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Isambard Kingdom Brunel & the pair of rails on Vicarage Bridge, Kintbury.
If you walk westwards along the canal tow path out of Kintbury, you pass under Vicarage Bridge. You will notice, as you approach the bridge, a pair of rails attached to the brickwork on the right hand side. You could easily mistake these rails for a pair of butresses but that was not their original…
Celebrating Ethel King Martyn and the murals of Inkpen church
In Medieval England, many church walls were decorated with colourful murals depicting Biblical scenes or the lives of saints. In an age of mass illiteracy, these images helped in the teaching of scripture and often provided a warning of what might happen to those who strayed from the narrow path of righteousness. “Doom” paintings depicting…
After the armistace: Return to Kintbury
We know the names of the village men who died in the First World War as they are recorded, quite rightly, on the war memorial and in the church. However, it is much more difficult, at over a hundred years’ distance, to find the names of those who returned to the village in the months…
The man who remembered Jane Austen: Kintbury’s Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle
We have, I believe, just one description of Jane Austen’s appearance, recalled by someone who knew her well all her life – someone who had known her since she was a small child of three. “She was like a doll……certainly pretty – bright and a good deal of colour in her face – like a…
West Woodhay: A downland village in a changing agricultural landscape
This post is in two parts. In the first part, I consider the village of West Woodhay from a changing historical perspective. For the second part, we are delighted to have a contribution from Harry Henderson of West Woodhay Farms in which he describes the recent changes in agricultural practices which have enabled vitally important…
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Kintbury and Beyond 