the English”.

  Devizes was again very active in the Civil Wars of the seventeenth century, when Sir William Waller commanded the forces on the Parliamentary side. He had already seen a good deal of fighting on the Continent, for he fought for Elizabeth of Bohemia at the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War, so that the Devizes people thought that he must be such a wonderful soldier that they called him William the Conqueror. After the battle of Lansdowne Hill the King’s cavalry had to withdraw to Oxford, as there was not room in the castle for them, and the infantry alone remained to defend it. The Roundheads were so sure of their victory that on the site of the battle they put the Lansdowne Monument, and the House of Commons voted a large sum of money to Waller in recognition of his victory. But it was not a victory at all. The cavalry dashed back from Oxford in time for the great battle of Roundway Down, where the Roundheads were completely beaten, and Waller fell back on Bristol with the remains of his army. No wonder the Cavaliers called it the Runaway Battle, and they wrote many rhymes about it, as for instance:

  Go burn some rebel town, for such alone

  Are bonfires suited to the joys we own;

  A
nd let the falling ashes sprinkled lie

  On traitors’ heads: let them repent and die.

  After the close of the second fighting period in its history, Devizes went on in a quiet urban manner. It received several charters confirming and adding to the original privileges granted to it by the Empress Maud, and now it is governed by a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors.

  The fine architecture of the two churches of St John and St Mary dates largely from the time of Bishop Roger who founded them both, but they are more historical than that, for they have been added to again and again, and contain specimens of many styles.

  A monument in the market place commemorates a woman who, if no heroine, was an outstanding personality in her day. She cannot be called a shining example, but let us hope she has acted as a deterrent to her successors in the town. This is the inscription on the monument:

  “On Thursday the 25th January, 1753, Ruth Pierce, of Pottern in this county, agreed with three other women to buy a sack of wheat in the market, each paying her due proportion towards the same. One of these women, in collecting the several quotas of money, discovered a deficiency and demanded of Ruth Pierce the sum which was wanting to make good the amount. Ruth Pierce protested that she had paid her share, and said that she wished she might drop down dead if she had not. She rashly repeated this wish; when, to the consternation and terror of the surrounding multitude, she instantly fell down and expired, having the money concealed in her hand.”