How Wiltshire are you??

[Paolo69]

Cheers Ardiles. Would be nice to think that for all these years i've been living in a part that used to be part of Wiltshire.

[jayohaitchenn]

I was born and raised in Swindon, but my father is from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland and my mother is from Chobham in Surrey.

How Wiltshire does that make me? 100%? 0%?

[wiggy]

I was born and raised in Swindon, but my father is from Ballycastle, Northern Ireland and my mother is from Chobham in Surrey.

How Wiltshire does that make me? 100%? 0%?

Nouveau Wiltshire

[juddie]

Who knew? I wish I'd known this at school : - (

These Wiltshire enclaves must be the reason we seem to have a fair few fans in & around Reading (!)  As it happens, my grandfather (who moved to Hurst when he was 4 from South Yorkshire and lived in the Reading area for much of the next 80+ years) learned to fly at Woodley Aerodrome before joining up in 1938.  He got called in to action in the Battle of Britain not long after.

Plenty of info about the Wiltshire enclaves on the web.  For example:

http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getconcise.php?id=199

Apart from Victorian and later tinkering, Wiltshire’s external border remains largely as it was in Saxon times, and in many places follows well-defined natural features. Where it adjoins Berkshire, however, the boundary is less clear-cut. Not only were territories such as Shalbourne and Hungerford divided by it, but there were also several places (including Hurst, Shinfield, Swallowfield and Wokingham), now wholly in Berkshire, which until 1844 had enclaves landlocked by Berkshire but regarded as parts of Wiltshire. These anomalies suggest that Berkshire and Wiltshire, or parts of them, were once regarded as a single unit of secular government (just as together they formed a diocese centred on Ramsbury), and that the line of the boundary when drawn between them in the later Saxon period was dictated by tenurial rather than political or military considerations.

[leefer]

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/wil.htm

The thing that stands out on the early maps is how places such as Cricklade,Calne,Marlborough and even Highworth and Bassett are bigger places than Swindon,and as Ardilles says Hungerford has always been right on the line as seen on all the maps.

[leefer]

Incidently it is believed the Wilts in Wiltshire is derived from Wilton(near Salisbury)which was the ancient county town of Wiltshire,in fact Wiltonia was a very old county area around Salisbury and Stonehenge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilton,_Wiltshire

Once known as Wiltunscire it is strange to think that this little place now was once the bedrock of todays Wiltshire.
Incidently my Aunty Betty lives on Wilton High Street and she comes from the branch of my family that have farmed around Wiltshire,mainly Salisbury,Fovant and Heytesbury since at least the 1690,s

[ReadingRed]

Cheers Ardiles. Would be nice to think that for all these years i've been living in a part that used to be part of Wiltshire.

Another enclave-dweller here! Grew up in Melksham, spent 25 years in Ealing then 10 years in Hurst, just down the road from the Winnersh Triangle.

[Baggins]

I'm half Swindon, half Bristol.  The Swindon side I don't know beyond my old man as he never knew anything about his Dad.  The Bristol side are Bristol through and through.  So I'm very West Country.

[Bewster]

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~genmaps/genfiles/COU_Pages/ENG_pages/wil.htm

The thing that stands out on the early maps is how places such as Cricklade,Calne,Marlborough and even Highworth and Bassett are bigger places than Swindon,and as Ardilles says Hungerford has always been right on the line as seen on all the maps.

Leefer - you are the font of all, cheers for this - made great reading.

[leefer]

Just a shame you can't get close up to some of the maps where even the zoom dosn't help.

I think alot of the old confusion was that Hurst and a few surrounding areas were owned so was part of the Amesbury Hundred which was in Wilts...even though it was in Berkshire,sort of shown in this link.

http://www.berksfhs.org.uk/genuki/BRK/Hurst/index.html

As you can see(in the Town lists)that Abingdon now in Oxfordshire was once part of Berkshire......they were all Royals fans then,not a hint of yellow

[Ardiles]

I appreciate that this will be of interest to approximately none of you, but I also have great grandparents buried in the churchyard at Hurst.  I googled my great grandmother (who I remember only very vaguely) some time ago to discover that they are still awarding a prize in her name at the annual village fete/fair 35 years after she died.

Lovely little village.

[bassett boy]

As for me just joined this Thread born in Newcastle moved to Swindon when i was 10, my kids born and raised in Swindon
However i have never felt part of Wiltshire and i am of the view that Wiltshire does not like Swindon apart from the football team which i think is a county thing not a swindon thing you only have to look of the number of people who travel to watch the team play, and maybe the magic roundabout

[Batch]

I appreciate that this will be of interest to approximately none of you, but I also have great grandparents buried in the churchyard at Hurst.  I googled my great grandmother (who I remember only very vaguely) some time ago to discover that they are still awarding a prize in her name at the annual village fete/fair 35 years after she died.

Lovely little village.

That is quite interesting. Why are they awarding a prize in her name though?

[Simon Pieman]

The only reason I support Swindon is for the pre-match Sir Dan's meets.

[Ardiles]

That is quite interesting. Why are they awarding a prize in her name though?

It was a cookery prize - so I would imagine she may have donated the cup back in the 1960s or 1970s and they've been awarding it ever since.