2006 Issue Number 2 SHTAV NEWS Journal of The Association of Small Historic Towns and Villages of the UK ASHTAV VISITS FROME Frome is the most important of the five major Mendip towns and it possesses such a heritage of houses, chapels, nooks and bartons that despite several attacks of ‘regeneritis’ from the 19th century onwards, much of its ancient character and charm still remains. It has over 350 listed buildings - more than any other town in Somerset - many of which represent publish flourishes from Frome's cloth, agricultural and market traders putting their money “up-front” from the 1600s onwards. This gorgeous, if dilapidated, stock has benefited from a very active civic society and a local preservation trust that have rescued a number of “buildings at risk” and ensured that lovely streetscapes and ancient mills have not been swept aside in a gaderene rush for modernisation. ASHTAV members were fortunate to be guided around Frome by Brian Gill a former engineer and designer, whose family has lived in Frome and district for many generations. A glorious door in Church House opposite Frome’s Parish Church was made by Brian’s grandfather and embellished by him with local iron studs. Frome believes that its town was established as an Abbey site by St Alban in 685 AD, making this market town 1321 years old, although little dating from Saxon times now remains. Frome was built to nestle in the foothills of the Mendips; such low hills were ideal for raising sheep, once the monks had cleared trees from Selwood Forest. The monastic centre based on the site of today’s parish church grew into the centre of England’s woollen industry along with its neighbours, Bradford on Avon and Trowbridge. As the town grew, so did its industry, cheap power being easily available in its dozen watermills. Frome’s reputation for good cloth spread and fleeces from further afield—Salisbury Plain and the Cotswold Hills—started to come to the area for finishing. The town’s “woolly” peak lasted from period from about 1500 to 1700 supporting a population of around about 10,000 and Trinity, one of England’s first areas of high density housing for industrial workers was built between 1660 and 1720. Trinity was a prototype for the great mill towns in Yorkshire that sprang up later in the 18th century and virtually destroyed the woollen industry of the south west. It is no accident that the great woollen town in Yorkshire was called “Bradford”. Frome’s Round Tower, which now houses the Tourist Information Office, is a restored stove formerly used for drying out dyed cloth. In 1713, Frome had 54 tradesmen busy in the Above : Via Sacra ; processional way to the Parish Church Left: Painting the conservation area yellow Below right: Bunn pillar - let’s make Frome into Bath Below centre: Brian talks to Ashtav members who admire the Blue House ( Frome Museum is in the background) Below left : another mill about to be regenerated as flats Below left : Rooks Lane Chapel rescued after many mishaps ; now a Concert Hall and gallery Below right : possibility the oldest dwelling in Frome; now a cafe 2 cloth trade compared with 25 at making brass objects the size of Bradford, Yorkshire. In 1745, the candlesticks. Brian showed trade with London amounted to ASHTAV the original Singers site, 1000 lengths of cloth despatched to near to the Corn and Cheese the metropolis in 7 wagons a week. building. Now it’s covered with Ashtav visits Frome................1 The local soil is ideal for growing stone-clad homes yet to mellow and Planning : a period of change.7 woad plants, the blue colour that we blend into their surroundings. John Shaw’s Frome Lecture....8 associate with the ancient Britons, Apparently, a small bronze camel Laws and Consequences.........9 but which Frome used to dye the decorates this suburb. But, it is far Dormitory Towns.................10 uniforms sported by both sides better to search out its father, Bin Laden Bin Unladen...... 11 during Britain’s Napoleonic Wars. sculpted by Major Cecil Brown, FEATURED ARTICLE Local names map the history of the cast in Frome and unveiled in 1921 The Revival of Local Democracy wool business. Cut hedges existed in the Victoria Embankment by RAY GREEN..................12 in today’s Gould’s Ground not for Gardens in London as a memorial Planners cause obesity..........15 their pleasing appearance but to to the Imperial Camel Corps. It The Inspector Says ...............16 allow wind that percolated hedges shows a camelier mounted on his News from our members....18 and cloth to circulate freely to camel. During World War I such a Silodam................................23 ensure even drying of recently dyed unit was regarded as capable of ASHTAV AGM...................24 fabric. So, the informal chemists of fighting and maraudring Frome avoided chromatographic unsupported for five days. effects caused by the different solubility patterns of components in Multi-nationals rarely stay loyal their dye mixtures. Similarly, Rack’s small English towns. Cuprinol used Close was where more dyed cloth to make wood stains in Frome, but was laid on purpose-built racks to this brand has been exported to dry. Slough early in this century taking several hundred jobs away from THE ASHTAV EXECUTIVE As wool declined so other Frome’s economy. COMMITTEE 2006 industries took its place. Almost all of us are familiar with grandiose Stone quarrying was an industry Chairman: John Alexander statues originally cast in Frome. that once absorbed much back- News Editor: Ed Grimsdale Who cannot conjure a mental breaking local labour. Mendip Hon. Secretary: Dan Wild image of Queen Boadicea stone is used locally for building Hon.Treasurer: John Alexander surmounting her flailing carriage, and Brian told of one fascinating Seminars and Media: of King Alfred ruling over discovery. One local “stone-tiled” David Peevers Winchester or Justice that presides cottage had many toothless sheep’s Planning News & ASHTAV over the Old Bailey? All these, and skulls buried in its garden. When Helpdesk: John Bishton many more, hail from “Singers” of the roof was being repaired the Members news: Daphne Wyatt Frome. Even the lions of the reason became obvious, the waste Planning Advisor : Ray Green Rhodes memorial in South Africa not, want not ingenuity of Frome’s Without portfolio: were born alongside Mendip sheep builders had fixed the stone tiles in Anne Lock before making their safari by rail, place using sheep teeth as wedges. Gill Smith. road and sea to the Cape. All that Much of the stone quarried in the came about through a watchmaker Mendips was crushed to make in the Frome market, John Webb roadstone and this produced ASHTAV VICE PRESIDENTS Singer, making a pair of brass another set of jobs for Frome men Professor Malcolm Airs candlesticks for a local church. On – they became the original “Boys Michael Coupe finding there was a wider demand from the Blackstuff” , roughneck he carried on until he ended up journeying “tarmackers”. Such Articles for, and comments with a large foundry. In the 1880s “Yosser-likes” still return to haunt are welcomed: Singers started casting statues. Frome on Friday nights and Sadly, takeovers, mergers and Ed Grimsdale weekends, bringing their “gizza job” News Editor changing market conditions have mentality and anarchic views to reduced Singers of Frome back to bear on an increasingly gentrified 01280 815758 Cont’d on page 4 3 market town. Maybe, ASHTAV met number of townhouses. One has for individual identity that have couple of them, one roaring up and found a new life as a pet shop. I been so creative in producing the down steep Bath Road on his believe many pets are colour blind. morphology of Frome. One yellow quad bike, the other, That’s fortunate for the external associates a “Via Crucis” or “Via emboldened by his fierce white decorations chosen for this listed Sacra” with Rome or the Catholic terrier, fulminated at the sight of building are, to put it mildly, Church. The Church of England Brian shepherding his flock of strident. Powerful families have that ripped out so much of its Ashtavian aesthetes where, once shaped and reshaped the religious statutory after the upon a time, real shepherds looked morphology of Frome. The Reformation has been chary of for a suitable barton to pen their grandees were the “Baths” of over-graphic representations of the sheep for the night. Longleat and they owned much life of Christ. But, here in Frome, land in Frome including the the rising walk to the church is Christmas Eve, and twelve of the “upper” area of the market place fringed by the stations of the cross, clock. that was almost separated from its carved in vivid detail. This "Now they are all on their knees," low-lying partner – that lies within processional entrance to the church An elder said as we sat in a flock Frome’s flood plain. Regeneration was formed during the mid-19c. By the embers in hearthside ease. by the Bath family in the 19th restoration of the church by the century introduced the great sweep Reverend Bennett. A number of We pictured the meek mild of Bath Street, but, maybe it was small properties had occupied this creatures where simply aimed to confuse, because corner of the churchyard - their They dwelt in their strawy pen, Lord Bath’s Street leads one in the leases were bought out and the Nor did it occur to one of us there opposite direction from that needed church took possession of the land To doubt they were kneeling then. to travel to the town of Bath! and demolished them to make Bettering Bath has been an space .