Notice Board

Let us have your views on improving the website!

The website has now been going for some years and we realise that technology and taste have moved on. The Widcombe Association is the biggest and (we feel) the most prominent  and involved residents' association in Bath. We would like our website to continue to reflect this, and also to take advantage of all the facilities the web can offer.

What do you think? Is it time for a change?
Are we still very much of the 20th, rather than the 21st century?
What would you like your association's website to do for you?
Can you help?

Let us know!

Localism - a Beginner's Guide
by Andrew Gordon-Duff

This complex piece of legislation is making its way through Parliament and is likely to become law towards the end of 2011. It will greatly change how central and local government operate with particular relevance, as it relates to ourselves, to planning and community empowerment. The Bill runs to some 510 pages and at this stage there are many imponderables but the following is a short synopsis.

Localism is part of the Coalition's “Big Society” whereby people, neighbourhoods and communities are given more power and responsibility to create better services and results. It is a matter “of doing things from the bottom up rather than the top down” as at present. The intention is for Central Government to provide “Neighbourhoods” with the tools to become more involved.

Under the Bill the old upper tier regional planning targets and spatial strategies are abolished with local authorities being required to draw up new ones based more on what the local community want.

The first and important thing to say is that the current planning and listed building legislation remains unchanged. What is being introduced is the ability for a Neighbourhood to produce a Neighbourhood Development Plan dealing with more or less anything other than major infrastructure. The plan can be initiated by 21 individuals who form a Neighbourhood Development Forum with its own constitution. The members of the Forum must either live or work in the Neighbourhood. It should be emphasised that the plan has to be a well researched and presented document with clear aims and not in contravention of any National or local development framework, local plan or planning guidelines and is subject to independent examination. Once completed, it is put to a Referendum in the Neighbourhood and requires a yes vote of 50% (of those voting) to be carried. It then has a life of 5 years.

The Bill also provides for a local planning authority to issue Neighbourhood Development Orders on the application of a qualifying local body but again this is subject to independent examination. A Neighbourhood Development Order amounts to a planning consent

A Neighbourhood is defined as a Parish Council or an ad hoc area agreed with the Local Authority.

Estimates of costs of an order range from 20k-60k depending on the circumstances but there are no provisions for any central government funding!

Other important matters in the Bill relate to Community Empowerment with the main issues as follows:

•  The ability for 5% of electors in a relevant area to request a Referendum on a particular question – but the Local Authority does not have to abide by the result!

•  A Community Right to Challenge by a “Relevant Body” in relation to the provision of an existing service, ie to force a particular service to be retendered. A “Relevant Body” is described as “Voluntary and community bodies, charitable trusts, parish councils, etc”.

•  A Right to Buy giving communities the right to bid to take over community assets – but there is no mention of where the money is going to come from!

It has to be said that there are doubts as to how popular and effective much of this legislation will prove and indeed whether it will be manipulated by those with a vested interest such as builders and developers. At this stage it is difficult to understand how any of these changes may affect us here in Widcombe but we are carefully monitoring the Bill's passage. Two committee members recently (Sep 2011) attended a seminar run by the Historic Towns Forum and we are represented on the FOBRA sub-committee recently set up to consider the implications.

Lyncombe Vale Voluntary One-way Traffic Code

To increase road safety and enhance traffic flow, The Paragon School, Lyncombe Vale residents and the WA have devised a voluntary one-way traffic system in Lyncombe Vale and Rosemount Lane. All motorists are asked to observe the code between
8 - 9am and 3 - 4.30pm
during school term-time.

(Click on image to enlarge - full explanation here)

Property Required in Jan 2012

Penny Barltrop and her daughter of Lewes are looking for a property in Widcombe in the region of £300.000: a 2-3 bedroom terrace house with small garden and on street parking. They would also consider a ground floor apartment with similar specifications. If you can help, let us know.

Behind the Scenes of the A3062

www.j-a-willetts-esq.com/3062.html

Photographer John Willetts has spent many months in the production of an e-book about the A3062, which for residents of Widcombe means Prior Park Rd and Ralph Allen Drive. Combe Down resident John found himself fascinated with this history-laden piece of road which joins the city to Combe Down, and has dug deep into its past.  He has taken some wonderful panoramic photos and taped many interviews with Widcombe voices, including historian and long-time resident Doreen Collyer and of course own own dear Lady Margaret, who is introduced by Pavel Douglas of our own resident thespians, the Natural Theatre Company. There are also tunes from the Widcombe Wobblers and the Mummers. Full credits can be found on Page 20 of the e-book.

Click on the link above

'Rita' - A Queen's Favourite.

Thanks to Mr Paul Jones, we have learnt of the fascinating career of Mrs Desmond Humphreys (1850 - 1938) who was better known as the novelist 'Rita'. Mr Jones was anxious to locate her grave in the Abbey Cemetery and was able to do so with the aid of the WA Abbey Cemetery Memorial Inscriptions CD.

'Rita' wrote more than 60 books in all and published her first novel before the age of 20.  She was a favourite of Queen Mary's, who had a specially-bound collection of her works ordered for her private bookcase. She died at her home, West Brow, in Combe Down, Bath.

'Times' obituary and photo kindly supplied by Mr Paul Jones. Details of his book 'Rita - the forgotten Author' can be found here.

The Bath Spark - Polemic at its Best!

Councillor Ian Gilchrist received this from Nod Knowles and has passed it on.  The 'Widcombe Action Group' was a predecessor of the Widcombe Association, as as you can see from the pages below, issued in July 1978, pulled no punches where traffic was concerned! The Widcombe Association took up the cudgels on traffic in Widcombe Parade on its formation in 1981, and the fight still goes on, with hopes now of a resolution in 2011 - some 30 years later!

The Holloway Horse Trough

So far I have seen the following suggestions about the poem's author: Crabbe, Cowper and Bloomfield. I have muddied these waters by suggesting it was a Shaker called Robert White in the 1840s. However, my research has since led me to a version in a book of 1813. I have also learnt that the poem was popular in religious and in animal welfare writings throughout the nineteenth century. 

The words on the plaque are taken from a pre-war letter to the Bath Chronicle by someone who appears to be quoting directly from the board that existed at the time - he mentions that the board also had on it 'Cruelty to Animals' (This is in Bath Library - Notes and Queries - Bath Weekly Chronicle and Herald 1940-44 , Query number 1084). Unfortunately, when the Chronicle reported on the recent 'Unveiling', it quoted from the letter we had just received from Australia (see below) remembered not quite correctly from many years' distance . Our wording is the same as can be seen on a plaque in Pewsey, Wiltshire.

There is a version in the 1813 collection of poems, riddles etc 'Pour deviner: new enigmatical propositions' p96, (which can be read on line) which is almost identical, but has 'He was designed thy servant and thy drudge', rather than ' not thy drudge'. We would be most interested to hear of earlier sightings.

As the reinstated poem (shown above) was being unveiled on June 5th, 2010, the following email was received by the Association from sisters Lorna Webb and Margaret Cant (nee Hurn) in Angaston, South Australia:

To whom it may concern

I read with a great deal of interest your account of the reinstatement of the poem by the Holloway Horse Trough.   I am currently researching the surname HURN for a friend's family history and located the following article in a South Australian newspaper, The Advertiser, Wednesday, 4 January 1905:

The article may be found at this link: http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/5034997?searchTerm=William Hurn

William Hurn sailed to South Australia in 1850.   It is obvious that the poem meant a great deal to him and so we are delighted to know that the poem is still there.

Regards,

Lorna Webb and Margaret Cant (nee Hurn)

Note that the version quoted is not exactly the same as the version we are familiar with.

 The sisters also supply the following information about their ancestor.  If anyone can add anything which might further enlighten their research into family history, let me know, and I will forward it to them.

William was born 5 March 1827 in Bath, Somerset.

Baptised 15 April 1827 at St. John the Baptist church, Hinton Charterhouse, Somerset.

Married Sarah deLacey (died 1868) before emigrating to Australia.

Emigrated to South Australia on the ship Stebonheath in 1850 at the request of John Howard Angas.

Settled in Angaston.

Occupation: Bookkeeper to John Howard Angas.

Death: 14 Dec 1916 (aged 89)

Buried: Angaston Cemetery, South Australia.

Also: Parents of William: Thomas (ca 1782 - 1854) and Elizabeth (ca 1784 - 1858)

In January 2011 we had a letter from the Director of Research at the Shaker Museum and Library in Old Chatham, New York, USA, who has also been trying to identify the author of the poem. He had been following up a C19 suggestion (with no success) that it was written by Hannah More - another name to add to our list of possible authors. He too had traced the poem back to the early 1800s, and with the aid of Google books our current earliest sighting is in the Evangelical Magazine vol 14 of 1806 (London). The words are slightly different and the poem is headed 'Cruelty to Brutes'. There was a note that said that the poem and some others would be printed on cards.The poem was also included in the Sporting Magazine of 1807 (London) and The Gospel Treasury of 1810 (Massachusets), which copied many items from The Evangelical Magazine..

'The Cottager's Monthly Visitor'(London)1821 p215 has a letter from a lady remembering the 'expressive lines', but 'Where I met with them, or who the author is, I know not.'. - so we are by no means the first to wonder who wrote the words!

Any more information about the poem will be gratefully received.
Email sarahAlewis@btinternet.com

FOCUS ON ST MARK'S COMMUNITY CENTRE AND CHURCHYARD

 Background

The Church

St Mark's church will be a familiar landmark to most of you, but many Widcombe residents have never been inside the centre or the grounds.

St Mark's church was consecrated in 1832. When the land for the church was bought, part of the land to the north of the church was used to expand the cemetery.

The cemetery at St Mark's, Lyncombe was opened in 1825 on land which was formerly the garden of the Luder's house in Claverton Street, the house itself becoming the parish's second Poor House until 1838 ,when the Union Workhouse at Odd Down took over this role. For those buried at St Mark's, about 43% were aged under 11. The church could accommodate about 800 people and by all accounts the churchyard was the more widely used, since the local poor were buried for 2/6d (12p) for a pauper's funeral and 6,000 names were found on the burial list.

The Community centre

The church was closed in 1974 and it now serves as a community centre with some rooms being used for Acorns pre-school and activities by local groups taking place in the main part of the church.

The centre is run as a charity, which provides a venue for social and educational events and courses serving the community of Bath.

The centre itself consists of a large hall with several separate rooms to the side, and a kitchen area. The kitchen was refurbished in 2008 after winning a Chronicle grant of £1,000 and the hall has recently been re-painted and had a new heating system installed.

Most residents know that the Widcombe Acorns Playgroup operate in part of the building. There are also daytime and evening ballet & contemporary dance classes, dog training, karate, toddlers' group, yoga, Pilates , theatre groups, orchestras, Go competitions, Ceroc jive dances and the local history group's archive is also stored here. The hall may be rented for private parties & events when it is free, often at weekends.

Would you like to use St Mark's Garden?

St Mark's has a beautiful cemetery which is now used as a quiet garden. Acorns use it during the daytime, but any local residents interested in seeing the cemetery or using the garden should contact Helen Peter  as we are hoping to encourage local residents to use this lovely garden and help with its upkeep.

Take a look the St Mark's website and become familiar with this local gem.

Helen Peter