Somerset County Herald ‘Local Notes and Queries’ by Paul Mansfield
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Somerset County Herald ‘Local Notes and Queries’ by Paul Mansfield July 5th 1919 A challenge to our readers. We have much pleasure in recommencing in this issue our column of Local Notes and Queries which proved such a popular feature of this paper for 20 years, but which we were compelled to discontinue for a time owing to difficulties created by the war. We are particularly anxious that this column should consist as far as possible of notes, queries and replies contributed by our readers themselves, and it will very largely depend upon the assistance we receive from them in this direction whether or not the feature shall be continued. It would of course, be an easy matter for us to get a column of such notes written up each week in our own offices, but this is not our purpose in reintroducing this feature in our paper. We want the column to be almost entirely our readers own column, and if they show by their contributions to it that they appreciate such a feature it will be a pleasure to us to help them in every way we can in making the column interesting and useful. If, on the other hand, the contributions we receive from our readers are so few and far between as to suggest that they take little or no interest in such a column, we shall very soon discontinue it, and insert some other feature in it’s place. We therefore invite any and all of our readers who are in any way interested in such matters to send us short interesting notes or queries on any of the following or kindred subjects relating to the district over which the paper circulates:- Abbeys Antiquities Archaeology Architecture Battles Beating Bounds Bells Biographies Birds Birthplaces Books Bridges Buildings Burial Places Camps Canals Celebrities Chantries Charities Churches Churchwarden’ Accounts Clubs Coins Crosses Curiosities Customs Dialect Discoveries Earthworks Education Elections Emigrants Encampments Epitaphs Executions Famous Men Festivals Fires Flowers Folk lore Fossils Games Genealogies Ghosts Gibbets Gypsies “Good old days” Highwaymen Hills Historical Events Hostelries Hundreds Hunting Industries Inns Inscriptions Inventions Judge Jeffreys Landmarks Legends Manor Houses Mansions Manuscripts Markets and Tolls Means of Transport Memorials Mining Monasteries Monmouth Rebellion Monuments Names Natural History Newspapers Novels Occupations Parish Registers Persons Place Names Poetry Pounds Preachers Press gang Punishments Railways Records Regiments Relics Religious customs Roads Rocks Roman remains Ruins Saints Sayings Schools Shipping Signs Smuggling Societies Sports Stage Coaches Stocks Stones Stories Sundials Superstitions Tokens Tombstones Towers Trades Traditions Travelling Trials Turnpikes Village Feasts Volunteers Weapons Weather lore Wills Witches Works of Art 1 Writers Yeomanry Many of the friends who gave us the most valuable assistance in the days when we first started this column are no longer with us, and we hope that our present readers will do their best to take the places of those who have gone, and that all who are able to send us original matter, or “hits from books” on any of the above or kindred subjects will be kind enough to do so as often as they can. Notes. “FRIGHTENING ISAAC” – When I was a boy, and came in with rumpled hair, the nurse would reproach me with “you are like a frightened Isaac.” I always thought myself compared to the lad on Mount Moriah when his father bound him and took the knife. But Haysuck is a local name for a hedge-sparrow, and the expression may be a reference to the frightened Haysuck when he ruffles his plumage at the approach of danger. A THORNFALCON STORY – About 1662 a Mr How, minister of Thornfalcon, declared that he would rather be stoned to death than conform to the Act of Uniformity. Afterwards he changed his principles and it is said that a great number of stones were thrown into his house by an invisible hand. He went out to see who threw them, but no one could be found, yet still the stones came in, through windows and chimneys, for several days. What effect this had on the minister is not recorded. A GLASTONBURY TRADITION – It is said that Joseph of Arimathea derived his great riches from trading in tin and lead with Britain, that he made several voyages to this country, and on one occasion brought our Lord, then a boy with him. The place where they sojourned near Glastonbury is called “paradise” to this day; and the miners of Mendip (recently extinct) whenever they arrived at a critical moment in the process, used to repeat “Joseph was a tinman as a charm to ward off danger. GENERAL GORDON AT TAUNTON – Nothing seems ever to have been done to mark General Charles Gordon’s connection with Taunton, although he received his early education at Fullands school (now the residence of Mrs Manderson), and was boarded – his parents being abroad – at 49, Upper High street. Perhaps in designing present war memorials a niche might be found (and would not be resented by the present generation of soldiers) for this great one of the last generation. DEVIL’S STONE – At Staple Fitzpaine, there is by the wayside a big “Sarsen,” known as the Devil’s Stone, because, having come overnight with some big stones on his back, wherewith to pelt the builders of the church which he heard was to be built, against his wish, in that then benighted place, he suddenly saw in the morning the fine tower of the finished church. In his chagrin, he was so taken aback, that he dropped his budget of stones from his shoulder, and this big one remains to this day as a strong (though dumb) witness of the fact. PEACE REJOICING AND AN OLD SOMERSET BALLAD – Mr Philip Gibbs, the famous war correspondent of the “Daily Chronicle”, wrote a description of the peace rejoicings in London for his paper on Monday, June 30th. In the course of it he says – “I went into the Strand again, or was swept there in the drive of the human tide. A big sergeant-major, with his arm about a frail little wife, was singing an old Somerset 2 ballad in almost Saxon dialect. Six sailor boys were yelling out a sea-shanty, swaying to and fro, as though on a stormy passage.” FIRING THE APPLE TREES – The old superstitious custom was observed on twelfth night (old style). Shots were fired at the apple trees in the various orchards to induce them to bear a good crop next season. The wassailing song, followed by loud cheering, was then sung:- “Old apple tree, apple tree, We are come to wassail thee, To bear and to bow apples enow; Hats full, caps full, three bushel bags full. Barnsfull, and a little heap under the stairs, Hip, hip, hurrah.” Afterwards the party moistened their throats with cider, and, after another song, they moved off to another orchard to repeat the same ceremony. This custom was in use at Minehead on January, 1896, according to the “West Somerset Free Press” of that date. THE PLACE NAME BRIDGWATER – It is now clearly established in my mind by hundreds of documents that the first part of this place-name is “Bridge,” at any rate, as far back as the Domesday record. The idea that it was once “Burgh” is unsupported by any evidence that the place was ever a Saxon burgh. The second part of the name is on all sides regarded as deriving from the name of the Flemish lord, Walter de Douai. Compare Stoke Courcey, Keinton Mandeville, and many other examples in the county. But I have never seen it pointed out that the word “Water” is not a corruption of “Walter,” but is simply another form of the same name. I have seen the name so spelt in a medieval document, and “Wat” is the diminutive. “Wauter” is another form, and, as I think, fixes the pronunciation. For change of “I” to “u” compare French “haut” from Latin “altus”.” T.B.D. ROOTLESS DUCKWEED – Most of your readers probably know the tiny duckweeds which often cover the surface of ponds and ditches, but the smallest member of the family, the rootless duckweed (Lemna or Wolffia arrhiza), was supposed until recently to be confined to the south-eastern counties. Each plant consists of a single floating green frond, about the size of a grain of sand, but forming large patches on the water. It is always flowering in Britain, the plants multiplying by similar fronds growing out of their edges. About three years ago this species was first noticed in Somerset, being found in a pond at Bathpool, near . A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of finding it at Weare, near Axbridge, and have since ascertained that it has been recorded near Ashcott, Shapwick, Brent Knoll, Lympsham, and Edithmead. It appears to be spreading rapidly, and a careful search would probably be rewarded by finding the smallest British “flowering” plant in still other localities. Botanists please note – E.J.Hamlin. TALES OF WITCHCRAFT FROM LANGFORD BUDVILLE. (Told by an old inhabitant) A man called “Old Jimmy” was a wizard that used to have his house so full of earthen pots that you can hardly walk around the room for them. In these pots he kept toads and the noise of their croaking was something awful. He was an ugly old fellow to upset, and he would say the name of anybody he disliked, or was paid to injure, and that he would go over to one of the pots and take out a toad, mumbling something, 3 that nobody could make out.