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Author Topic: Something for those interested in the local history of N Wilts....  (Read 2440 times)
Reg Smeeton
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« on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:21:49 »

 I've got a little book by a chap called G Newton Johnson...it's called Footpath Guides 55: Around Marlborough.   It was written just after WW2.

 Here's the puzzler, and I'll quote from his intro:

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I have made it a rule to include only walks that I have personally travelled in 1947, and so have been regretfully compelled to omit one or two very interesting walks, notably the old Pilgrim's Way from Wroughton by a string of little churches to Compton Bassett and Calne, because recent agricultural developments have made them too difficult to follow.

The only reference I've ever seen to this Pilgrim's Way....now I know some think Calne worthy of a pilgrimage, but I don't suppose it was to the Harris's Bacon Factory.

Anyone shed on light on this?
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« Reply #1 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:29:28 »

The churches in calne from Compton direction would be st Peters at blacklands,  then holy trinity on the a4, then st Marys in the town centre.
I would hazard a guess that it went somewhere near Winterborne Bassett, avebury,  Yatesbury Compton, calne
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Samdy Gray
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« Reply #2 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:34:42 »

Never heard of it.

Plenty of little villages between Wroughton & Calne with little villages, so the route could've been anywhere really.
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« Reply #3 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:39:36 »

I've walked from Wroughton to Broad Hinton across the fields before so approximate route and bloody nice it was too.

In the book I'm assuming a walk running parallel with the Ridgeway but down in the villages which sprung up along the line of the spring on the edge of the downs. It's probably still doable but lots of cutting back and forth. What would the list of villages be? Wroughton, Elcombe (shared church), Broad Town, Clyffe Pypard, Clevency, Compton B, Calne? That's a bottom of the downs walk but could detour to the top via Uffcot, Winterbournes, Avebury etc.
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« Reply #4 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:42:05 »

I nearly set a land speed record down the hill at Clyffe Pypard in early 90s on a £100 mountain bike from Halfords.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #5 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:51:22 »

I've walked from Wroughton to Broad Hinton across the fields before so approximate route and bloody nice it was too.

In the book I'm assuming a walk running parallel with the Ridgeway but down in the villages which sprung up along the line of the spring on the edge of the downs. It's probably still doable but lots of cutting back and forth. What would the list of villages be? Wroughton, Elcombe (shared church), Broad Town, Clyffe Pypard, Clevency, Compton B, Calne? That's a bottom of the downs walk but could detour to the top via Uffcot, Winterbournes, Avebury etc.

I sometimes do most that route, as an alternative to the Ridgeway if walking from Avebury to Swindon, via Yatesbury...however it's still doable, and Clyffe Pypard is just about the only church after Compton Bassett. I'm as interested in why this was a pilgrimage route. Calne seems to have some connection with St Dunstan, who was a player in post Alfred Saxon England. Usually though at the end of a Pilgrim's Way, you had something for the adherents to see or buy or something.
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« Reply #6 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:52:58 »

Is/was there a pub called The Pilgrim in Calne?
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« Reply #7 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 14:58:47 »

No.

St.Edmund too reg. Something to do with a calne / abingdon route? Wroughton would be in the line of that route.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #8 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:01:19 »

Never heard of it.

Plenty of little villages between Wroughton & Calne with little villages, so the route could've been anywhere really.

"string of little churches"  suggests Broad Hinton, Winterbourne Bassett, Berwick Bassett, Winterbourne Monkton then maybe Avebury onto Yatesbury and Compton Basett. Again still just about walkable in theory.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #9 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:02:49 »

No.

St.Edmund too reg

Who was St Edmund?
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« Reply #10 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:07:17 »

He became Archbishop of Canterbury whilst rector of Calne
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #11 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:15:22 »

 The Wilts CC website looks useful....had this to say on Winterbourne Monkton

 
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There is evidence to suggest that the churches of Avebury, Winterbourne Monkton, Berwick Bassett, Winterbourne Bassett and Broad Hinton were linked by a track or pathway; the more usual route travelled is east of the stream and runs in a north - south direction. This was turnpiked in 1767 as part of the main Swindon to Devizes road. Few routes passed from east to west after the 18th century, although there is evidence of a path to Yatesbury. The main turnpike road must have been slightly re-routed as it is described as the 'new road' on a 1774 map, and Hain Lane is shown as an addition to the earlier street plan of the village. An 1809 map also shows a small green area near to the entrance of Middle Farm.
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #12 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:18:32 »

He became Archbishop of Canterbury whilst rector of Calne

Is he buried in the church or anything like that?  Winterbourne Monkton gets called Monkton because it was owned by the monks of Glastonbury who were big on pilgrimage...could Calne have been a stop on the way?
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« Reply #13 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 15:46:19 »

Westminster Abbey, I would assume?
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Reg Smeeton
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« Reply #14 on: Monday, April 14, 2014, 16:02:20 »

Westminster Abbey, I would assume?

To be an end point for a pilgrimage, you needed to have something there for pilgrims to see...and pay for bits of etc. or maybe a healing spring or well.

Apparently St Dunstan had something miraculous happen in Calne...do you know anything about that?
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