Easterton Centenary Celebrations

Well 1975 wasn’t the centenary of Easterton which had been a tithing of Market Lavington for aeons. But it was the centenary of Easterton becoming an ecclesiastical parish in its own right.

It was deemed worthy of celebrating this centenary, and being Easterton, the locals did it well.

Pony, trap and people at the Easterton Centenary event in 1975

Here we see a pony and trap on the High Street – a reminder of those Victorian days.

Indeed, the passengers are dressed in appropriate Victorian costume and there are followers in costume as well.

The children and others, however, are really showing us what we looked like 40 years ago. We have a good range of 70s fashions. There’s the little girl in the short mini-dress and possible white boots. Three young lads sport the fashionable length hair for the time – certainly no short back and sides. There’s a slightly older lad in long and very flared trousers and further back a tank top wearing man. The man patting the horse is dressed as a Scot. His outfit is more timeless than the others on show.

The scene shows us the chapel and behind that the Jubilee Terrace.

Guess what? We lack names. Maybe you can help.

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The Easterton Fire Engine

This wonderful old fire pump has featured before on this blog, but it seemed like time to give it another airing – using a photo previously unused – and here it is.

Easterton’s Victorian fire pump – last seen in the village in 1975

This device was, at first, the Market Lavington and Easterton fire fighting machine, but it became the property of Easterton and found a home in a cave dug out near the village pump and actually under the grounds of the former jam factory. It was a simple enough device, and would have been effective provided it was near enough to a source of water.

Getting the pump to where it was needed required man power. The pulling handle, attached to the small front wheel, can be seen on the right of the picture. Once in place and with hoses connected, men – perhaps up to three on each handle, could operate the pump so that the fire could be doused with water.

At the end of each stroke of the pump handles, the pump action inevitably had to stop and this might have led to a jerky flow of water. However, the pump is equipped with a pressure smoother. It’s that bubble thing on top. When a handle was pushed down, some of the water went into the bubble and compressed the air in it. That compressed air kept the water flowing whilst the handles were temporarily still.

This fire engine was preserved by the Wiltshire Fire Service. We do not have it at Market Lavington Museum. It had been brought to Easterton as part of the church centenary celebrations in the 1970s.

It had been kept at the fire service museum in Potterne, but that has closed and we do not know where our old engine is now. Neither are we certain of the age of the old engine but maybe somebody out there can help us.

Broadwell in transition

Our first picture today shows Broadwell as it was in 1975. It shows the little white house, across the water. Knapp House towers up above it. The little house had belonged to the Merritt family and from there they ran their smithing business and also their herd of dairy cows.

Broadwell, Market Lavington in 1975

By 1975 the pump had gone and so, too had the little wood which had stood just out of shot to the left.

Now we move on to the 1980s.

A new family sized house is replacing the old, damp little building.

Broadwell, Market Lavington in about 1980

It’s interesting that the door in the old building had been bricked up during that brief period.

The new home was given an old sounding name – ‘Ye Olde Forge’. It marks its location although not a bit of the old remains. We guess the builders were using what was left of the old building for storage. It was swept away before the new house was occupied.

The barn and associated buildings on the right now form a part of White Horse Barns. That is also modern housing.

Easterton Evacuees

We were recently given a large number of Easterton Echoes – the newspaper for Easterton but our donor had not been a collector in the early days. However, Easterton Parish Council have loaned us their archive and good old Jim is working through the process of copying them.

We can now say that the very first issue was the May 1975 issue but here we are going to look at an article from the October 1975 issue – to give a flavour from 38 years ago this month.

Let’s see the efforts of Sheila Judge and her typewriter and there is a corrected transcript below.

Easterton Echo Issue 5 from October 1975

Now here’s the transcript.

Evacuees

During the ‘last year several families of evacuees have revisited Easterton. They were billeted here during the Second World War.
Sidney Hamshere returned with his wife and family from Australia. He was staying with Mr & Mrs Hussey senior during the war. He called on Bill Hussey and myself and was very disappointed to see the old school gone.

Bill Emery who was billeted at the vicarage called with his wife & family from Germany.

Tony Emery and his wife and family paid a visit. Billeted with Mr & Mrs Davies, he now lives at Taunton.

Mr “Bobby” & Malcolm McGregor also returned. They called on Mrs Topp as they were billeted with Miss Etherington.

They all remembered the great competition to blow the church organ – for one shilling per week. All had happy memories of Easterton and hope to pay a return visit sometime.

Shirley & Mavis Allsop, billeted with Mrs Little at Cedar Farm, have again visited us.

Many in the village remember going to school with these evacuees.

Miss Windo.

How interesting to find information from the 1940s in this issue of ‘The Echo’ Our thanks to Miss Windo for gathering the information, and the Easterton parish Council for storing the record.

And of course, we’d love to hear from any of the people mentioned or, perhaps, their descendants.

Lucinda

The year is 1975 and the shop carrying the name Lucinda looks just a tad careworn.

Lucinda – a former shop on Church Street, Market Lavington

Lucinda is on Church Street and in a previous existence it had been Mr Pike’s butchery. George Pike had taken over the business from Mr Godfrey.

This shop has a long history. This photo shows George Pike and staff in about 1913.

That’s George Pike second from right.

It is interesting to note the petrol pump in the 1975 picture. This was associated with Mr Reid’s garage next door and was surely out of use by 1975.

Lucinda was about to change too. It was extensively rebuilt although it retained that gable end facing the road.

In this later picture, we can see the new brick frontage and see some of the other commercial premises which still existed on Church Street at the end of the 1970s.

Lucinda rebuilt – a view of Church Street, Market Lavington in the late 1970s

Beyond Lucinda is the Spar shop and in pale blue after that there is Peter Francis’s photographic business. The person on the pavement is just approaching where Saint Arbuck’s is now. This coffee shop is now the only commercial property along the length of Church Street apart from The Drummer Boy pub.