REVIEWS 



299 



chronology. Useful material on the village but research 

 on archival material and some editing would have 

 improved it. 



Dorothy Robertson. Etchilhampton: a village portrait. 



Etchilhampton Village Project, 2001, 64 pages; black 

 and white and colour photographs, maps. No price, 

 paperback. 



This a handsome production, which is well designed and 

 surprisingly contains many colour photographs. The 

 history and activities are mainly from the twentieth century 

 and interesting comparisons are made with the village as 

 it appeared in the 1891 census. Typical of most of our 

 villages today only 21 people were born in the parish and 

 there are no resident farm workers. There are interesting 

 sidelights such as the fact that electricity and street lighting 

 only arrived in 1950 and there is some emphasis on 

 current village activities. As a boon for future historians 

 there is a survey of all village properties and a list of their 

 owners. 



Arnold Lewis and Neil Mattingly. Limpley Stoke: its 

 church and its people. 2000, 50 pages; illustrations (black 

 and white and colour), facsimiles, maps. Price £6.99, 

 paperback. 



This is a highly polished production with good integration 

 of text and illustrations and excellent use of colour 

 throughout. Each page has the appearance of a well 

 designed web page only instead of having to click for more 

 information or illustrations they are already there. The 

 book is an outcome of the exhibition, 'A Thousand Years 

 of St. Mary's and its People', which itself was the result 

 of some years research by the two men. There is much 

 information about families connected with the village 

 while later centuries are covered by maps and census 

 information. Good use has been made of sources in the 

 Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office. 



Mere Papers; A Millennial Miscellany compiled by 

 M. F. Tighe. The Friends of the Church of St. Michael 

 the Archangel, Mere, 2001, 33 pages. Price £2.00, 

 paperback. 



This is Michael Tighe 's fourteenth volume of Mere Papers 

 in only five years, much of the corpus has been reviewed 

 in WAM 93. It is a compilation of those interesting 

 snippets of information, which we all find when 

 researching a different subject, and which often lie around 

 gathering dust for many years. With the laudable aim of 

 not wishing to waste good material these have been put 

 together for a volume celebrating the year of the true 

 millennium, following the example of the good vicar of 



Mere who welcomed the new century in his parish 

 magazine in January 1901. Here you can read of Mere 

 hairdressers from 1673, the local Dorcas society of the 

 19th century and the location and use of the fives court 

 among many other pieces of interesting local history. 



Roger Crisp (compiler). Newton Tony: a Wiltshire 

 village at the millennium. Wessex Books for Roger Crisp, 

 2001, 174 pages, photographs, drawings, facsimiles. No 

 price, hardback, ISBN 1 903035 031. 



Interestingly each chapter covers a month of the year of 

 1999 and the events therein which are linked to 

 happenings and photographs from the past. Thus there 

 is a description and picture of the River Bourne, which 

 was three feet deep in January but which had not been 

 seen previously since 1996. Earlier accounts of the river 

 are accompanied by a photograph of the flooding in the 

 1870s. This is a good idea and the presentation works 

 well but where there are themes running through the year, 

 such as farms or the countryside, one has to look in twelve 

 different places if that is one's subject interest. An amusing 

 section is the comments from schoolchildren in 1999 of 

 what they expect the next thousand years to bring. 



Urchfont Parish Millennium Group. Urchfont by any 

 other name. The Urchfont Parish Millennium Group, 

 2001, 213 pages, photographs, plans, facsimiles, maps. 

 Price £9.00, hardback, ISBN 9540851 8. 



The title of the book comes from the fact that the authors, 

 in the course of their researches, found that the village 

 name had been recorded in 1 1 1 different ways over the 

 centuries. It is a very substantial book in a fairly traditional 

 format, well researched with good use made of both 

 primary and secondary sources. The material, which was 

 collected but not used, has been deposited in the Wiltshire 

 and Swindon Record Office for the use of future 

 researchers. There is a great deal in this book that will be 

 useful to students of other villages particularly for 

 comparative purposes. A good example is the chapter, 

 'Earning a Living', which shows the range of occupations 

 in the village over the years. In the 1570s there was a 

 resident minstrel and storyteller, a 'coalfinder' is 

 mentioned in 1655 while other less usual trades were 

 waywardens, a mealman, a Salter and a smuggler. There 

 is much modern information recorded for future local 

 historians and a survey of activities in the parish in the 

 year 2000. Tucked into the rear cover is a leaflet containing 

 the two colour heritage maps on Wedhampton and 

 Urchfont. 



MICHAEL MARSHMAN 



