REMINDER ABOUT 2020 SUBSCRIPTIONS – NOW DUE
Tickets for our summer outings will be on sale from this February’s meeting.
On Friday June 5th we will be guided round the historic village of Stoneleigh, led by local resident and researcher Sheila Woolf. Refreshments will be provided. Meet at 6.30 in Stoneleigh, meeting venue tbc. Cost £5.00
On Friday July 10th our member Brian Morgan will lead us round the Moreton Morrell Hall estate, whose history he has researched for a forthcoming publication. Refreshments will be provided. Meet at Moreton Morrell Hall, 6.30. Cost £5.00
Our coach trip this year on Saturday August 15th is to Croome Park, Worcestershire, a Capability Brown landscape and church, with an historic mansion at its heart. The park has been lovingly restored by the National Trust. Included in the grounds is the home of RAF Defford where pioneering electronic development took place in WWII, now a museum. Cost £34 includes entrance fees to park, mansion and RAF museum, and refreshments on arrival. Departs St Peters Church, Kineton 9.00am returns 6.00pm
Our February 21st meeting features an illustrated talk by Andrew Baxter, a speaker familiar to us from his stimulating talk last year on the Edgehill Tea Gardens. Andrew will describe the recent work that he and other enthusiasts have been carrying out on the surviving vestiges of the Edgehill Light Railway. This short-lived enterprise left clear landscape features and some surviving artefacts but has otherwise disappeared from most people’s awareness. We will learn what the light railway project if completed would have meant to the landscape of the area.
Report on our first meeting in the New Year. For our first 2020 meeting David Freke gave an account of the art of 18th century local village stone masons. In fact David started way back in the 17th century to set the scene for the sometimes extremely accomplished 18th century work still visible in so many of our local churchyards. The very style of headstones can illuminate the religious controversies of the period, as well as the status of the patron and the skill (or lack of it) of the mason. The influence of outside events also played a part, with local craftsmen attracted to London in the wake of the Great Fire, and returning with up-to-date ideas and training. A few proudly displayed the arms of the Worshipful Company of Masons of London on their own headstones. Their work is visible to anybody to see in our local churchyards, and it is hoped that better knowledge will lead to better appreciation and better protection of what still survives after 300 years or so of English weather, and well intentioned but often destructive churchyard tidying episodes. Our President Bob Bearman led the vote of thanks, and the membership then adjourned for refreshments presided over by Ilona.
Other News
Our member David Ball has transcribed and published the births, deaths and marriages registers of Newbold Pacey.
The book of Peter Ashley-Smith’s essays continues to sell well in the village, and will be available at £9.99 at the meetings, as well as at Flower Thyme, Bishops Estate Agents, Seccombes Estate Agents and Fishers Hair Studio, Bridge Street. Our thanks to David Beaumont for continuing to monitor these sales and replenish supplies.
Other Societies’ Events
Tuesday 18 February. Warwickshire Local History Society. The Wigson family network during the reign of Elizabeth I Dr Catherine Ennis. 7.30pm Aylesford School and Sixth Form College, Tapper Way, Warwick CV34 6XR.
Thursday 20th Feb. Warmington Heritage Group. The Lost Railway: Henley in Arden and its campaign for a railway. Paul Baker 7.30 Village Hall, Warmington.
Thursday 27 February. Marton Local History Group. “From This Ground” stories, songs and poems about late 19th century agricultural worker. Michael Lumley. 7.30 Marton Village Hall
Thursday 19 March. Warmington Heritage Group. The Itinerary Triangle History and Archaeology Project. Mark Bletchley 7.30 Village Hall, Warmington.
KDLHG Committee Matters. Report on 20th January 2020 meeting. Our Treasurer Ted Crofts reported that 53 members were signed up at the January meeting and that sales of the Peter Ashley Smith book were about to become profitable.
The Village Hall Maintenance Group and TADA had considered the detailed plans for the proposed archive room behind the stage and agreed to support the proposal.
DF reported that Gill Ashley-Smith had kindly donated shelving, a desk, a scanner, an office chair and sundry office materials to be installed in the archive room in due course. Scanning documents was on hold until spring pending a house move.
The summer evening outings were arranged, but the Saturday coach trip was still to be finalised. Croome Park, Worcestershire was agreed as the venue for the August trip. DF to arrange for tickets to be available by February meeting.
Catherine is to circulate our programme to the appropriate local newspaper and other outlets.
It was proposed that following the AGM the should be a presentation related to historic dance.
Next committee meeting. The next meeting of the committee will be on March 2nd at Catherine Petrie’s home at 7.00pm. Note the start time.
DF 15.02.20
For our first 2020 meeting David Freke will give an illustrated talk entitled Elegy on Country Churchyards: the art of 18th century local village stone masons. The Group’s survey of St Peter’s churchyard, initiated by Peter and Gill Ashley-Smith in 2010, was the start of this study. It has led to investigations into local genealogy, geology, politics, religion and art history. The thread which binds these elements together has been the search for the many men (always men) who made the thousands of 17th and 18th century memorials which still survive in our local churchyards. These memorials constitute the largest body of vernacular art of the period, far outnumbering folk art objects in galleries, and much more accessible. As Gray’s Elegy might have put it: “Some mute inglorious Mason here may rest” and the hope is that some may not be so mute nor so inglorious when their work is better appreciated.
Which is more than can be said for the final part of the meeting. Tripping over the clutter of mikes, cables and props, Kineton’s Other Dramatic Society aka the committee – aided by Jane Waters in an original Victorian dress (the most authentic element of the whole sorry saga) – the committee stumbled through a doggerel script purporting to be a Victorian who-dun-it, with dreadful puns and mangled syntax. It was farrago of nonsense about a lost gavel, involving mispronounced place-names, a thinly disguised parody of Conan Doyle’s famous detective addicted to sherbet, with some inappropriate violin abuse, all fed through a Dickensian mincer to emerge as a tale, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing. Congratulations to all involved for the sheer nerve of it, and to the membership for refraining from catcalls and brickbats. Afterwards, with much relief, to quote a line from the performance, the membership fell on the traditional mince pies, provided by the committee, and the mulled wine prepared by Ilona, served by Mark and Jackie Walker.
particular her recordings of people who lived in Birmingham’s “back-to-backs”. She vividly demonstrated the importance of capturing the experiences of “ordinary” people, which might otherwise go unrecorded and unappreciated. Her examples included children and even a titled lady describing the English upper-class dinner ritual of not so long ago. A query from Gill about whether she would edit words or phrases which are now considered inappropriate (she wouldn’t) led on to a discussion about the possibility of bias in the record in favour of politically correct attitudes. Helen described a deliberate attempt to redress this perceived imbalance by seeking out a racist to record, with mixed results. Her point was that the recordings are valuable because they try to reflect the way people actually think, and sound. Another issue was the long-term security of the recordings, given the rapid changes we have seen in sound recording technology. There is the risk of historic recordings being lost either through deterioration of the medium or as the equipment to play them becomes obsolete. Our own oral history recordings are indeed on out-dated mini-discs. Helen conceded that in the future video clips might have a greater role, given their current ubiquity. Ilona led the vote of thanks for a stimulating and entertaining evening.
On the beat he seems to have found ways to liven up boring night shifts. One device was to play cat-and-mouse around Redditch with a fellow panda car patrol, in the course of which, on one occasion, he chased and apprehended a pair of safe crackers by accident, thinking that their car was his fellow officer’s. He felt his subsequent commendation was possibly unearned. On another occasion he drew his truncheon and bravely confronted a sinister noise coming from a narrow, darkened passage, only to discover a cat. We did learn the Correct Use of the Truncheon however.
Peter’s local history essays, edited by our President Robert Bearman, have now been printed and members and friends are invited to the launch on October 4th at 7.30 in the Village Hall.
Our first evening talk after the summer break is on Friday 20th September entitled Shadows of the Past: WWII, to be given by Paul and Terry Gaunt, cousins of our Vice-Chairman Roger Gaunt, about the exploits of Roger’s uncle, Phillip “Tubby” Gaunt, as a WWII bomber pilot. Paul Gaunt has written a book about his father’s career, from training to a crash landing in Croatia. You will have to come on Friday to hear the end of that story …..
We were looking forward to visiting this World Heritage Site, a cradle of the industrial revolution, which includes Blists Hill Victorian Town, the iconic bridge itself and other historic industrial sites in Ironbridge Gorge, and it did not disappoint. The drizzle which greeted us at Blists Hill quickly evaporated, helped by a quick coffee and visits to the Bank, the grocers, the carpenters shop, the haberdashers (under 40s won’t know what that is!) and other nostalgic delights (eg fish and chips). A highlight for some was the steam locomotive, constructed to Trevithick’s 1802 designs by GKN Sankey apprentices in 1989, puffing up and down its short track, proving its practicality decades before Stephenson’s “Rocket”.
The shire horses also demonstrated that heavy haulage was still mainly horse powered. The extent of the 18th and 19th century enterprise here was clear from the ruins of the blast furnaces at the bottom of the town, and the sundry bits of iron machinery set up on the roadside, together with pigs and chickens to show that there was a domestic dimension to all this industry.
reminded a few of us of their own school days, although we had inkwells not slates. Various craftworkers demonstrated their skills such as woodcarving, and bread making. We moved on to see the iconic bridge, surprisingly high above the Severn, and now in a settlement whose existence is entirely due to its presence.
Ice cream was needed before our third and final stop at the Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron, re-opened in 2017, full of new exhibits explaining the development of ironworking and the history of the Coalbrookdale industrial complex. It is approached through an example of the wonderful brickwork achieved by Victorian engineers and builders – one of a series of skewed brick arches supporting a railway viaduct – although it proves an awkward access for today’s coaches. The museum’s objects and displays chart the increasing sophistication of ironworking technology, which was not always matched by a correspondingly sophisticated taste.
of “campa denu” – valley with cultivated fields – which had become a village by the time of the Domesday survey. The “chipping” – market – was added by Hugh de Gondeville in 1185, who also laid out the plan of the new town with regular burgage plots running back from the wide market street, still clearly visible in the town’s plan.
that survives are the banqueting houses and stables. The later 17th century was a period of construction, as evidenced by the many date stones proudly displayed on buildings, either newly built or added to in this period. 
The town’s later decline was arrested in the early 20th century by the revival of the arts and craft traditions, specifically CR Ashbee’s decision to move the Guild of Handicraft to Campden in 1902. The silversmithing operation set up by the Guild is still run by David Hart, 
the grandson of George Hart who joined Ashbee 1901. The workshop in Sheep Street is fascinating, with the traditional tools around the walls and on benches, and bunches of old invoices hanging from the ceiling like wasps nests (also made of paper!)
Our route
Pre Chipping Campden : Cotswold Stone, Chipping Camden 1
and Woolstaplers House
All sites have disabled access except for the upper floor of the Toll House near the bridge
forces fought a series of skirmishes in the Cherwell valley above Banbury. The title of the talk suggests that there was more to this exchange than the traditional label would imply, so we look forward to hearing what Martin and Tony have unearthed about this action. The topic chimes with the Warwickshire Record Office initiative to transcribe the claims for compensation following the Civil Wars – local parish returns are currently being transcribed by several of our members.
