August 2013 Reviews

By Marilyn Palmer, Michael Nevell and Mark Sissons

(Council for British Archaeology 2012 326pp ISBN 978-1-902771-92-2) £20
Reviewed by Geoff Saul

This book has three sections: chapter 1 introduces the subject of industrial archaeology and provides a justification for its academic study within the field of archaeology in general; chapters 2-9 contain descriptions of a selection of industries with significant archaeology; and chapter 10 is a research guide for further academic studies. Local historians are most likely to find the middle section of greatest value. The book is well illustrated, with clear and well captioned photographs and diagrams, and there are many references at the ends of sections and chapters. Most of these are to substantial recent secondary sources and there appears to be no general reference to three major background resources: local newspapers, national archives and legislation. There is also a substantial index. The subjects in chapters 2-9 have been grouped according to common factors, although their order appears arbitrary: agriculture, power, extractive industries, manufacturing, housing the workforce, 'moving around', commercial buildings and utility industries.

This is a difficult book to review: many local historians will use it as a basic reference for a specific project when detailed subject background information is necessary. The coverage and references will meet many of their particular needs and they will have found value. Very few will read the book from cover to cover, but who does read a 'handbook' thus - only a reviewer! This reviewer is concerned with relevance to 'local history' and makes no claim to be able to comment in detail on many of the technologies, but there are comments to be made of a general nature on the middle section.

An overview of the relevant legislation would assist in setting the scene, regardless of industry. One specific example should make the point: the post-war nationalisation programme converted all the records of the gas, canals, coal, steel and railway industries into government records and as a consequence they are available in The National Archives at Kew. This receives no mention. In the same way, reference to water reorganisations in the post-war period is essential in relation to the section on utilities. There is a case for having 'the utilities' as an early chapter to encompass these aspects. Water is frequently mentioned, but there is no reference the nineteenth century Journal of Gas Lighting, Water Supply and Sanitary Improvement, the most comprehensive record from the 1840s to 1900 of the relevant industries. The railway press is similarly neglected. Did not each industry have its own trade magazine?

There are clear errors. Thus it is suggested that 'Throughout the industrial age, the supply of fresh water and the disposal of waste or sewage have usually been conducted by one organisation in each geographical area', but in fact the situation varied widely: Manchester, Newcastle and Bristol, for example, all had private water companies but the various local authorities provided sewerage and refuse services. And no local authority amalgamated the water supply section with sewage disposal under the same management. Regrettably I have to say that this is not a volume I can especially recommend.

GEOFF SAUL

Geoff Saul is a retired engineering lecturer from Brunel University and is the recently-retired editor of the Rickmansworth Local History Society Newsletter, which won the first BALH newsletter award.

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By Brian Bates

(Roving Press, Frampton, Dorset 2012 275pp ISBN 978-1-906651-169) £12.99

No-one can read the long lists on the war memorials throughout the country, recording the names of those killed in the Great War of 1914-1918, without profound feelings of sorrow for the young lives so tragically cut short and of sympathy for the grievous loss suffered by their families. There is likewise amazement at the numbers who enlisted or were conscripted from every town and village. We are led to speculate on the stories of bravery, horror and bereavement which each name represents. It was such sentiments which led the author of this book, Brian Bates, to undertake a remarkably ambitious research project. Perusing the names on the Dorchester war memorial on Remembrance Sunday 2005 he resolved 'to find out more about them, and those on Dorchester's other memorials, for surely each person named must have a story to tell'. He has traced the stories of nearly 300 men, their backgrounds, enlistment, battles and death. All ranks are represented, from colonel in the army to a 15-year-old boy-seaman in the Royal Navy. One woman appears, Nurse Constance Mary Hodges, who died of blood-poisoning whilst serving in a military hospital at Eastbourne. As the county town, early twentieth century Dorchester, with a population of 10,000, possessed numerous trades and industries catering for the surrounding farming communities. There were many shops, weekly markets, annual fairs and administrative services including the assizes, the county gaol and the county hospital. It was also a military town with the headquarters of the Dorset Regiment. More than 370 names are commemorated on memorials in the town and its suburbs, and Dorchester also has the unusual feature of a memorial to German soldiers who died in the prison camp. Their names are not given, but the author reveals that 45 died while imprisoned, most of them in the influenza epidemic which occurred at the end of the war. The prison camp was established beside the prehistoric ramparts of Poundbury, the Iron Age hillfort on the outskirts of Dorchester, and many of the prisoners worked in the town.

This is a well-written and carefully-researched account, with numerous illustrations. It includes contemporary views of the town, the barracks, entertainment for the troops and the military hospital established in the house and grounds of Colliton House and Park. There are many photographs of the men who fell and of their families. The book provides an excellent account of Dorchester during the war, the changes which occurred and the reaction of the townsfolk to the stresses and strains of wartime life. Most poignant of all are the stories which the author has collected of the fallen. This is not easy to read. The circumstances of each death and the effect upon the families in Dorchester are heart-rending. The thought that similar tragedies occurred in towns and villages throughout the country during these years is overwhelming.

J.H. BETTEY

Joseph Bettey was reader in local history at the University of Bristol and is the author of numerous books and articles on agricultural and landscape history, including Estates and the English Countryside, and has also written extensively on West Country themes

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By Steve Wallis

(Amberley Publishing 2012 95pp ISBN 978-1-4456-0754.2) £14.99s

There have been numerous studies of Dorset identifying the places used by Hardy in his novels. Although he changed the place-names, the detailed descriptions he gave make it easy to identify even minor locations and individual landscape features. A notable example published in 1984 was Thomas Hardy's England by John Fowles and Jo Draper. This latest book on the subject adopts a different approach. It is entirely composed of illustrations with quite detailed captions. They show places, buildings, street scenes and landscapes from c.1900, together with the author's excellent photographs of the same places today. Most of the early views are obviously taken from postcards, although no indication of sources is given. The locations illustrated cover most of the county from Beaminster to Bournemouth; Dorchester and the central area of the county which Hardy knew so well and which figure largely in many of his novels is well represented. The early photographs are well-chosen and the captions provide interesting insights into the accurate descriptions which occur in the novels.

J.H. BETTEY

Joseph Bettey was reader in local history at the University of Bristol and is the author of numerous books and articles on agricultural and landscape history, including Estates and the English Countryside, and has also written extensively on West Country themes

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By Mick Aston

Avon Local History & Archaeology Books no 12 2012 43pp) £3.50

This slim and attractive volume is the text of the first Joe Bettey lecture, sponsored by Avon Local History and Archaeology. Given in November 2011 by Mick Aston, it took as its theme his recent research into the long term development of the landscape of two communities in northern Somerset. The work at Shapwick is well-known being complete and published; the research at Winscombe began in 2008. The work described is avowedly multi-disciplinary-something to which we all aspire but few achieve. Mick overcame this by managing to assemble a team (often volunteers from the local community) enabling a wide range of approaches to be undertaken; fieldwalking, geophysical and geochemical surveys, excavations at a variety of scales, the examination of standing buildings, a programme of documentary research and the study of hedgerows all formed part of the project. The conclusion of the work provides further support for a model which sees a landscape of dispersed settlements being replaced by one of villages and open field systems in the period just prior to the Norman Conquest. Most interestingly some of the evidence points to the establishment of some of the boundaries which defined the medieval landscape as being prehistoric.

Aston's study is an ideal introduction, not just to two Somerset communities, but to the range of processes that are deployed in contemporary landscape studies and the results they can produce. An extensive discussion of the social, cultural and organisational problems highlighted by the research into the two contrasting communities concludes this publication. The work is well-illustrated with monochrome photographs and maps. There is a full bibliography, but at just 43 pages an index was probably not thought worthwhile. The full colour photography on the volume's cover brought a wry smile to this reviewer's face: of an archaeological excavation it shows only one person actively digging whilst seven are just standing watching.

JONATHAN KISSOCK

Jonathan Kissock is senior lecturer in history at the University of South Wales, where he was until recently programme director for the MA in Historical Landscape Studies. He has published widely on the medieval landscape of south Wales.

[EDITOR'S NOTE: this review was written before the sad news of Mick Aston's early death came in June 2013]

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By Miscellaneous

BIRTH, MARRIAGE AND DEATH RECORDS A GUIDE FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS
By: David Annal and Audrey Collins
(Pen & Sword 2012 185pp ISBN 978 1 84884 572 5) £12.99; 

TRACING YOUR BLACK COUNTRY ANCESTORS A GUIDE FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS
By: Michael Pearson
(Pen & Sword 2012 194pp ISBN 978 1 84415 913 0) £12.99; 

TRACING YOUR MERCHANT NAVY ANCESTORS A GUIDE FOR FAMILY HISTORIANS
By: Simon Wells
(Pen & Sword 2012 180pp ISBN 978 1 84884 651 7) £12.99

Reviewed by Phillip Arnold

Books published for family historians are usually of interest to local historians as well. They fall into to two categories-general (like the first book reviewed here) and specialised like the other two. Books can also be classified by whether they are for consulting in a library or record office, or are for day to day reference. Is the information contained in a book available elsewhere and does this book plug a gap?

Family history has been with us for some time now and still retains its popularity-witness the continuing success of the 'Who Do You Think You Are?' series on television. For the ordinary individual, wanting to trace his or her ancestry in this country, Anglican parish registers are a key source. Over the years family history societies have been set up, generally covering a county or a number of adjacent counties, and usually with the transcription of parish and other genealogical records among their objectives. With the growth of the internet, organisations such as Ancestry have made available (at a cost) a great deal of the information that researchers need to help their research. The question therefore arises: do we need another book on the parish and other registers? The answer is only yes if the book provides new material. I am not convinced that there is such new material in this book, although there is a section on nonconformists and other registers and Roman Catholic and Jewish records.

Once one has traced a family tree, it is reasonable to look further than a list of names and explore how one's ancestors lived. This is especially so where a family has moved from the country into the town as in the nineteenth century, or carried on a particular trade or profession. This is the field covered by Your Black Country Ancestors. However, I would suggest that initially the process of researching one's ancestors is no different wherever they lived or which trade or profession they followed. Historical accounts of localities, trades and professions are better written by local historians than by family ones. However, there is room for books written where the trade or profession is such that access to records demands special knowledge. Tracing Your Merchant Navy Ancestors falls into this category and if there is a merchant navy ancestor in your family this book would make a worthwhile purchase. There is also, however, a Society of Genealogists publication called My Ancestor Was a Merchant Seaman.

PHILLIP ARNOLD

Phillip Arnold is past chairman of West Surrey Family History Society and of the Friends of Woking Palace. He is currently engaged in putting together an exhibition on the life and work of Surrey local artist Marguerite Howarth (1908-2001) for the Lightbox, Woking's Arts and Heritage Centre

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By Susan Soyinka

Reviewed by Phillip Arnold

(Eliora Books and the Choir Press 2012 208pp) no price shown

This book is primarily about the Holocaust as seen through eyes of a young girl born in this country at the end of the last war. It is painstakingly and meticulously researched by means of the author's own family history-her family in the United States and Australia who had emigrated there immediately before the 1939-45 war; her pre-1945 family in Austria and present day Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia; her post-1945 family in England (including her mother's marriage and the birth of her two brothers); and her own eventful life and Jewish faith. As the author travels back and discovers her ancestors she uncovers a story of persecution, confiscation, theft, cruelty and murder. There is much evidence here of the terror of those terrible years.

The book will be of interest to all those interested in Jewish family history and those with ancestors in Central Europe but its principal value must lie in its place as yet another piece of evidence of man's inhumanity to man. It will be of no use to Holocaust deniers of course, but anyone who leans towards extreme right wing philosophies would do well to read this account and imagine themselves at the gates of a Nazi concentration camp with only the gas chamber in sight. To me this moving account is a well-resourced paper which belongs more to an appropriate archive than a bookshelf. It certainly has a place in any such archive specialising in the history of the Jewish people. I have no doubt Mrs Soyinka has seen to that.

PHILLIP ARNOLD

Phillip Arnold is past chairman of West Surrey Family History Society and of the Friends of Woking Palace. He is currently engaged in putting together an exhibition on the life and work of Surrey local artist Marguerite Howarth (1908-2001) for the Lightbox, Woking's Arts and Heritage Centre.

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By David Short with illustrations by Peter Greener

Reviewed by Peter Bysouth

(Ashwell Education Services 2012 100pp ISBN 978-0-9529828-4-5) price not given

This small volume is based on a collection of revised short articles originally written by David Short for the monthly Ashwell News. The first half looks at Ashwell's history, its buildings, churches, chapels and the Merchant Taylors' School, and the second covers an eclectic mix of topics and Ashwellian worthies. Among the historical periods covered are the Roman, Saxon, medieval, Tudor and Stuart. The reader will learn of the six charities founded between 1582 and 1722 for the benefit of Ashwell's poor, with other glimpses of hardship and tragedy like the reference in the burial register in 1730 that 'In this year dy'd of the small pox 65 persons'. One unanswered question is whether Ashwell's great fire of February 1850, which made over 200 people homeless, was a case of arson by a disgruntled farm labourer? Beating the bounds, enclosure, convict transportation, windmills and workhouses are all included, and the author relates the national importance of one Ashwell family, the Bills. In his will of 1551, Thomas Bill describes himself as 'phisicon unto the kings maiestie'. His brother, William, became master of Trinity College in Cambridge during Mary's reign and after the period of religious turbulence was installed by Elizabeth as dean of Westminster in 1560. Among the more unusual snippets is the case of the emu eggs in Ashwell's museum. It seems that William Pack, described in the 1881 and 1891 censuses as a gold miner and retired quartz crusher respectively, brought them back from Australia where he had been during the gold rush.

The book, which is beautifully illustrated with many simple black and white pen sketches by Peter Greener, should encourage local historians to explore through myths, legends, stories of local personalities and surviving pieces of documentary evidence the patchwork history of their own locality. This in turn may catalyse an interest for more in-depth research of some particular person and/or event. As Susan Oosthuizen hints in her foreword, history can be considered cyclical in the sense that what was once everyday life in one period often re-emerges to tell a story to much later generations. The author describes one such case that occurred in 2002 in a field outside Ashwell, where excavations of a Roman-British settlement revealed a previously unknown goddess. A silver figurine, engraved Senuna, was unearthed with third and fourth century gold and silver votive plaques that would have been purchased by pilgrims. Senuna is thought to probably be a Celtic goddess whom the Romans adopted.

PETER BYSOUTH

Peter Bysouth was awarded his PhD at Warwick University in 2010 for research into the changing nineteenth century business communities of a number of very small towns, including Ashwell, in north-east Hertfordshire.

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By Katherine Harding and Denise Baldwin

Reviewed by Imogen Wedd

(London Borough of Bexley 2nd edn 2012 128pp ISBN 978-0-902541-03-0) £8 from Bexley Local Studies & Archive Centre, Maidstone Road, Sidcup DA14 5HS, and local libraries and bookshops

The River Cray runs parallel to its more famous neighbour, the Darenth, until it joins the Darenth as it flows into the Thames at Dartford Creek. Rising in what is now the Priory Gardens in Orpington, it is only nine miles long, and has always been influenced by its proximity to London. Along the River Cray is a collection of photographs from the archives of Bexley Local Studies and Archive Centre and other sources, accompanied by a historical description, charting its flow down to the Thames. Unsurprisingly it is particularly interesting on the river's industrial history, representative of which are the viaduct of the London, Chatham and Dover railway, the flour mills, paper mills, silk mill and tannery. However, we also see its churches, pubs, and houses, its country houses and gardens, and all its river banks, meadows and bridges.

The book is divided into nine sections, covering Orpington, the four Crays, Bexley, Crayford, Barnes Cray and Crayford Marshes. Inevitably, perhaps, much of what is illustrated is gone: Johnson's Mill and Foots Cray Mill demolished, the Palladian Foots Cray Place destroyed by fire, most of North Cray subsumed under the dual carriageway of the A223, but it is a fascinating glimpse into the past and the changing rural and industrial scene. The working and living conditions at Foots Cray Mill in the mid nineteenth century are described, its move from silk to paper to textiles to use as a laundry to production of photographic film, and its switch from water power to steam to electricity. At Crayford a textile mill became the Vickers works, producing armaments, including involvement in the 'Dam Busters' bouncing bomb, and at Crayford Creek sailing barges were built to transport goods along the river.

However, the book is more than a look into the past, the text providing a history of the urban and rural landscape which we see today. We learn of Geoffrey Jellicoe's outdoor theatre surviving in the former grounds of Orpington Priory, the interesting interior and brasses at St. Mary Cray church, the trees, parkland and Georgian bridge at Bexley, once part of Foots Cray Place, and the Georgian house and bath-house, recently restored, at North Cray, ending with Dartford flood barrier built in 2002. This is an attractive book, deceptively informative, and very portable. It is an invitation to park the car and go on foot to locate the sites today, and would make an excellent companion guide to the Cray Riverway path.

IMOGEN WEDD

Imogen Wedd is a graduate of Sussex University and the Cambridge MSt in Local and Regional History, and is currently researching the impact of gavelkind on seventeenth-century Kentish communities. She grew up in West Kent.

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By Deborah Spring

Reviewed by Twigs Way

(Hertfordshire Publications: University of Hertfordshire Press 2012 272pp ISBN: 978-1-907396-81-6) £16.99

The publication of collections of research papers has become one of the marks of a successful county-based gardens trust. Hertfordshire Gardens Trust has been at the forefront of such publications, as evidenced by their Hertfordshire Garden History: a miscellany (2007), and again in this latest volume. Over two hundred pages long, with eight articles linked by a central theme, the volume is exceptionally well illustrated, and professionally uniform in its notes, bibliography and indexing. It takes as its theme the manner in which the parks and gardens of Hertfordshire have been influenced by, and reflect, the general social and economic history of their time and more specifically their location on the periphery of London.

Adhering closely to this, the various articles present the latest research on Hertfordshire landscapes over the last five centuries, highlighting the influences of the capital in patterns of ownership, design and even exploitation. The organisation of the articles chronologically allows the volume to be read seamlessly, and forms a 'mini' garden history of the county in its own right, while consistently high quality of research and writing means that there is none of the 'disjointed' feel that can creep into volumes of collected essays.

Despite being county-based, the individual articles tackle areas of national relevance to garden history, often adding important examples to a previously small 'pool' (for example in Anne Rowe's article of Hertfordshire's lost water gardens 1500-1750, and the examination of the Arts and Crafts gardens in Hertfordshire by Kate Harwood) or county examples of work by well known designers (Helen Leiper's exploration of the Hertfordshire clients of Lancelot Brown). Deborah Spring's article on the important influence of London on the sixteenth and seventeenth century Hertfordshire gardens will serve to alert gardens trusts of other counties around the capital to the possibilities of research on this theme. Taking the volume into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries allows consideration of the very active nursery trade present in Hertfordshire by that period, (explored by both Elizabeth Waugh and Kate Banister, the latter focusing unusually on salads and ornamentals). The Lea Valley and the Gade Valley loom large in the volume, providing connections between London and Hertfordshire and between estates, as well as providing a very specific landscape context. Tom Williamson's article focuses on the Gade Valley and integrates garden history with the industrial history of the area, including examples where the aesthetics of gardens were applied to industrial buildings.

I have left until last the article which I confess was my favourite (and which was saved for bedtime reading!), an in depth examination of the gardens of the Capel family at Hadham Hall, perhaps the most famous of 'garden history portraits' (now held at the National Portrait gallery in London). The research within this volume will be of fascination for all garden historians and local historians, and the quality of the work will act as an inspiration to all other local, county and regional research groups.

TWIGS WAY

Twigs Way is a professional garden historian, author, freelance lecturer and researcher. She has actively led the Essex Garden Trust (EGT) Research Group for several years, and edited several research publications for the EGT.

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By David A. Haynes and Marion Kamlish

Reviewed by Ralph Dickson

(Camden History Society 2013 188pp ISBN 978 0 904491876) £9.99+p&p details fromwww.camdenhistorysociety.org.uk

This is a fascinating book. The sheer scale of the frauds which Redpath committed against his employer the Great Northern Railway, impressed his contemporaries, and will grip the present day reader. Although there was a railway boom and enormous investment in railways, there does not seem to have been another fraud of comparable size committed against a railway company, although William Robison achieved this against the Crystal Palace Company. The methods used by Redpath and Robison were similar. Both worked in the share registration office and forged or altered records and share certificates. There appear to have been widespread irregularities committed by the executives of railway companies-for example, the issue of shares in names other than their own, certificates not in proper form, or a pro forma stamp of the secretary's signature. At times the book reads like a detective story, but it also contains much material about the history of the times. Above all, it reveals widespread materialism. 'Get rich quick' seems to have been the motto, and because people were in such a hurry to do just that they did not take up references and entrusted huge sums of money to those of dubious character. The book could be useful to family historians who wish to trace a member of their family who was convicted and perhaps transported to Australia. It makes excellent use of extracts from newspapers, and there is information about the style of living of the wealthy and above all how they spent their money.

RALPH DICKSON

Ralph Dickson is a retired law lecturer.

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By Kay S. Taylor

Reviewed by Steve Hobbs

(ELSP 2012 246pp ISBN 978 1 90664 1 4 98) £12.95+£2.80 p&p from Chippenham Museum & Heritage Centre, or Swindon & District History Centre

The current economic climate has caused highway authorities to look into the past for solutions. Thus toll motorways hark back to turnpike roads and concentration on filling potholes to the quick-fix solutions of parish way-wardens. Looking for charitable benefactors may seem the last throw of a desperate cause yet on the evidence of Dr Taylor's book, Maud Heath's Causeway is an example of local enterprise and commitment that might be worthy of consideration. Originating in the last quarter of the fifteenth century, it is one of the oldest privately maintained footpaths in the country, running for 4½ miles across the valley of the River Avon into the northern edge of Chippenham. The loss of the foundation deed until the nineteenth century, and the lack of any details about Maud Heath, led to an historical void which was inevitably filled by embellishment and surmise that grew into myth. Thus Maud was believed to have been a poor market trader and spinster from Langley Burrell, the parish on the north side of Chippenham through which the footpath passed, who was so inconvenienced by the difficulties of getting across the flood plain of the river Avon into market that she endowed the causeway. This legend was repeated in writings and reinforced by a statue erected on high ground at the start of the route in 1838, in which she is dressed in ordinary working clothes and carrying a basket of eggs. Dr Taylor rigorously sets the record straight, separating known fact from elaborated fiction, although she does not entirely clear up the uncertainty about the origins of the charity.

In 1874, the original trust deed of 1474 was discovered in a local family archive and was presented to the trustees. By it Maud, described as the widow of John Hethe of Tytherton Kellaways, gave all her property and land (unspecified) in Chippenham to trustees. Although the deed, and subsequent trust deeds of 1537 and 1573, are silent as to the obligations placed on the trustees, these appear to have been understood and implemented. While asserting this interpretation of the equivocal foundation deed, and in fact stressing the rarity of such an endowment being made in the lifetime of the benefactor, frequent references to Maud's bequest cast doubt and confusion in the mind of the reader who is left with the impression that perhaps a will (which has never come to light) may also have been one of the root documents of the charity.

The earliest reference to the actual function of the charity, apparently unnoticed by Dr Taylor, is the trust deed of 1711, and it throws some light on the matter. Describing Maud as the 'worthy benefactor', it states that her 'feoffment was and ever since the making thereof hath been deemed, reputed and taken and, from time to time enured [i.e. put into action], to and for the Continuall Reparation and maintenance of the Causewayes' between Wick Hill and Chippenham Clift'. It seems incredible, and unusual, that a charity could function for so long without feeling the need to protect itself by recording its purpose. This reflects the strength of custom and obligation in the medieval world in which did not rely solely on the written word. The incentive for the trustees to become more demonstrative may well have been an agreement between the parishes of Chippenham, Langley Burrell and Hardenhuish regarding highway maintenance, first made in 1651 then reaffirmed in 1699, which replaced a mystifyingly complex patchwork of responsibilities, and is mentioned in the book. Markers and monuments were erected at three points on the causeway bearing the date 1698 and thus clearly define the distinction between the liabilities of parish and charity.

A useful translation of the original deed is published together with transcript. However, in the latter contractions are not extended and coupled with a few misreading of the text mean that it does not add hugely to our understanding of the deed. The Trust's archive includes a typescript transcript with extensions which could have been used without any difficulties of copyright. The omission of the source of two sixteenth century documents relating to the manors of Stanley abbey (mentioned on p.114) is the only editorial lapse noticed by the reviewer (they are in the Goldney archives in Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre WSA 473/227, 1213/20).

That aside Dr Taylor has embedded her subject in a sound historical context, both local and national, and she has written a comprehensive and authoritative history. Chapters on the charities' properties, and its trustees, are supported by appendices; sensible repositories for the huge amount of detail that Dr Taylor has wrung principally from the charity's archive in the WSHC. The construction of the Causeway and its monuments are also covered in separate chapters. An appendix of potted biographies of other persons associated with the Causeway is an informative and useful source for both the subject of the book, as well as other lines of research into the history of the area. A chapter entitled 'Religion and schooling' covers institutions along the route of the causeway, notably the Moravian settlement of East Tytherton. It makes for an interesting, informative if slight diversion from the main subject, while remaining sufficiently relevant as to eschew any thought of it being superfluous.

The book is attractively produced and the Maud Heath Trust must be extremely satisfied with such an accomplished and attractively produced piece of research that sets out its history in an accessible and informed style. It is a model of an account of its type, comprehensive and authoritative and it is a significant addition to fairly slim amount of published material on Chippenham, now the largest urban area in Wiltshire following the departure of Swindon into unitary independence.

STEVE HOBBS

Steve Hobbs is archivist at the Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre. He edited Gleanings from Wiltshire Parish Registers published by Wiltshire Record Society 2010.

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By Gill Blanchard

Reviewed by REVIEWER

(Pen & Sword, 2013 xii+212pp ISBN 978 1 84884 254 0) £14.99

Many family historians, having constructed a family tree, branch out into other aspects of their family histories. This book guides the new researcher into how to set about the task of tracing the history of a building. It starts particularly well with an emphasis on the context of a property, its structure, its location and contains a reminder to check on what is already published. The author gives illustrations from her own work in Norfolk. The momentum is well maintained with references to frustrating aspects of house history. The final chapter on how to write up the research is sensible and should encourage people to present their findings well.

However there were some weaknesses. The chapter on architecture was disappointing. To summarise the main building styles of England in a brief chapter is a challenging undertaking, and Blanchard tackles aspects of both modest and grand houses, which is valuable. However the text came across as muddled between structure, interior and furniture. The reference to 'Jacobethan' jarred as it is not a commonly used word and it was somewhat startling to find her definition of the term in Google verbatim. A reference to railway towns and other manufacturing towns, apart from Port Sunlight, would have been appropriate.

The chapter on resources is very comprehensive. The listing of them alphabetically is questionable. Most of us would find a list that reads 'Directories and Gazetteers; The Domesday Book, 1086; Electoral Registers' somewhat eclectic. Although Blanchard lists many sources, she is not always forthcoming about how useful they may be in searching the details of a particular building. The weakness of the alphabetical approach was even more pronounced in the discussion of map sources where maps showing bomb damage come before a general discussion of Ordnance Survey maps. There is a good selection of photographs, rather spoiled by parallax and some being too grey.

The statement that copyhold was the commonest way to hold land until 1922 was surprising. Against this, the treatment of directories, electoral registers, and manorial court documents is really useful. The book is well supplied with many suggestions of where to look for information. It finishes with a very personal Directory of Resources. It lists some county record offices but not others, several museums, many websites and some books ... but how many of her readers will find Crawley New Town Museum of particular use? The book has several shortcomings but these are balanced by enthusiasm for the subject and some very good sections.

PHOEBE MERRICK

Phoebe Merrick is chairman of Romsey Local History Society (also known as LTVAS Group) and a keen local historian of 40 years standing, concentrating mainly in the lower Test valley area of Hampshire. Like most local historians, her research has covered a wide range of topics and time periods.