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Malmesbury High Street
Malmesbury in the nineteenth century
The young generation of Malmesburians may be interested to hear how their ancestors fared in the last century. They will probably be horrified, but at the same time will realise what staunch, honest and self-supporting people they were.
The fine old dialect of Wiltshire was spoken by the older folk for many years after I first came here. Now, alas, all is too "B.B.C." and it is certain that individuality has been lost in the process. They were rather suspicious of "they forreners," even if they came from only a few miles away, and a dear old lady advised me on arrival that if I was to succeed as a Doctor "I must go to Church, and vote "blue", and if I stayed for seven years, I would stay for life." A true story can be told of an old fellow, born and bred in Malmesbury, asked another (but a `furrener') in a public house where they had already been meeting for many years, the question " 'Ow long 'ast tha bin in Malmesbury, Bert?" to which he got the answer "Nigh on twenty year, Garge." Long pause, then "Dost th'a like it, Bert, and bist thee goin' to stay?" This is rather typical of the old Malmesbury I first knew.
Nicknames were very prevelant in the 19th century and later. Always very apt and often explanatory as to trade, like the Welsh with "Jones the Milk". One of the best I have heard (long before my time) was that of a wealthy but mean grocer in the High Street, who achieved the marvellous name of "Split Fig" as he would do this to make the weight correct. This wonderful custom is dying out, but I can remember some, since I have been here, but for obvious reasons refuse to print them.
In the late 1800's Malmesbury had no less than 32 Public Houses, 3 Breweries and one Balm House. Besides their obvious purpose all this enterprise helped the local inhabitants. "The Makers would dry your clothes in the wintertime. You had to take it to them overnight and fetch it in the morning and pay one penny." The Bakers also helped by baking the Sunday dinner in the Sunday oven. "One took it to the bakehouse on the way to Church, and called for it on the way back." This very useful community service occurred to my knowledge in Polperro, Cornwall, and still exists for the residents.
The times worked were appalling. The Silk Mills Bell rang at 5-0 a.m. and again for breakfast at 8-0, and dinner at 1-0 mid-day and then work until 6-0 p.m. when they "called it a day." I wonder what the Trades Unions would think of this nowadays. In spite of this many girls used to come from as far as Warminster to learn the trade of winding and weaving, and, if from afar, used to lodge in a common lodging house in Lower High Street, kept by a man with the odd name of Magna Murphey. Many of them married local lads and their descendants are now with us.
Education was interesting before the days of free State education. The lucky ones were the children of the Commoners who could afford to pay a Schoolmaster, "who taught some at John's School and some in the Parvise in the Abbey. Others went to school for only a half day and made ribbons at the Silk Mills for the rest of the day. There was a ragged school in Burnevale for many years, run by a Miss Slater who, when she went to London, where she came from, took a whole day by train to Chippenham and then by carrier to travel the last ten miles from there."
The lace trade was then flourishing and Malmesbury was noted for this all over the country. The women who made the lace used to sit in the window by day with a peculiar form of "water-glass lamp" (of which the author has a specimen) which directed the rays of the sun, or candle-light by night, onto the work in hand. The principle was that of the magnifying glass, and the "lamp" looked like a candle-stick with a hollow top filled with water, thus concentrating the light.
A character called "Seftum Pudding" (another local nickname), really named James Fulloway, used to act as Agent in those days. He was "well dressed in a grey silk hat and morning coat and used to live in St. Mary's Lane by himself," and toured the country around for orders.
The Common was very much alive in those days. Produce was taken round by donkey cart and hawked round the town and surrounding districts on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The standards used as measures in those days are interesting. Potatoes by the quartern and peas by the peck.
The Horsefair and Gastons were always full of carts at nights and many of the carts and "donkey/pony power" were actually kept in the cellars of the houses below the ground floor. The writer can vouch for this, as there is evidence of slopes down to cellar level for this purpose even in the "aristocratic" (in those days) parts of the High Street. Malmesbury had its parking problems even in those days, but how the sanitation at that low level fared is anyone's guess.
Luckily in those days there was a primitive system of drains known as "drock drains," often infested by rats, which entered the houses. The writer, as a Doctor and Councillor, is ashamed to say that some were found to have been still in use until recently when they were found by accident when making alterations to the modern drainage system.
Many women of those days baked their own bread made from corn grown on the Common by their husbands. This was ground at Abbey Mill in Malmesbury, Crab Mill at Lea or at Garsdon Mill. All are still extant but are no longer in action although two of them were so until recent times.
Needless to say, there was no public water supply, but most houses in Malmesbury had their own well in the house itself, generally in the old stone-flagged kitchen. Many places however were popular for water collection, a row of buckets could be seen daily at the spring coming from the wall of what is now the West Hill Nursing Home, opposite the "Plough Inn" on the Foxley Road. This was supposed to have therapeutic properties and good for rheumatism.
The Market was also in full swing and was held in the Cross Hayes (on the third Wednesday in the month), until only some twenty years ago. A special train used to arrive at the Station and a horse bus used to meet the influential ones and deliver them to the Kings Arms with their luggage, for sixpence each.
The auction of cattle used to start at 12-00 and finish by 2-00, when the farmers used to retire to the local Hostelries, chiefly the "Kings Arms" and the "George" in the High Street, where the real bargaining started. The writer has seen the good old gold coins passed over from little washleather bags not so long ago.
The fairs of those days used to attract the usual crowds and Market Stalls with the usual "cheap jacks" and "hucksters."
Another big event of those days was the annual "Mare and Colt Show" held on the 29th September in St. Aldhelm's Mead (now the Town Recreation Ground). This always attracted a great crowd of "furreners" with the usual fairground attendants. A certain Mr. Fink, a German, had a common lodging house which put up the itinerant visitors for the purpose, for 4d. a night. As a German, he nearly always arranged for a "German Band" to be present. Even in my day as a child (in the County of Lancashire), no fair was complete without a "German Band." It held the popular appeal of a "pop group" of these days and existed until the First World War, when anything "German" however phoney, was naturally `taboo.' Umbrella menders, scissor grinders, barrel organs with monkeys, and even, on one occasion, a "Russian with a performing bear" were put up in the town.
The distances travelled on foot are remarkable in these days of easy transport. My informant's father walked from Devizes to get a job at the Bacon Factory and a certain Mr. King used to walk over from Nailsworth and back, to buy withies from the withy bed in Dark Lane. He used to stay a week and cut the withies (leaving them to dry out), and then walk back. Nowadays the present generation almost gets the car out to post a letter 200 yards away.
The "Three Cups" inn in the Triangle used to have a Club in those days and on Whit Mondays held the Club Fair. Stands were erected in the Triangle with stalls for home-made sweets, biscuits and gingersnaps. Plenty of flags would fly, if fine, and the Town Band would play in the evening for dancing in the streets. I am afraid this would have short shrift these days of heavy traffic passing there. There was also a weighbridge where the War Memorial now stands.
In spite of the lack of the modern advantages (or possibly disadvantages) we enjoy nowadays, the old Malmesburians seemed to have enjoyed themselves. They worked hard, but were independant of State benefits, and brought up large families on little pay and are greatly to be admired for it.
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