A Clock Face

Today we look at a clock face which once kept the time in the old Baptist Chapel on Chapel Lane. As far as we know the clock works are still in situ above the counter in what is now the fish and chip shop.

This J A Smith of Devizes clock face was onced the timekeeper in Market Lavington Baptist Chapel

The clock is thought to date from about 1865 and clearly carries the name of J A Smith of Devizes. It is not in good order with missing white paint and added daubs and splashes of blue.

Sadly, we know almost nothing of J A Smith. We believe he operated from Devizes Market Place.

The dial measures about 16 inches across and we believe the clock would have been of a kind known as a gallery clock.

We would, of course, love to know more for our records.

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Beehives

The tradition amongst bee keepers is that you have to tell the bees the news. Here it is the other way around. An old picture of beehives is giving us some old news.

1920s photo of beehives in the garden behind the fish and chip shop in Market Lavington

Let’s consider the hives first. There have been two main types used in Britain – the functional ‘National’ hive and the prettier ‘WBC’.  These have the look of the WBC which was named after its inventor, William Broughton Carr. These were photographed in 1920 in the garden behind what is now the fish and chip shop and Chinese takeaway opposite the Co-op. The hive on the right is clearly doing well for extra honey holding ‘supers’ have been added to cope with the produce.

The bees belonged to Mr Elisha. He was the father in law of Mrs Elisha the school teacher and he had the premises on the corner of High Street and Chapel Lane as his tailoring and haberdashery shop. As we can now realise, he was also an avid bee keeper

The buildings on the right of the photo were in the yard behind the butchers shop.

Now we’ll look at the odd bit of structure to the left of the hives.

This is a grave. That area behind the fish and chip shop was once the graveyard of the chapel on chapel lane. That building, of course, is now the fish and chip shop.

We published a list of chapel burials on this blog a couple of years ago. Click here to see it.

Baptist Birth and Death Records.

Many people will be unaware that they have regularly visited the old Baptist Chapel in Market Lavington. Chapel Lane is the little footpath that leads from the High Street – almost opposite the Co-op – to The Clays. The Baptist Chapel has, for many a decade, been the fish and chip shop.

The Baptist Chapel - now the Fish and Chip shop

In the nineteenth century the chapel folk performed their own baptisms and also their own burials. The area behind the chapel turned fish and chip shop was the burial ground. We have copies of their registers in the museum.

Baptism records from the Baptist Chapel at Market Lavington

This list is hand written, but we can pick out common local names such as Oram, Sainsbury, Baker, Davis and Maslen – names still to be found in the village.

These records have been transcribed – here we show records of burials in the ground along Chapel Lane.

Transcribed Baptist burial records at Market Lavington Museum

To fit the scale of this blog vital information, like the year of the burial, has been missed here but even so, this makes for rather sad reading. Nine of the 15 burials with an age given were children under 5 and another was a workhouse resident.

The local names are, once again, well represented. These lists may well help genealogists locate a hard to find relative.