A slightly shorter episode this week, although not by much. Whilst we have plenty of subjects in the pipeline to talk about we’re beginning run out of ideas. It’s not that we’ve said everything there is to say about Wiltshire but that finding the time to get out and explore is increasingly difficult. So we’re contemplating recording the podcasts on a monthly basis rather than every two weeks, just to give us the time to visit more interesting locations. We’d really appreciate ideas about new locations from followers of the podcast.
In the two weeks since the last podcast Glyn has again been pretty much tied to his desk, although he did manage to do a muddy eight mile walk to Bincknoll Castle and the Broad Town White Horse near Wroughton. It sounded like the mud tempered his enthusiasm!
I’ve done a few walks, albeit one was in Sussex on the border of the Surrey Hills. I walked to the top of the highest point in Sussex, which is not on the South Downs as I’d always thought, but on Black Down near to Haslemere. The hill was very reminiscent of the New Forest.
Inspired by Hidden Wiltshire contributor Elaine Perkins, I re-visited Newton Tony to look at its past role as a transport hub. It once had an important railway but long before that a Roman road passed nearby. There is a blog about the walk on the Hidden Wiltshire website and it’s linked on the Facebook pages but we will record a podcast about it sometime in the future. Elaine has also written her first Blog for the website. You’ll find it on the Hidden Wiltshire website.
Another walk I did was in Bentley Wood, again with useful tips from Elaine Perkins. This was my first visit and I put together a route that also included Hound Wood and Blackmoor Copse. Whilst most of the route was in woodland the varied nature of the woods and copses was very noticeable. Probably not one for a podcast but a short blog and photos may follow soon on the Hidden Wiltshire website or Facebook pages.
Meanwhile, Glyn and I met with Tim Daw and recorded an interview with him at the modern day long barrow he built at All Cannings, something he has called a Novolithic long barrow. The perfect name we thought. We’ll be putting out a podcast with this fascinating interview soon.
Glyn has also received another hand written letter together with a book written by the grandfather of one of his Twitter followers Jonathan Steadman. The book, by A R Steadman (who was the head teacher of Marlborough Grammar School), is about the countryside around Marlborough from prehistoric times through to the 1960s. It would make an interesting comparison with the book The Land of Lettice Sweetapple which is about the history of the same area.
And finally Hidden Wiltshire has once again featured in another publication. Glyn wrote an article about Blind Houses for the March edition of the Wiltshire Buildings Record Newsletter. If you can get hold of a copy there are many hidden Wiltshire gems in there.
The main feature this week is Wiltshire’s Chalk Badges. The county’s military links are well known and long lasting. As far as we have been able to identify there are four locations where regimental badges can be found carved into chalk hillsides, albeit one is not strictly a regimental badge.
Fovant is the most famous location where eight or nine badges can still be seen carved into the hillside next to the A30. Glyn wrote a blog about it on the Hidden Wiltshire website dated 18 October 2018. Mostly carved by soldiers during the Fist World War (some are later) there would initially have been around 20 badges. Many are now overgrown. Just a little further along the valley there are two more badges at Sutton Mandeville. The final badge is called the Lamb Down Badge and can be seen by the A36 at Codford. This solitary badge was carved by soldiers of the 13th Training Battalion of the Aust
ralian Imperial Forces in 1917 as a form of punishment! Finally we have the famous giant Kiwi carved in 1919 by New Zealand soldiers. At 420 feet (130m) high it’s enormous and its construction was designed to distract riotous soldiers awaiting transit home to New Zealand.
You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the link below.
Finally, thank you to Glyn Coy for the aerial photograph of the Fovant Badges.