Fame in the Family

WS member Richard Grant reports that a letter that has come to light reveals a connection between his Hampshire-based family and Lord Kitchener.

Kitchener may not have been history’s greatest general but he became the face of the world’s most …

From Robert Craig:

I enjoyed Jim Gunter’s article in the Autumn Wessex Chronicle, Vol 11, Issue 3, but I take issue with one or two assertions.

Firstly, the “seaxe” portrayed is a heraldic device. The seax was an all-purpose tool used for chopping …

Patrons

In recent years, WS Patron Lord Bath has passed the management of Longleat to his son, Ceawlin, Viscount Weymouth, whose plans for the estate have since ruffled a few feathers.  The result has been a lot of misdirected criticism as …

All Greek to us

The Olympic Games are a Greek invention and an English re-invention.  Much Wenlock in Shropshire gets the credit for reviving the games in 1850, 46 years before Baron Pierre de Coubertin staged the international revival in Athens.

But Chipping Campden …

LOOKING FOR THE MOON?

Wiltshire Industrial History: Working class episodes, edited by Rosie MacGregor for White Horse (Wiltshire) Trades Council (WaterMarx on behalf of WHTC, 2011, ISBN 978-0-9570726-0-2): reviewed by Douglas Stuckey

This collection of essays concentrates heavily on the decades immediately following …

Build houses

So I think it’s important to continue to build houses.  What the local council is doing here is proposing to build a lot of houses in villages and I’ve been, frankly, quite surprised at the negative reaction from a lot …

Dragon Hill

Above:  Dragon Hill is the small hillock immediately below the ridge carrying the White Horse of Uffington.  Legend asserts it to be where St George slew the dragon and a patch of chalk on its summit, on which no grass …