local history – Page 4 – Kintbury and Beyond

The canal comes to Kintbury and beyond

It is difficult to imagine Kintbury without the canal; today the Kennet and Avon has become part of the natural landscape as much as the streams of the Kennet and the surrounding meadows. However, it was not always so.

The very first canal to be built in England was the Bridgewater Canal, constructed in 1761 to carry coal from the Duke of Bridgewater’s coal mines to the newly industrialised Manchester. Over the next 70 years, many more followed, not as an amenity to facilitate leisure activities as we may think of canals today, but as part of the industrial revolution. Canals were, at the time, the easiest and cheapest way to transport heavy materials for distribution from source to work shop or factory.

Business owners, landed gentry and the like would have followed the progress of the canal network and the economic advantages it brought to each area. In March 1788, a meeting was held in Hungerford “to consider the Utility of an Extension of the Navigable River from Newbury to Hungerford as far further as shall hereafter be thought eligible.”

Obviously, the proposed canal was going nowhere without the co-operation of other landowners; not surprisingly, the idea was sold to them by insisting that a subsequent reduction in the price of the carriage of coals and other heavy materials would significantly advantage their estates.

The landowners, it seems, were easily won over and in its edition of October 14^th 1793, the Reading Mercury published the following:

“Notice is hereby given, That application is intended to be made to Parliament in the next session, for leave to bring in a Bill and to obtain an Act for making and maintaining a navigable canal and communications for Boats, Barges and other Vehicles… from the River Kennet at or near the town of Newbury … to the River Avon at or near the City of Bath.“

We are so used to the presence of the canal today that it is easy to forget this proposal and its impact in its day must have been very similar to the decision in the late 1960s that the new M4 motorway should be built across the Berkshire Downs.

The first chairman of the Kennet & Avon Canal Company was to be Charles Dundas Esq., MP for Berkshire since 1794. He lived at Barton Court, near Kintbury.

The engineer to be responsible for the new canal was the relatively inexperienced young Scotsman, John Rennie. However, very few people had actually built canals at this time so new skills had to be learnt and adapted from the experience of military engineers.

There were, of course, no mechanical diggers, earth movers or any other high tech equipment available to Rennie and his workforce. The 40 feet wide and 5 feet deep canal was dug entirely by men using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. The men – known as “navvies”, a shortened form of “navigators” – were mostly recruited from agricultural workers who could earn much more working on the canal than they had been able to on the land. Unfortunately, though perhaps not surprisingly, gangs of young men, most probably living away from their homes and families for the duration, often turned to drinking and drunken, disruptive behaviour became a feature of the navvies’ life style.

As it passed just to the north of Kintbury, the canal avoided most of the village although one notable exception was the vicarage. At that time, this was the much older house that predated the 1860 Victorian gothic building and was the one known to Cassandra & Jane Austen. We know that various members of the Austen family would have stayed with the Fowle family at the vicarage during the years of the canal’s construction or just after and I cannot help but wonder what Jane would have thought of all the earth moving and construction work being carried on just yards from the house.

In June 1797, the eastern end of the Kennet & Avon canal opened from Newbury to Kintbury. The Reading Mercury reported,

“A barge of near 60 tons having on board the band of the 15th Regiment of Dragoons left Newbury at twelve o’clock and arrived at Kintbury at half past two where the Committee of Management, having dined with their chairman, Charles Dundas, Esq., embarked at six.”

Kintbury had entered the canal age. A wharf was built opposite the Red Lion (now the Dundas Arms) to facilitate the transport by barge rather than the slower carriers’ cart and this benefitted local businesses such as the whiting industry. This was the march of progress and the future was to be horse-drawn and afloat.

But that, of course, was before the railway!

References:

Reading Mercury (britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk)

The Kennet & Avon Canal Trust ( katrust.org.uk)

The Waterways Trust (thewaterwaystrust.org.uk)

Hungerford Virtual Museum (hungerfordvirtualmuseum.co.uk)

How violence at a football match led to accusations of witchcraft

If the events of 1598 are anything to go by, football violence is nothing new!

One of the oldest monuments in St Mary’s church, Kintbury is a brass situated to the right of the altar commemorating John and Alice Gunter. John died in 1598 and according to the inscription on the brass, there is a similar monument in Sisister ( the old name for Cirencester in Gloucestershire ) where Alice died.

For all we know, John and Alice lived a quiet life when they were in Kintbury. However, the same cannot be said for other family members who achieved a certain notoriety during their lifetime.

Anne Gunter, the youngest child of Brian Gunter, had been baptised in Hungerford in 1584. By 1598, Brian was lay rector at North Moreton, in the Vale of the White Horse.

There are several versions of what happened next but the main events of the story go something like this:

Some time in 1598, a football match was held in North Moreton. Back then, the sport did not enjoy the rules or regulations that we have today – a match could involve any number of people and take place over a very wide area, not a specified pitch. However, one aspect we are still familiar with today was the occasional outbreak of associated violence. It seems that, during the game, two brothers, John and Richard Gregory, along with Brian Gunter’s son, William, were involved in some sort of fight. Brian Gunter intervened, hitting Richard and John with the pommel of a dagger. As a result of the injuries caused by this, both brothers died.

Not surprisingly, the deaths of the brothers resulted in animosity between the Gregory and Gunter families. When Anne Gunter became ill in 1604 and then again the following year, Brian Gunter tried to blame Elizabeth Gregory along with Agnes Pepwell and her daughter Mary for causing Anne’s illness. This was, of course, at a time when many people believed in witches and witchcraft and it was not uncommon for certain women to be blamed when unexplained illnesses or deaths occurred in a village.

The wide range of symptoms which Anne was experiencing, including vomiting and fits, Brian Gunter maintained, were the result of her being bewitched. It is more likely, however, that these symptoms were the result of the toxic mixture including wine and salad oil which he had made his daughter drink.

Elizabeth Gregory and Mary Pepwell were tried for witchcraft at Abingdon in 1605. They were found not guilty.

Brian Gunter was not happy with this verdict and managed to take his grievance to the king, James I. James referred the case to the Archbishop of Canterbury who in turn referred it to Samuel Harsnett, an Anglican cleric who was later to become the Archbishop of York and someone known to be skeptical about the popular belief in witchcraft. The case was eventually heard in the Star Chamber, a court of appeal that sat in the Palace of Westminster.

When she was cross questioned, Anne admitted that her illness had been faked and that her father had persuaded her to play out the deception. It is thought that she was eventually acquitted since she had been coerced into cooperating with her father’s plot to discredit the Gregory family.

It is possible that Harsnett and other members of the church became involved in this case, taking it to the higher court, as they wanted to see an end to those profiting from exorcisms in which non existing “daemons” were “driven out” of gullible victims.

Kintbury Women’s Institute in the 1930s

The Women’s Institute is a community based organisation for women which originated in Canada in 1897. By the 1930s branches had been formed throughout Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Penny Fletcher’s perusal of Kintbury W.I. minutes through the 1930s reveals a world of thrift, a need for economy and an enthusiasm for self-help.

On Friday 9^th May, 1930, a meeting was held in the Coronation Hall to consider forming a Women’s Institute in Kintbury. Mrs Clifton-Browne, wife of the sitting MP, addressed the 56 women present and afterwards it was decided to form a branch of the W.I. in Kintbury.

The first meeting took place in the Coronation Hall on 11^th June, at 2.30pm. Eighty-four ladies joined and enjoyed a most helpful demonstration of ‘Fruit Bottling’. Stalls and Entertainment Committees were formed, and 3d was to be charged for tea. There was to be a minimum age of 16 and women from Hamstead Marshall would be eligible to join.

The K.W.I. was in business.

At the second meeting thirty-six new members joined bringing the total membership to one hundred and thirty. These pioneers were treated to a talk on “Myths and Legends of Trees and Flowers”. Members were hesitant, through either shyness or modesty, as to whether they would enter for a Handicraft Exhibition.

It was proposed and seconded that the Coronation Hall caretaker be given 1/6 (12.5p) each meeting for carrying water for tea and that she should charge for laundering tablecloths and tea towels etc. The pattern was established for one afternoon meeting and one evening.

In August, the meeting was held at Hungerford Park, home of the President, Mrs. Turner. One hundred members attended. Mrs. Toynbee was due to speak on “Health” but she arrived too late so “various competitions and amusements” were indulged in and a very happy time was had by all. It was past 7.00pm when the Hungerford Band played ‘God Save the King’ and members returned by coach having had a “real good time”.

The September meeting had a good attendance. Members suggested that in future speakers should stand on the platform the better to be heard at the back of the hall. There were also requests for talks on herbs, classes on First Aid, Home Nursing, Glove Making, Dressmaking and Cookery. The business at this September meeting was followed by a talk on, “Travel in The Sahara”, two violin solos from Mrs. Thomas and community singing. “Musical parcels” caused much merriment.

The glove making classes were started as requested and during the rest of this first year there were also talks on Dressmaking and The League of Nations.

However an attempt to practise for a community singing competition was not successful as the hall was too dark owing to the electric light being cut off. There was, however, a Round Table Conference on Dental Treatment.

In January 1931 the Hall Committee raised the rent to 5/- (25p ) for monthly meetings and 2/- (10p) for committee meetings. The January and February meetings were held in the afternoon because of the weather but it was impossible to carry out the January programme because the electricity was cut off again. In February, the bad weather kept the attendance down to sixty.

The Institute now settled into a regular pattern. The lectures included a speaker from the blind veterans’ society, St. Dunstan’s. He was described in the minutes as a, “brave and interesting man”, who was listened to attentively. Other talks covered a variety of topics including health, soft slipper making and sweet making.

Competitions included: the best ironed cotton garment, pegging clothes onto a line in a given time (the winning time 2 minutes 10 seconds), and a workman’s dinner made for a maximum of 6d (2.5p).

In December a Round Table Conference was held on “My Best Cold Remedy” and “My Pet Economy”. Finance was clearly a pressing issue at this time and the members had already decided to postpone the purchase of a tea trolley to save money. Also in that month a letter was received from H.Q. urging members to “Buy British Goods” to help the country in this “time of crisis”.

1932 opened with a lecture “From Plantation to Tea Pot” by a Lyon’s representative with lantern slides of Indian tea estates and the tour of the London factory by The Prince of Wales.

During 1932 other talks were given on The History of Kintbury by Mrs Mabel Bowen and Mrs. Turner’s visit to India. The lantern slides which accompanied these lectures were always shown by Mr. Chislett. The social time held such delights as card games, gramophone records and sketches. After a discussion as to whether the W.I. should contribute towards a new piano for the hall, it was decided on the advice of the Treasurer that money should not be given because there was a need for greater economy.

The weather was very cold and showery in February 1932. Each year W.I. members bought bulbs in the autumn and in the spring the resulting blooms were judged by the gardener at Barton Court, by kind permission of Colonel Lawson.

1932 saw Inkpen W.I. performing a “Tableux –scenes from eight countries” and the printing of Mrs. Bowen’s “History of Kintbury and The Great Bell”, which cost £1.10/- (£1.50p) Copies sold at 6d (2.5p). Fifteen copies of “The County Cookery Book, From Hand to Mouth” were sold.

It was suggested that a Jumble Sale be held to finance a charabanc (an open topped coach) outing to Bournemouth but so many jumble sales were being held that it had to be a Whist Drive. It was also proposed to form a Croquet Club but it was impossible to find a ground and would have entailed expenditure.

The 1932 Christmas party made a profit of £2-4s-2d ( £2- 21p) which was given to the Nursing Association.

During 1933, talks were given on re-modelling hats, home dying, a nature talk with slides, and herbs and their value –this given by a medical herbalist. The inevitable travelogue for 1933 was on Japan. Miss Johnson demonstrated “the best use of an old macintosh”. Competitions included: packing a parcel in a given time; refooting stockings; a woman’s dress for 4/-(20p) and a child’s for 2/- (10p) and reseating boys’ knickers! Members sang, danced and produced sketches.

Classes in hat making were started and members agreed to help at Newbury Market Stall each month. A charabanc outing to Bognor was arranged for 6^th July, fare 5/- (25p) ,children under five-free. A Baby Show was organized and Mrs. Frances Belk and her pupils gave an exhibition of dancing.

The year ended with the Social Services League asking members to help by sending materials or attending working sessions. By February, 1934, The Social Services Working Party had sent 550 garments to Reading and Gateshead and were working on a community blanket.

The W.I. members willingly agreed to help in a combined effort to pay off the hall debt for heating. Controversy arose regarding the giving of prizes for competitions and the President urged the awarding of marks instead

In March 1934 the meeting had to be abandoned due to bad weather –only 35 members attended.

Folk Dancing was rather popular especially after the meeting in May, when eight members of the English Folk Dance and Song Society gave a talk and demonstration. The Girl Guides attended and the minutes called it “a merry meeting”.

The most interesting talks of the year were “What Countrywomen of the World are Doing”; ”The Handy Woman” with many useful tips for safety, mending and comforts for the home; and an inspiring talk by Mrs. Norman May on ”Our Institute” when apparently her remark about ‘broody hens’ caused much amusement.

In October a handicraft and produce exhibition was held and opened to the public. There were 232 entries and the Thrift Cradle was offered to Savernake Hospital, Marlborough.

The year ended with members bringing their children to a Punch and Judy Show which was much enjoyed by young and old.

1935 opened with yet another travelogue, this time by a Mrs. Seymour who had moved to Kintbury and had been to Fiji. Economy was still clearly very much an issue as the competition was for something new produced from something old. First prize went to a child’s pullover, skirt and knickers; and second to a coatee, dress and bonnet produced from a lady’s blouse.

Mrs. Bowen urged members to make the meetings more enjoyable socially.

In April ideas for the Jubilee celebrations were discussed and a tea for 300 children was decided upon. The resulting event was a great success.

A talk on birds to which husbands and friends were invited was pronounced one of the most enjoyable talks ever –this truly voiced the opinion of all present, apparently.

Mrs. Clifton-Browne gave a “useful” talk on “Using our wits to use our bits” which appeared to be many practical garments from women’s underwear. She also gave the W.I. a “jolly social half an hour by introducing new games”. It is to be hoped Mabel Bowen appreciated this.

In July, the Flower Show was cancelled due to lack of exhibits and Shefford Woodlands were congratulated upon winning the ‘Sun-Ray Diagram’- whatever that was!

In September Lady Glyn talked on “Clinics and Physical Training”. After demonstrating exercises she spoke of their value to all women whether busy mothers or women of leisure. After this invigorating talk members were soothed by Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Johnson playing the harp and piano.

October produced a very wet afternoon and late arrivals. They came to hear Inspector Taggart of The Women’s Auxillary Service talk on Women Police and their work. She stressed that they exist mainly to assist in cases concerning women, girls and children. There was also a short address from a W.I. visitor from Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

1936 opened with the death of the King on 20^th January. A subscription was sent towards a wreath that had been sent to Windsor.

The year’s travel talks took place in March and July and were on Mallorca and Sweden. A request for a lower rental for the hall was met with a reply from Mr. Killick that he regretted all the committee could do was to allow the W.I. to have 11 meetings for £5 instead of £5-10s.

Mrs. Baring asked for help as she was having “some poor persons from London” to spend time in her garden. In July she gave particulars of the treat that she intended to give these “poor” Londoners.

The summer outing to Brighton was to cost 7/6 (37.5p) and there was a competition for “Six conditions to help promote’ happy and healthy motherhood.”

A “Bring & Buy” sale raised £1 – 12s -9d ( £1-62p ) to go towards the extension to Newbury Hospital.

The Newbury Agricultural Show was held at Elcot Park in September of this year and Inkpen and Kintbury joined forces to visit it and run a stall.

At the Annual Meeting it was decided to form a choir and Mrs. Turner appealed for small gifts for Kintbury inmates of the Hungerford Institution ( the workhouse ) and toys for the Personal Service League. Both these appeals received a very good response. It was also decided that in the event of a member dying, they would give one dozen red roses with a sprig of rosemary, tied with a green ribbon.

Social half hours consisted this year of folk dancing, whist drives, old time choruses and table games.

The year ended with “character songs” – a jolly effort judged by Major Fleetwood – and a mime entitled “The Tale of a Royal Vest” which ended amidst enthusiastic applause.

The 1936 Children’s Party, which had been postponed because of the King’s death, had now been postponed again because, “there was so much illness about”.

The Great Western Railway Co sent slides of Lorna Doone and Westward Ho country for which Mr. Chislett, as always, lent his lantern and showed the slides. In the following month of March he again assisted Colonel Johnson Smith with his lantern lecture on East Africa. This last was followed by country dancing by the Kintbury Team – and they well deserved the hearty clap accorded to them.

In April, Mrs. Bowen, as a representative for The Preservation of Rural England, asked to be informed of the destruction of wild flowers and other such damage. Rural England must have been the topic of the year for the May talk was on trees and later in the year members were asked to “collect sheep’s wool from hedgerows for making a co-operative patchwork quilt.”

In June a photograph was shown of the W.I. decorated wagon for the Coronation Day procession. Mrs. Baxendale then asked if anyone was interested in a trip to Paris – but no one was. October produced a most inspiring lecture by Mrs Coslett on “How to Turn Ourselves into what We Want to Be” after which the audience left no doubt as to their appreciation by the applause accorded her.

Social half hours and competitions included: home made buttons, dressing a model in a sheet, a smelling competition (?), hats from crinkly paper and pins –this last was popular and twelve artistic models were displayed. In October it was remarked that too many whist drives were being held in the village. The year ended with Miss. K. Weatherby singing carols and giving a brief description of the age and origin of each. A small choir of W.I. members rendered the Grasmere Carol.

1938 opened with members offering to work on a banner. Afternoon meetings were changed from 2.30pm to 2.45pm and the Keep Fit Classes were postponed until the autumn due to the difficulty in obtaining an instructor.

February brought forth a discussion on the advantages of a drainage scheme and this was followed in April by a Mr. Raine from Hungerford who gave a short talk on the possibilities of a drainage scheme in Kintbury.

In March the ever hopeful Mrs. Baxendale asked for names for a trip to Holland.

A Whist Drive was successful enough to raise £4-9s-6d (£4 – 47.5p) for the outing and it was decided to go to the Zoo. The cost was to be 5/6 (27.5p), children 3/- (15p) with 1/- (5p) deposit to be forfeited if members failed to go. There was much enthusiasm for starting a cricket team which was to be financed by a Jumble Sale. That spring all members agreed to plant two tubers of Sharpes express potatoes and send the crop to an institution or hospital. Members were also asked to bring daffodils for the same cause.

In the summer it was announced that Harry Offer, son and grandson of two members, was one of only four children in the country to win the RSPCA Band of Mercy competition styled ‘Animals in our Garden’. Five other W.Is joined Kintbury in July for a meeting at Hungerford Park, home of Mrs. Turner. In September, owing to exceptional weather, the Flower Show schedule was omitted.

Also in September the decision was finally taken to begin Keep Fit Classes. The cost was to be 2/6 (12.5p) for 24 lessons. Unfortunately the start was delayed for at least a week owing to the “International Situation.”

The W.I. was asked to raise funds for the decorating of the Coronation Hall and so it was planned to run two socials, one for the Hall and one for the Cricket Club.

In October ’38, Miss Ada Ward delighted all with her descriptive talk on a ”Day in London”. Her charming personality and ready wit acted as a tonic after the anxiety of the previous week.

The year included the usual travelogue, this time on Spain. Lady Peel spoke on folk songs, Mrs. Goodheart spoke on Fish Cookery, and there was a talk on local history – presumably by local historian Mabel Bowen.

The year ended with particulars being given of a new Pension Scheme, pamphlets explaining which could be obtained from the Post Office.

– Penny Fletcher, October 2023

A devastating fire and the Kintbury fire engine

Wallingtons is an imposing red brick gabled house on the south western edge of Kintbury. Known today as St Cassians and belonging to the De La Salle brothers, it is used as a popular retreat for young people; parties of teenagers from various Catholic schools across the country can often be seen making their way there from Kintbury station.

The history of Wallingtons, however, has not always been so peaceful.

At the end on the eighteenth century, the house belonged to Samuel Dixon, a barrister at Lincoln’s Inn, who lived there with his sister, Elizabeth.

Samuel Dixon employed as his servant one Benjamin Griffiths, a labourer living in Kintbury about whom there appears to have been a suggestion of a suspicious past. Griffiths had been one of the toll-keepers at the Colnbrook toll gate on the Bath Road in Buckinghamshire when, in 1781, his partner had been murdered. Although another person confessed to the murder, it seems this did not stop the finger of suspicion being pointed at Griffiths. Samuel Dixon was a trustee of one of the turnpike trusts, so perhaps this had something to do with his decision to take Griffiths on – we shall never know.

Samuel Dixon was in London on 7^th April 1784 when Robert Griffiths broke into Wallingtons, stole a brace of pistols and a gun belonging to his master then set the house alight in several places. According to the Oxford Journal it was, “entirely burnt to the Ground with all the Furniture, Linen etc, a very curious Library of Books and Manuscripts, Pictures and other valuable Effects, nothing of consequence being saved.”

At first, Griffiths seemed to have got away with the crime and was actually sent to notify his master of the tragedy. However, his behaviour caused suspicion. When charged, Griffiths, “ cut his throat in a terrible manner but missing the windpipe it was sewed up and he is perfectly recovered.”

Griffiths was committed to Reading Gaol and stood trial in July 1784, where he was found guilty and condemned to death. Samuel Dixon tried to have the sentence commuted which perhaps seemed a strange thing to do for someone accused of burning down your house. Perhaps, however, there were circumstances of which he was aware and which history does not relate. His efforts were to no avail and Griffiths was hanged on 7^th August 1784.

As a wealthy home owner, Samuel Dixon had been able to insure Wallingtons which he had rebuilt soon after the fire. We do not know for sure who the architect was at that time, although Pevsner says the north front, “appears to have had a Gothic makeover in the late C18th.”

Samuel Dixon died in 1792. In his will he left 5 guineas to two of Griffiths’ children – not an insignificant sum at that time.

Samuel Dixon’s memorial in Kintbury church

Elizabeth Dixon had died in 1786 and in her will she left money for the provision of a fire engine for Kintbury – presumably in the hope that no other family would have to suffer the fate of having their house burnt down.

The Wallingtons as we know it today is largely the work of the architect Temple Moore who remodelled the house for the then owner, William Hew Dunn between 1891 and 1893. Temple Moore’s work is in the then very fashionable Gothic Revival style.

As for Elizabeth Dixon’s fire engine, it is now in the West Berkshire Museum in Newbury.

– Penny Fletcher, September 2023

References:

Brother Anthony Porter: Wallingtons: A History of the House and Estate and the Families who have lived here. (inkpenhistory.uk/archive/Wallingtons)

The Oxford Journal & Reading Mercury (British Newspaper Archive)

Tyack, Bradley & Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Berkshire

The Shelley Family & Elcot Park

The house now known as the Retreat Hotel, Elcot Park, was originally built in the 1820s and situated in its own park land. In 1844 the estate was bought by Elizabeth, Lady Shelley, widow of Sir Timothy Shelley the former Whig MP.

Percy Bysshe Shelley by Amelia Curran, oil on canvas, 1819, NPG 1234 © National Portrait Gallery, London

Timothy and Elizabeth had married in 1791 and made their family home at Field Place, Warnham, Sussex. They had six children: Percy, b. 1792, Elizabeth b. 1794, Mary, b. 1797, Helen b. 1799, Margaret, 1801 and John, b. 1806.

It was the two youngest daughters, Helen and Margaret, who were to live for over twenty years at Elcot. They are recorded on the 1851 census where Helen, as head of the household, is described as “Landed Proprietor”, and again in 1861 and 1871. In 1871, Helen and Margaret are described as, “Baronet’s Daughters” – a reminder that this was an age when it was quite usual for an unmarried woman to be defined in terms of who or what her father was.

A perusal of the newspaper archives suggests that Helen and Margaret Shelley led quiet, conventional lives typical of their class at the time. They were present at society weddings, made contributions to charitable causes such as the Patriotic Fund and the Royal Berks Lifeboat Fund and attended, along with many others of the great and good of West Berkshire, the prize giving ceremony to members of the Berkshire Rifles. Their life style, as far as can be seen, was respectful and would have raised few eyebrows amongst those who knew them.

This is in stark contrast to their elder brother, Percy.

Percy was seven when Helen was born. By the time she was four he had become a pupil at Eton, although his time there was not happy as he was bullied. He gained a reputation for having a violent temper and also an interest in gunpowder and blowing things up. Despite this, Percy seems to have been academically successful.

Helen was ten when her big brother went up to University College, Oxford in 1810. Here he preferred reading and conducting scientific experiments to attending lectures. He also held radical and anti-Christian views and as a consequence would have been regarded as suspicious at the time by those who feared the destabilizing consequences of the revolution in France might spread across the channel. Percy was expelled from Oxford in 1811 as a consequence of publishing a pamphlet called, The Necessity of Atheism which he distributed to members of the church hierarchy and to Oxford tutors. This did not go down well with Sir Timothy and a rift developed between father and son.

In a continuing defiance of convention, Percy, now 19, eloped to Edinburgh with Harriet Westbrook, a friend of his sisters.

For a time Percy and Harriet shared their household with Harriet’s sister, Eliza and another friend in a communal arrangement more like that which we might now associate with alternative living of the 60s and 70s. However, these relationships did not endure and in 1814 Percy fell in love with Mary Godwin, the sixteen year old daughter of philosopher William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, the early feminist and author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women.

Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell, oil on canvas, circa 1831-1840, NPG 1235
© National Portrait Gallery, London

If Helen and Margaret Shelley could be said to have led a quiet and conventional life at Elcot in the 1850s and 60s, their elder brother’s life and loves during the earlier years of the century was nothing like it. What Helen and Margaret, then in their teens, would have made of Percy’s unconventional and increasingly complex relationships coupled with his radical religious and political views, we can only wonder. Harriet, now estranged from Percy, drowned herself in the Serpentine in 1816. Despite having philosophical objections to marriage as an institution, Percy married Mary although his living arrangements and personal relationships continued to be unconventional and complex.

By this time, Percy was a successfully published poet, something that must have been a source of pride to his sisters and brother. Much of his work was based around his response to political events, such as The Mask of Anarchy, written in response to the Peterloo massacre of 1819, although it was not actually published until 1832 for fear of libel.

Whilst Percy Shelley continues to be a much respected poet whose works are read and studied to this day, it is probably Mary Shelley’s work that is better known – or at least, the title of her most famous novel is better known, even though most people will not have read the original. In 1818, when she was just eighteen, Mary began working on what was to become one of the most famous gothic horror novels of all time, Frankenstein.

Helen and Mary Shelley were of similar ages and it is interesting to wonder if the sisters-in-law ever met. Mary and Percy travelled extensively through Europe so it is difficult to say if the couple would have ever returned to Field Place. Perhaps Helen and Margaret were proud of their brother the poet whilst at the same time regretting his wayward life style. Would there have been copies of Percy’s poem and Mary’s Frankenstein on the bookshelves at Elcot? We do not know.

Percy Shelley died as a result of a boating accident off the coast of Italy in 1822 and his ashes are buried in Rome.

By the time of the 1881 census, Helen and Margaret are no longer at Elcot, but have returned to the family home of Field Place. It seems, however, that it was not to be for long. Sometime in the 1880s the sisters downsized in their living accommodation, making their home at Queen’s Gardens, Brighton, in an elegant but modest terrace house they named, Elcot House. When Helen died in 1885 they were living in Godstone, Surrey.

Theresa Lock, August 2023

Acknowledgements:

Images in this article have been reproduced under creative commons licence: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/

The railway comes to Kintbury & beyond

From, “Something of great public interest” to “stupidity second to none”.

For hundreds of years, the fastest form of transport known to most people, either in towns or villages, was the four or five miles an hour of the carrier’s cart. The heady speeds achieved by the stage coach might be enjoyed by the wealthier classes but for most, life could only continue at a gentle, plodding pace.

Then the railways arrived, first in the industrialised north then, thanks to Isambard Kingdom Brunel, in the south and west as well. By 1841, Brunel’s Great Western Railway between London and Bristol had fully opened and for the very first time passengers could experience travelling through the Vale of the White Horse at over 25 miles an hour.

Clearly, railways were the transport of the future and many in our part of Berkshire were keen for a slice of the action. In 1845 an Act of Parliament was passed which, with the support of the already well-established GWR, created the Berks & Hants Railway Company. This was to be a branch line from the Great Western, leaving the main line just south west of Reading towards Theale. This was the “Berks” section of the line; the “Hants” section turned south east towards Basingstoke.

There were to be four stations on the way to Newbury: Theale, Aldermaston, Woolhampton and Thatcham, then to the west, Kintbury and Hungerford. The line finally opened on the very cold morning of 21^st December 1847 when, according to the report in the Newbury Weekly News of December 24^th, there were initially few spectators but, as the day advanced, however, ” the bustle began to increase and it was very evident that something of great public interest was occurring.”

The NWN was not impressed by the speed of the new service which covered the eight and a quarter miles between Newbury & Hungerford – with one stop at Kintbury – in 25 minutes, but commented, “this will doubtless be improved”. The reporter seems to have forgotten that this speed was probably four times faster than a carrier’s cart would have completed the same distance, but perhaps expectations had been raised by the railway company.

However, those who travelled along this new branch line were, apparently, unanimous “with respect to the very great smoothness, absence of oscillation and of noise which appears to distinguish the Berks & Hants from other railways.”

It would be interesting to know how many of these travellers enjoyed seats in first class carriages and how many, if any, took that first journey in a second or third class carriage.

Many of the wealthier classes of our villages – the inhabitants of West Woodhay House, Kirby House, Hamstead Marshall Park, Barton Court and so on – might well have availed themselves of the opportunity to travel up to London at previously unimagined speeds though I doubt many cottagers would have joined them. For some people, the arrival of the railway meant a serious decline in business: canal travel could in no way compete with the speed of the train, for example. Coach travel took a blow, too: previously, seven horse-drawn coaches a day had left Newbury for Reading but this service was soon discontinued.

William Huskisson M.P. was famously the first person to die in a railway accident when he was unable to get out of the way of a moving engine before it ran him over. That had been in 1830. But other people failed to appreciate how dangerous it could be to get too close to a fast moving engine.

The Bath Chronicle of November 1847 reported the story of , “a lad in the employment of Mr Alderman of Kintbury” who was crossing the line at Hamstead (sic) with a donkey and cart when he saw an engine coming down the line, “at a pretty rapid rate”. Presumably to get a better view , the young man, “actually pulled up with his donkey and cart on the middle of the line on which the engine was running.” His stupidity, the paper opined, was second to none.

Luckily, “the son of Mr Gibbons of Hamstead” was passing by and he ran up to him and, “succeeded in hurrying the donkey off the line just as the engine came up.”

You can imagine something the conversation in the Gibbons’ household that evening!

It is perhaps not surprising that fare dodging arrived with the railways. The Reading Mercury of January 1848 reported the case of Daniel Gingell and Richard Tiggell who had jumped out of a second class carriage at Kintbury, “to evade the payment of their fares and thereby defrauding the company.” They were fined £2 3s 6d each (the equivalent of several weeks pay at least) or one month’s imprisonment.

I bet they didn’t do it again.

By 1862, our branch line was extended to Devizes. Originally, this line was of Brunel’s preferred broad gauge of 7 feet ¼ inch although lines across the Great Western were eventually replaced by standard gauge to conform with the rest of the country’s growing railway network. However, if you walk along the canal to Vicarage Bridge, Kintbury (left), you will see two lengths of former broad gauge rails being used to buttress the bridge on the east facing side. A relic of Brunel’s engineering!

If you are a railway enthusiast or if you know anything about the early days of the Berks & Hants railway, I would really like to hear from you. Email me at kintburyandbeyond@gmail.com

Tessa Lock

Note from the editor: We do not have a photo of a wide gauge engine, and have had to make do with standard gauge GWR Pendennis Castle no. 4079, pictured here at Didcot Railway Centre. Apologies!

Kintbury’s Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle – Sheep farmer?

When anyone speaks of a priest’s ”flock” it might be presumed they are using a rather old-fashioned term for his or her congregation. However in the case of Kintbury’s Fulwar Craven Fowle (1764 -1840) his flock were actually sheep: the relatively new variety – at the time – of New Leicesters.

Sheep had been important to English agriculture for hundreds of years, primarily for their wool which was an important export as well as the material from which most clothing was made. Indeed the Lord Chancellor had sat on the “woolsack” – a symbol of the importance of wool to the economy, since the time of Edward III.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the industrial revolution had resulted in a rapid growth of towns and an increasing urban population needing to be fed. Improvements in farming helped meet the challenge and for some wealthier landowners able to experiment with stock breeding and crop growing, agriculture became a new science.

Robert Bakewell of Dishley in Leicestershire was one of the many farmers concerned with a more scientific approach to breeding. In 1760 he had produced a new variation of the traditional Leicester sheep, capable of an increased production of high quality fatty meat, popular at the time. Production of mutton was now of greater importance to the sheep farmer than production of wool.

During the Napoleonic Wars (1805 – 1815), it had not been possible to import Merino wool – used in the production of fine cloth -from Spain. So, partly due to an initiative by “Farmer” George III, Merino sheep were imported into England so that fine wool could be produced domestically.

Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the preferred method of keeping sheep was by “folding”. This method was particularly popular on poorer chalk soils such as on downland and involved keeping the sheep in relatively small pens constructed of hurdles. The folded sheep would be fed on root crops such as turnips which had been found to improve the condition of the ewes and the ultimate survival of lambs, particularly twins. As they ate, the sheep would also be fertilising the land – important in an age when more specialised fertilisers were as yet unavailable. The pens or “folds” would be moved along the downland at regular intervals, making this an effective way of fertilizing the soil but a very time consuming one.

By the early nineteenth century, more breeders were moving away from keeping sheep traditional to their particular area. Kintbury’s Rev Fulwar Craven Fowle was one such who chose the faster maturing New Leicester breed which he kept on his land at East Woodhay, just over the border in Hampshire.

In 1820, Rev Fowle was admitted to the Hampshire Agricultural Society, an association of the land owning classes which included the nephew of his friends Jane & Cassandra Austen: one Edward Knight junior Esq of Chawton House.

South Downs and Merinos were the breeds of sheep usually seen at the Hampshire show at this time. However, in June 1820, Rev Fowle exhibited a pen of Leicesters – the very first time this new breed had been seen there. According to the report in the Hampshire Chronicle, they “excited much attention” and were admired for their, “weight, symmetry, smallness of bone and lightness of offal.”

Rev Fowle was praised for his husbandry. The appearance of his animals, “reflected the highest credit on the management of Mr Fowle.”

Regarding feeding, “their actual state of maturity was attained without the assistance of either corn or cake, sliced Swedish turnips having constituted their sole food…”

This was a time when the potential weight of an animal counted more than most other features so it was decided to conduct an experiment comparing Fowle’s New Leicesters with Merino sheep belonging to Mr Simmonds of St Cross. Three three-year-old New Leicesters were to be kept and fed with three three-year-old Merinos and three two-year-olds of each breed were to be folded together.

When the results were compared the following year, the three- year- old Leicesters had shown a greater increase in weight than the Merinos although the two-year-old Merinos had shown the superior increase. A similar experiment concluding in 1822 showed the advantage to favour the New Leicesters.

Although Rev Fowle is praised for his husbandry, the reality was most likely that a shepherd in East Woodhay was the one responsible for the day-to-day care of the New Leicesters. As always, the working people who supported the upper and landed classes passed through history almost totally unrecorded, particularly in the years before census returns. So here’s to that unknown shepherd.

The working people, however, were not the ones able to instigate change even though it was their hard graft that saw it through. There are some well-known names from amongst the landed and upper classes who experimented and contributed to improvements in agriculture from the eighteenth century onwards. In this area, Jethro Tull (1674 – 1741 ) who farmed at Prosperous, near Hungerford is probably the best well-known. However, the contributions from the less well-known such as Rev Fowle, competing with their contemporaries in local agricultural societies, would also have played their part in the agricultural revolution.

Theresa Lock, June 2023

Sources:

Hampshire Chronicle, British Newspaper Archive (on line)

“On the sheep’s back” : The rise and fall of English Wool by Richard Martin. (cotswoldwoollenweavers.co.uk)

Visit Regency Kintbury!

With James and Jane Austen – a light hearted look.

Discover the highlights of Regency Kintbury as James and Jane Austen describe it in their own words.

Ellen Lock Ireland, June 2023

Lord Craven of Hamstead Marshall

Eliza has seen Lord Craven at Barton, and probably by this time at Kintbury, where he was expected for one day this week…She found his manners very pleasing indeed.

Eliza has seen Lord Craven at Barton, and probably by this time at Kintbury, where he was expected for one day this week…She found his manners very pleasing indeed.

Lord Craven was prevented by company at home from paying his visit at Kintbury, but, as I told you before, Eliza is greatly pleased with him and they seem likely to be on the most friendly terms.
Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra, January 1801

The Eliza to whom Jane refers is Eliza Fowle, wife of Fulwar Craven Fowle, vicar of Kintbury and sister to Jane’s close friend Martha Lloyd. Barton – or Barton Court – was the home of Charles Dundas, M.P. and is a large house about half a mile north of Kintbury church on what would have been the old coaching road into Kintbury.

Lord Craven was a distinguished military gentleman who served in Flanders and was AD to the King and a favourite of Queen Charlotte. He was reputed to be a bit of a rake before his marriage – as Jane Austen remarked in her letter to Cassandra:

The little flaw of having a mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him.

Some people believe that Jane based Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility on Lord Craven. However, the novelist R. L. Delderfield wrote as a preface to one of his books that,

…every character in fiction is an amalgam of factors drawn from the author’s memory and imagination.

I disagree with the assumption that Willoughby’s character was based on Lord Craven’s. Why? Well Craven’s mistress was the young Harriet Wilson. Craven was 31 and unmarried at the time. Harriett was much younger and does not give Craven a good press. Her memoirs start with the line,

I shall not say why and how I became, at the age of fifteen, the mistress of the Earl of Craven…

Harriet leaves the reader in no doubt that she finds the Earl boring and old-fashioned, with his night caps and his endless talk of his cocoa trees on his estates in the Indies. She left him for Lord Melbourne. Mind you if as a teenager one had been isolated in Ashdown House on the Lambourn Downs I think most of us would have been a tad miffed even if our career was that of ‘entertaining men’!

Christopher Hibbert wrote that Harriet had a Swiss father and was renowned not so much for her beauty as easy manners, gaity and flighty charm. Sir Water Scott described her as smart, saucy with the manners of a wild schoolboy. Harriet was a well-known ‘lady’ in certain circles. When she grew too old to charm, she wrote her memoirs, sent the relevant passages to the gentlemen concerned and offered to suppress it for a fee. This caused the famous reply of Wellington: Publish and be damned!

So, I believe Harriet Wilson did not resemble the girl described as Colonel Brandon’s ward. She was seduced by Willoughby aged 17, and left without help, friend or home. He promised to return but didn’t and after breaking another girl’s heart married a rich wife.

Lord Craven on the other hand went on to marry an actress, Louisa Brunton, (without informing his very formidable mother) after Harriet had left him. They lived in Hamstead as a close family and the Countess was renowned for her gracious generosity. Obviously unlike Willoughby, Craven did not marry Louisa for money

The Georgian gossip collector Creevy, wrote that in January 1816, Lord Craven embarked, on his own yacht, for the Mediterranean. There were 70 members of his family on board at an expense of £40,000. Creevy added, somewhat ominously, that it gave a good chance to his brother Berkley, especially as he would rely much upon his own skill in the management of the vessel! Evidently they all survived Lord Craven’s seamanship and Berkley was disappointed.

Lord Craven died at Cowes in 1825 aged 55.

Penny Fletcher, May 2023

Thomas Hardy and North Wessex

Think of the author, Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928), and your first thoughts are probably of Dorset, the county most associated with his life and where most of his novels and poems are set.

So, what did this author, most associated with the countryside around Dorchester, have to do with Berkshire?

Think of the author, Thomas Hardy (1840 -1928), and your first thoughts are probably of Dorset, the county most associated with his life and where most of his novels and poems are set.

Fans of Hardy will know that in his novels he identified his semi-fictional Dorset as South Wessex, Wiltshire as Mid Wessex, Hampshire as Upper Wessex and so on, adapting the name of the early medieval kingdom. If you look carefully at the map of Hardy’s Wessex inside most editions of the novels, you will see that North Wessex corresponds to pre 1974 Berkshire with “Christminster” or Oxford, just to the north.

So, what did this author, most associated with the countryside around Dorchester, have to do with Berkshire? Well, Hardy’s paternal grandmother, Mary Head, was actually born in Reading and brought up in Fawley, a village on the downs south of Wantage. In his novel, Jude the Obscure, Hardy gave Jude the surname, Fawley, but chose to identify the village as Marygreen, after his grandmother. Similarly, Wantage becomes Alfredstone after the King Alfred who was born there, and Newbury, Kennetbridge, after its river. Along with Aldbrickham for Reading, all these places feature in Jude the Obscure, Hardy’s novel of 1895.

Another Hardy link with Old Berkshire, this time in reality rather than fiction, is with Denchworth, a village in the Vale of White Horse north of Wantage. Hardy’s sister Mary had trained as a teacher in Salisbury and accepted her first teaching post at Denchworth village school. Quite why she took a post so far north of either her home or the town in which she trained, I cannot find out. I do not believe that teaching posts were so difficult to come by in those days but I might be wrong. Perhaps she had connections with the Wantage area or had been recommended by someone. It would be interesting to find out. Mary was, apparently, very lonely in this isolated spot so her mother allowed her much younger sister Kate to live with her there. Whether Hardy ever visited his sisters in Denchworth we do not know, although it has to be a possibility.

As a successful author, Hardy and his first wife Emma lived for a time in London where they befriended some of the society figures living in the capital at the time. These included Sir Frances & Lady Jeune who, in the later years of the nineteenth century, also owned Arlington Manor, north of Newbury on Snellsmore Common. Hardy came to stay with the Jeunes in their Berkshire home in 1893 when he also visited Shaw House, Newbury at that time the property of the Eyre family.

In October of the same year, Hardy paid a visit to his grandmother’s childhood home up on the downs at Fawley. Sadly he does not seemed to have enjoyed the North Wessex downland, or at least that around Fawley, as he wrote, “Entered a ploughed vale which might be called the Valley of Brown Melancholy”.

I hope that the surrounding downland untouched by the plough was more to Hardy’s liking!

However, we do know that there was somewhere in Berkshire that was very much to Hardy’s liking. Although we do not know for sure when or how he got there, Hardy visited our own Walbury Beacon. We know this because he refers to it – as “Ingpen Beacon”- in his poem of 1896, “On Wessex Heights”.

Perhaps Hardy visited whilst he was staying with the Jeunes the previous year. Maybe they had a very early model of motor car, although it is difficult imagining one negotiating the incline to reach the top. Perhaps Hardy, and whoever was accompanying him, travelled to Kintbury station and made the rest of the journey in a horse drawn vehicle. We shall never know. However, I am sure he would have been fascinated to see the gibbet (in its late 19^th century manifestation ) silhouetted against the skyline – I do so hope someone made him aware of the story of George Broomham & Dorothy Newman as I think he would have enjoyed it.

But it was the hill we know as Walbury Beacon which Hardy particularly enjoyed visiting and compared favourably with other hills across Wessex, inspiring the following:

Wessex Heights

There are some heights in Wessex, shaped as if by a kindly hand

For thinking, dreaming, dying on, and at crises when I stand,

Say, on Ingpen Beacon eastward, or on Wylls-Neck westwardly,

I seem where I was before my birth, and after death may be.

In the lowlands I have no comrade, not even the lone man’s friend –

Her who suffereth long and is kind; accepts what he is too weak to mend:

Down there they are dubious and askance; there nobody thinks as I,

But mind-chains do not clank where one’s next neighbour is the sky.
Thomas Hardy, December 1896

Theresa Lock

This article was first published in The Beacon in September 2022.