Chickmarsh (market town)

Chickmarsh (market town)

Sponsored by the Beechbourne *Herald & Courier*

Some material from the *VCH,* by kind permission

**Chickmarsh** is a market town, serving in part The Woolfonts, particularly Woolfont Magna; the needs of the nearby Woolbury Stud; the Grimsbarrow Downs; and Wanscombe-juxta-Grimsbarrow and the country beyond towards Pebdown. It includes the ex- or suburb of Little Pinfold.

## **Geography**

Like Beechbourne, Chickmarsh stands where its stands by virtue of the little coombe towards the head of which it is set, a narrow chalk valley running down from the downlands to the navigable Wolfbourne and on to Nadder; and owing also to its being where the old straight tracks beyond the memory of man ran along ridge and downland. Both Beechbourne and Chickmarsh were natural market towns, however much they might be these in Hilliard miniature: where the fells and fleeces for the Staple were bundled and sent on their way to Wool Ford and thence borne upon the strong back of the river-god to wider markets and foreign ports, and where the proceeds and exchange of merchaunty came to market in return, to be bought by villager and husbandman and shepherd. Only the superficies have changed since the days when ‘ye maire & merchaunty of ye toune & ye balyffe of ye toune ſtapell mayde inqvest of Clothe for ye Gret Stapel’ before sending it on to be exchanged, ultimately, for ‘ſpyce and pepere of Ind, moustarde, dye, candeles, ſilk of Lucca, thriacle, ye ſtane y-clept ambre, phyſick’, and all manner of things from iron to silver to wines of Gascony, as Stapler, Mercer, and Grocer might contrive ‘at Caleys’ – or at other ports and Staples than Calais, if they could.

Chickmarsh, however, stands upon an easily worked stratum of freestone oolitic limestone, fissile, durable, easily cleft and carved, and highly suitable for ashlar: Chickmarsh stone, a ‘Bath’ stone in the broad sense, has had a considerable effect upon the town, its development, and its built environment.

The town, which is to the North Eastwards of Woolfont Magna, shelters beneath a sudden escarpment at the coombe head, above which are the Grimsbarrow Downs; the Spring Rill, a chalk bourne and tributary of the River Wolfbourne, rises at the coombe head spring line, and is just navigable by shallow draught barge from Chickmarsh. The Here Way, the Roman road it largely follows, and the ancient trackway across the downs which both follow, run on the downs above. The Westward side of the coombe has a shallow rise, not at all as steep as the escarpment to the Northwards of the town and somewhat less steep than that of the coombe’s Eastward side; there is a Bronze Age earthworks there, Westwards of the church and rectory, commanding a ford across the Stonebourne, a seasonal bourne which runs into the Spring Rill to the Southwards of the earthworks. These ancient defences also command the great curve and bend made by the Spring Rill as, having taken the waters of the Stonebourne, it becomes navigable for the remainder of its length.

The area to the Northwards and Westwards of the settlement has always been wooded; it is now given over to orchards.

It is probable that the original settlement was in or near the earthworks; but the discovery and extraction of Chickmarsh stone seems to have caused a migration and resettlement to the Eastwards.

The Westerly suburb of Little Pinfold, and its adjacent Quarry Farm and Manor Farm, appear to represent a back-filling of the open ground between church and earthworks and the present Chickmarsh, contemporaneous with the working-out of the Pinfold area of the quarries.

The Spring Rill, in a series of small meanders, to the Southwards of the town, traces out a boundary in the underlying quarrystone. It has there acquired sufficient depth for shallow-draught shipping in small barges and sufficient strength for an ancient mill.

Roads radiating Northwards to Wanscombe-juxta-Grimsbarrow and Southwards to Woolfont Magna follow ancient paths; the main East-West road, which forms the town High Street, is the C road from Sutton Whitfield to Beechbourne, where it divides into the Belbourne Road and the Wilton Road. The railway line, on an West North West to East South East axis, runs between the town and the Spring Rill.

## **History**

A likely pre-Roman foundation (by, at, or upon the site of the earthworks), with traces of an enclosure (built over for the same purposes in mediaeval times), overlooks the church and rectory, Westwards of the current settlement, and almost certainly was the site of the original settlement in the area.

By the sub-Roman period at latest, however, these had been vacated, and Chickmarsh in its current iteration settled, with a pinfold for stock to its Westwards, thus opening the intervening area for the exploitation of Chickmarsh stone. The placing of the parish church of today, S Osmund Chickmarsh, can be explained only by its occupying the original site of the earliest place of Christian worship in the settlement, quite likely in Roman times and quite likely reflecting the Roman tendency, later adopted by Augustine of Canterbury and subsequent missionaries, of putting up churches on former pagan sites.

With the exploitation of the stone, initially including quarrying quite near to the new settlement, Chickmarsh grew, and grew wealthy. The lords to whom Chickmarsh answered were firstly the Cynricing cadets of the House of Wessex, seated at Wolfdown, and then, after the Conquest, the Malets, who married into the family of the last Saxon royal thegn, Edred *Cild,* whom they had – on paper, at least, or, rather, on vellum – dispossessed; Chickmarsh, unlike rival Beechbourne, suffered no divided loyalties, and seems always to have had ‘good lordship’ and no complaints. This is perhaps unsurprising in a town which produced, with little effort and to great profit, a luxury product with high and inelastic demand.

In the reign of John, the then lord, Sir Geoffrey Malet, secured for Chickmarsh a charter for markets and a fair. Initially, the charter market struggled: a town the primary produce of which is stone, rather than agricultural produce, is not, without more, well poised to be the market town of a rural district. The burgeoning of the wool trade, however, set the market on firm foundations, not least when, by permission of Sir Gilbert Malet, ‘Prior’s Mill’ was erected on the Spring Rill. This was a fulling, or tuck, mill, not a corn mill; and it was put up and manned by the Abbey at Wolfdown as part of the agreement whereby the monastics had the ‘farm’ of the sheepwalks with the Honour of the Malets’ holding.

The Black Death, which struck Chickmarsh only somewhat less heavily than it had done Beechbourne, was, by a bitter irony, excellent new for the market in Chickmarsh. The demand for foodstuffs had decreased with the population, even as the wages for agricultural labourers had increased; but the demand for wool, brought from the surrounding area and fulled at Prior’s Mill, had if anything increased, and as a cloth market and entrepôt, Chickmarsh was now pegging level with Beechbourne. Nor was there any pay rise for shepherds thereabouts, such that the overheads in the wool trade did not rise with the margins for profit. And quarrying was little affected by the catastrophe.

It was at this time that Plague Pit End, Northwards of the earthworks, church, and rectory, came into being. The mass burials, at a hygienic distance from the town, led to the establishment of a private chantry chapel, with one cleric to serve it; around that nucleus grew up a minuscule hamlet exurb, which came, even before the Suppression, to concentrate upon housing and serving the foresting and orchard work hard by. As the memory of the epidemic receded, in fact, orchard, coppice, and timber encroached upon the actual burial site.

The period did bring new men and new families to the town, particularly after the charter market was established and then again in some numbers as the recovery after the Black Death commenced. One branch of the Doutys, in their sometimes dubious rise to gentry status, settled in Chickmarsh, as others had done in Beechbourne and the Woolfonts; Nicholas Douty had done very well for himself in service to the Abbey, and created, immediately Westwards of the town, what came to be called Pantlers or Pantler’s Manor, which boasted a truly remarkable and unique dovecote. The ruins of Douty House and its habitable remaining wing are Grade II listed; the dovecote is Grade II\* listed. Both are in the care of the National Trust.

Subsequently, the town remained largely unscathed by wars and upheavals; and whatever the vicissitudes of the wool trade and the local agricultural economy, Chickmarsh’s foundation remained metaphorically, as literally, set upon Chickmarsh stone. Public, aristocratic, and ecclesiastical buildings always sought it; and beginning in the Georgian period, the quarries of Chickmarsh *spun* money.

There has never been any other major industry in Chickmarsh, although the GWR did have a goods yard and marshalling yard there for a time, inherited from the original W&CR.

Today, Chickmarsh is a market town, tourist destination, and, as always, a quarrying town; and, as a market town, is a professional services hub for a wide area. The orchards, moreover, support the real cider operations of the Woolfont Brewery. Quarrying has moved largely to the area between the railway line, to the South of the town, and the Spring Rill, although some quarrying is yet conducted West of Little Pinfold, beneath the old enclosure and Manor Farm’s pastures and fields. The shaping of the stone blocks is carried on in an extensive park of buildings immediately South of the town, on the railway line.

The town, not itself notably set amidst arable, has, all the same, a maltings as well.

## **Town layout; economic and social history**

Chickmarsh proper, as now constituted, centres upon its expansive market square and green, which together make a triangular area with its long point to the Westwards, where Little Pinfold begins. This is bounded at its base by the High Street, at its North-South axis by Market Street, and in its hypotenuse by Silver Street. The village school and a range of largely Georgian buildings, given over to professional services, is in the South side of the High, and behind these, separated by a screen of woods, is the quarry’s finishing operations. These are so arranged such that the noise is concentrated to their South, and does not notably impinge upon the life of the town.

The shopping parade is concentrated in the stretch of Market Street between Silver Street and the High. Silver Street itself is largely residential, and Georgian.

The Western portion of the area defined by these streets is the village green. The War Memorial, curiously enough, is placed at the corner of Silver Street and Market Street, opposite the Market Cross: quite probably as a precaution against any subsidence.

Where Silver Street and the High join, the wholly residential quarter of Little Pinfold begins: all along the North side of the High. The very earliest quarrying of Chickmarsh stone in the infant settlement was fairly primitive; and the South side of the High there is occupied by an old quarry filled with water and now forming the pond for the town’s green. Similar flooded open quarries exist Southwards of Douty House and Westwards of Little Pinfold, to the Southwards of Quarry Farm.

As Chickmarsh stone was always sought by the church, for ecclesiastical buildings, and by secular lords at once for display as for defence, the history of its quarrying is a lengthy one, and its high desirability in the Georgian period and since has by no means caused its extraction to decline. Since, however, the early 18th Century, it has been quarried under ground, by the room-and-pillar method; and, save in the three instances above, where the old quarries have become ornamental waters, the former open mines which were the early quarries, particularly those near the earthworks and the parish church, were in-filled with chalk rubble and other stone at an early date and turfed over. An extensive land stabilisation project has since revisited these sites and remedied any issues.

The quarries are in the ownership of the Duke of Taunton, as they have long been in the ownership of previous Dukes of Taunton. Mr Hari Singh Dhillon (sometimes, ‘Dhillon Singh’: the Army and the Registrar took different views at different times) FCA FCMA, late WO 1 (Management Accountant), Staff and Personnel Support, the Adjutant General’s Corps, is the Managing Director, the Chickmarsh Quarries, the Taunton Estate. The remediated area is now agricultural, worked by the Manor Farm, and such quarrying as continues beneath the Manor Farm properties is underground mining.

## **Antiquities and archaeology**

Pitt Rivers had hoped to excavate at Chickmarsh at one point, but the project was put aside and never taken up again. Plague Pit End, the earthworks and enclosure, and the earliest quarrying, particularly in the context of the nearby Pebdown henge and cursus complex and of Grimsbarrow, are generally thought to be in want of study, and Dr Barbara Winton has urged HG the Duchess of Taunton (Professor the Baroness Lacy *suo jure*) to consider them as the next project after the Great Vale Dig and Wodewough Wood.

## **Religious Sites**

The town possesses a Church of England parish church, S Osmund, which is situate well to the Westwards of Chickmarsh proper and Little Pinfold

## **Notable buildings**

The town itself has a very good range of buildings, mostly Georgian. Almost all have been, from the earliest times, stone-built, even the mediaeval survivors, as Chickmarsh stone is quite literally in everyone’s back gardens.

The parish church, S Osmund Chickmarsh, is Grade II\* listed. It is a late 14th Century church in its present state, with tower, in Chickmarsh stone; and although a ‘wool church’ in type, was in fact run up by the burgesses and the Malet lords of the manor from the profits of the stone trade, and, owing to its location, at much less cost than that which should have attached to a comparable ‘wool church’ elsewhere.

At Pantlers Manor, in addition to the house, ruins, and dovecote, the National Trust preserves the mediaeval ‘physick garden’, an Elizabethan walled garden, and a formal garden dated tentatively to the years shortly after James 1st’s accession. These form a Grade II\* listed complex.

## **Amenities**

The town possesses one public house as such, the Quarrymen, a real ale, CAMRA-listed free house, to the South of the town by the Station; in the town centre, several restaurants with separate saloon bars, and two hotels, the White Hart and the Duke’s Arms, both former coaching inns, have premises licences.

Most communal entertainments are put on by the community, at the school or the Church Hall, which, unlike the church itself, is in the town centre.

## **Governance**

Effectively all local government functions are carried out by Wiltshire Council.

Chickmarsh is a civil parish with an elected town council of nine members, whose duties are largely consultative and ceremonial. The chairman of the town council bears the title of Mayor.

## **Transport**

### **Road**

The main East-West road, which forms the town High Street, is the C road from Sutton Whitfield to Beechbourne. Roads radiate Northwards to Wanscombe-juxta-Grimsbarrow and Southwards to Woolfont Magna, following ancient trackways.

### **Railways**

The recreation of the W&CR under Charles, Duke of Taunton and Sir Thomas Douty Bt has restored railway service to Chickmarsh, both as to passengers and as to goods, notably including Chickmarsh stone. Chickmarsh Station is an ‘overweening polychrome monstrosity which Butterfield had wrought at his most ecclesiastically Romantic’, now restored; Fr Paul Campion has described it, justly, as being just what his own college (Fr Campion, like Canon Paddick, being a Keble man) had been had it been a railway station. HG the Duke of Taunton mischievously insists in reply that Keble *is:* His Grace having been up at the House (Christ Church Oxon).

## **Commerce**

Although Chickmarsh functions as a retail centre, market town, and tourist destination, its primary trade is in Chickmarsh stone.

## **Education**

Local education is provided by Chickmarsh C of E School and the Beechbourne Free School.

## **Notable people**

* Hari Dhillon Singh
* Nicholas Douty
* Lady Anne Hart

## **Sport**

The town has a ‘friendly’ cricket club, which plays in local pub-league matches.

## **In popular culture**

The town and countryside ’round were painted by Sir Bennett Salmon RA.

## **Twin towns**

* Graville (Normandy)
* West Point, Virginia USA

## **See also**

* Chickmarsh Railway Station
* Chickmarsh Quarry
* Nicholas Douty
* Grimsbarrow Downs
* Lady Anne Hart
* S Osmund Chickmarsh (parish church)
* Pebdown
* Hari Dhillon Singh
* Millicent, Duchess of Taunton
* Wanscombe-juxta-Grimsbarrow
* Dr Barbara Winton
* The Woolbury Stud