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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



to note how many of these projects have changed 

 in content, scope and form during the evolution of 

 the work. I was present at the conception, birth or 

 weaning of many of the forty and in every case have 

 seen them grow out of all recognition from the 

 original idea. Most have grown so much that the 

 group may not have started them had they known 

 what the eventual amount of work would be. 



Graham Greener and Joanna Clothier. Brinkworth 

 with Grittenham. Brinkworth Heritage Society, 2000, 

 130 pages; black and white photographs, maps. Price 

 £9.50, paperback, ISBN 9539146 7. 



To some eyes this may seem to be a book of photographs 

 with more text than is usual but this book is much more 

 than that. There are the usual range of subjects but there 

 is also an extensive section on the environment and natural 

 history and an interesting account of footpaths and walks 

 in the parish accompanied by descriptive maps. The book 

 is particularly strong in 20th-century material and greatiy 

 adds to our information on two villages which are not 

 well known outside north west Wiltshire. 



David Brewer, compiler. Images of a Wiltshire 

 Downland Village: the Parish of Broad Hinton; a 

 collection of photographs from 1900 to 2000. David 

 Brewer, 2000, 195 pages; black and white and colour 

 photographs, map. Price £12.50, paperback. 



This is a well produced book of photographs with good 

 and helpful captions which contain useful historical 

 information. The series of pictures on farming is 

 particularly well co-ordinated and to a great extent follow 

 the farming year. Other noteworthy sections include an 

 extensive collection of village houses and a wide range of 

 residents, past and present. Among the houses was the 

 locally named 'Tea Cosy Cottage' which name perhaps 

 should have been used by a resident of Tea Pot Street in 

 Wylye. In all a welcome addition to the collection of old 

 photograph books on Wiltshire parishes. 



Calstone Wellington Millennium Project. Calstone 

 Wellington: our village past and present. Calstone 

 Wellington Millennium Project, 2000, 99 pages: 

 photographs, facsimiles, maps. Price £8.00, paperback. 



This is the result of two years work by a number of 

 villagers and much of the material used was included in a 

 village history exhibition that the villagers held in March 

 2000. Although they say that it is not a finished piece of 

 work and that they hope that more information will 

 become available that can be included in a new edition 

 they can be proud of what they have researched and 

 published so far. Besides accounts of the main village 

 themes there is a section on horses, oral history from 

 some of the older inhabitants and a list of houses with 



origins, comments and photographs. 



Victoria Hutchings and Dennis Barnard. Crocodiles 

 and Chicken Chasers: the villages of Corsley and 

 Chapmanslade. Corsley and Chapmanslade Millennium 

 Book Committee, 2000, 92 pages: photographs, drawings, 

 maps. Price £7.50, paperback. 



The first Wiltshire millennium book written about and 

 by two civil parishes has an intriguing tide. The names 

 were bestowed upon each other in past village rivalries of 

 which there are several examples in the county. For the 

 uninitiated Corsley contained the crocodiles and 

 Chapmanslade the chicken chasers. Corsley we know from 

 Life in an English Village by Maud Davies and Victoria 

 Hutchings builds on this valuable source and is 

 deliberately strong on the inter war years and the 1950s. 

 Surveys seem to have been popular in the village for in 

 1944 the schoolchildren conducted one on the number 

 of cows milked; this included 1 2 at the Post Office and 

 85 at Manor Farm. This was one of the few Wiltshire 

 villages hit by bombs and 5 people were killed and 12 

 houses damaged in April 1944. A topical note was found 

 with the community being affected by a local epidemic of 

 foot and mouth in 1958. Sadly the farmers found that it 

 took three years to rebuild their stock and five years to 

 return to normal. 



Chapmanslade gets off to a bad start by displaying a 

 lack of research in printed works and at the Record Office. 

 A myth of the village being settled by Flemish weavers is 

 perpetuated while a statement that no one knows when 

 the village was first called by its name evokes the answer 

 to look in Place-names of Wiltshire. This section of the 

 book soon redeems itself and there is good twentieth 

 century material and some useful oral history. The 

 Chapmanslade Arrow was printed and published by 

 Harold Dyer, the postmaster and grocer, who built his 

 printing works in the village in 1934; his son has only 

 recently ceased to run the business. 

 In all this is a very useful book on one village about which 

 we already know a fair amount and another one about 

 which we have previously known little. 



Peter Meers. Ebbesbourne Wake Through the Ages. 

 Dial Cottage Press, 2000, 140, xx pages; maps, tables. 

 Price £9.50, paperback. 



The author says that there is scanty information about 

 the village so he has set what there is in a broader context 

 of English history and he invites others to make their 

 own judgement on this. The initial reaction is 'Good', 

 local history should never be viewed in isolation but set 

 in its regional, national and even international setting. 

 The book begins with a helpful geographical section but 

 then moves to a chronology in which the only 

 Ebbesbourne Wake material seems to be local 

 archaeological sites. A very good section follows this on 

 people and places that really needs to be set in the 



