Autumn 2019 Newsletter 164 Somborne & District Society
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SOMBORNE and District Society Autumn 2019 Newsletter 164 Somborne & District Society Contacts President Chairman Terry Mackintosh David St John Secretary Editor Janet Ingleson David Pennington Snowdrop Cottage Winchester Road King's Somborne SO20 6NY [email protected] DPA 2018 – GDPR Data Policy What personal data we collect We may also use your information for data The Somborne & District Society collects analysis so that we can monitor membership personal data from its members comprising numbers and location. We do not share name, address, email address and telephone your data with other organisations. number. Occasionally other personal data may be collected from sources such as How we will store the data attendance lists at events, documentation of personal achievement and publication The Society will store your data on a awards, and records of sales including database held by our membership secretary publications. and used in accordance with the Society’s data protection policy. What we will do with the data The Society will use this data to send members Historical Data its quarterly Newsletter, and managing events The Society may also hold historical data for and meetings. We may also use it to send you its historical research purposes. mailings relating to news. Page 2 Newsletter 164 Chairman’s Annual Report (Delivered at AGM) This past year has seen a broadening of our scope of topics for the lectures. Beside the talks on thatched cottages which had local references we have been back again to Roman Britain and underwater looking at ancient shipwrecks. We have learnt about what life was like in Winchester prison and the Tower of London and about characters as diverse as Judge Jeffreys, the Hanging Judge, Thomas Hardy, the author and T E Lawrence when not in Arabia. We also learnt that the massive tower of Windsor Castle is hollow and about the varied experiences of Guernsey refugees in England. Later this evening Colin Reeve will tell us about crime in the art world. For this wide ranging and interesting programme, we have to thank Nola Mackintosh, Janet Ingleson and Eileen Reynolds for a splendid effort. That was not all the programme. The Annual Picnic at Chilbolton in John and Doreen Rowles’ garden was as enjoyable as ever and we ate well at Christmas and New Year thanks to John Green. Mike Reynolds organised a very amusing quiz evening followed by fish and chips and we had an interesting visit to Farley followed by a delicious meal at the Silver Plough pub in Pitton. We will be holding another picnic on August 8th at John and Doreen’s. All this has been the result of your committee’ efforts and there have been some changes. At the last AGM we were without a secretary but soon we managed to persuade Janet Ingleson to find room amongst her many other commitments to do the job. For this I am most grateful Janet. Without a secretary a committee is rudderless. At this AGM Norman Denison has decided to stand down as Treasurer. Norman has been a tireless contributor to the Society’s activities for many years not only as treasurer but he has also been responsible for the intricacies of the sound system with its constantly flat batteries. Before each lecture he could be seen wrestling with wires and switches. You will be missed Norman Page 3 September 2019 Somborne & District Society but I understand that you will still be involved with publications. I would like us all to show him our heartfelt gratitude for all that he has done. Thankfully we have a successor in the person of Peter Storey who having reviewed the Somborne Society’s accounts this year can see that the job of Treasurer will be quite straightforward for a retired Parish Clerk. Thank you to Val Chapman our Archivist whose archive is mostly out of reach in the Village Hall loft. One day soon I hope we will be able to rehouse it for you Val. David Pennington is the editor of our Quarterly Newsletter which is always full of items of local history interest and gives details of recent publications by Society members. David works on his own and manages to produce a well written and interesting newsletter every quarter. The last newsletter included details of the John of Gaunt Award organised by Jo Finch. The newsletters are collated and stapled together by the able Reynolds team and delivered on time. I have decided to raise awareness of our meetings by emailing advance notices by email in addition to the posters printed by Bill Lomas and stuck on noticeboards by me. I hope you are all receiving the emails. These are sent to everyone by Linda Allcock who is also our membership secretary and minder of the publication stall. Thank you Linda for all your efforts on our behalf. That leaves two committee members not yet mentioned, Tina Pepper and me. Tina helps out wherever needed and I have the easy task of chairing committee meetings because everyone knows what to do and introducing speakers who always know what they have to do. We now look forward to another interesting and enjoyable year of lectures and activities. David St.John Page 4 Newsletter 164 Editorial In this issue we look at inhabitants of the Sombornes 100 thousand years ago, 10 thousand years ago, and slightly more recently we look at Roman Rabbits. I also have some results of some detective work earlier in the year on a transportable Flour Mill. Gordon explores Music and Pubs. David Pennington [email protected] Contents Contacts ............................................................................................................ 2 DPA 2018 – GDPR Data Policy .................................................................. 2 Chairman’s Annual Report (Delivered at AGM) .................................................. 3 Editorial ........................................................................................................... 5 Chalk and Flint ................................................................................................... 6 More Flint ........................................................................................................... 6 Musical Entertainment in King’s Somborne from 1900 to WW1 ......................... 7 Buried treasure: 1066 and all that. ................................................................... 10 Buried treasure: Lepus Vidit Veniens deVicit.................................................... 10 Millie the Mill and a question of geography....................................................... 11 Searching Family Histories ........................................................................... 13 The Mill Machine ........................................................................................... 16 The Lost Pubs and Beerhouses of King’s Somborne ....................................... 18 Society Publications ......................................................................................... 19 Programme of Meetings ................................................................................... 20 Cover Picture: A Mobile Corn Mill at MERL. Page 5 September 2019 Somborne & District Society Chalk and Flint On my way home from work, I pass through Romsey and then Lower Brook. At the chalk quarry, the new owners have opened a new fresh face. This gives a bright white cliff face, in this wall of white, some structure can be seen. Thin bands of darker flint can be seen, geology in action. Chalk is a sedimentary rock, made of Calcium Carbonate, formed by Algae, nano plankton, or coccoliths. The rock in this area was formed in the Cretaceous period, 100 million years ago. (Cretaceous – Age of Chalk.) These sediments would have formed at the bottom of warm seas. Flints are typically seen as remains of the activities of sponges forming silica compounds. The layers are thought to be due to different sea levels at different periods. This silica is then fossilised into quartz. To the modern farmer, these flints are an irritation, but to early man, flint was an important raw material for tool making. More Flint Last year’s Proceeding of the Hampshire Field Club has a summary of Cotswold Archaeology’s pre development work at Oxlease, just to the north of Fishlakes, in Romsey. In various test pits and trenches, evidence of Roman activity was found, but in medieval ditches. Deeper finds were made of a “worked flint assemblage”. Some elements show evidence of a “long Blade lithic industry” dating to the late Old Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic). 10,000 years ago. Although some of the flints were just erosion from further up river, the main “find” shows evidence of working by Stone Age man, creating blades and scrappers. Some later Mesolithic blades were also found. These would have been created by hunter-gatherers exploring the Solent rivers, before the invention of pottery and farming. DCP Chris Ellis and Jacky Sommerville “Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic and Later Finds from Oxlease farm, Romsey, Hampshire: Summary Report.” Hampshire Studies 2018 https://legacy- reports.cotswoldarchaeology.co.uk/content/uploads/2018/01/Oxlease- Farm-Cupernham-Lane-Romsey-Archaeological-report.pdf Page 6 Newsletter 164 Musical Entertainment in King’s Somborne from 1900 to WW1 In newsletter No.158, I wrote about how the village band entertained parishioners between 1882 and 1914. However, the activities of the band were not restricted to King’s Somborne as it played for those local villages which did not have a band of their own. Furthermore, our village was visited by a wide range of musically based entertainers who