Box of Memories: Box Library History Project
Pontings department store in the Market Place (courtesy Verity Jeffery and Victoria Corbett)
The Project
Box library invites you to join us for a series of six free interactive local history talks with Box People and Places. Sessions will be held monthly in the library on Thursday mornings at 10.30am and will run for approximately 90 minutes. Please feel free to bring your own memories and any Box memorabilia to share with the group. Please come into the library or call on 01225 742 256 to register your interest.
The project aims to give people a view of the past using unique photographs and documents and it encourages people to share their experience and knowledge of the village. Each session concemtrates on an aspect of the development of the village.
Box library invites you to join us for a series of six free interactive local history talks with Box People and Places. Sessions will be held monthly in the library on Thursday mornings at 10.30am and will run for approximately 90 minutes. Please feel free to bring your own memories and any Box memorabilia to share with the group. Please come into the library or call on 01225 742 256 to register your interest.
The project aims to give people a view of the past using unique photographs and documents and it encourages people to share their experience and knowledge of the village. Each session concemtrates on an aspect of the development of the village.
Programme of Events
26 April Disappearing Village Shops - This date FULLY BOOKED but repeating on
10 May AVAILABLE please contact Library to reserve your place
A review of shops which once existed in Box and its hamlets, including Arkwright corner shops of 1950s, Victorian local department stores and Georgian bespoke tailors. We invite memories of shops, the people who ran them and the goods they sold.
24 May Market Place and its Origins - This date FULLY BOOKED but repeating on
7 June AVAILABLE please contact Library to reserve your place
Why is it called a Market Place when it's not a recognised market and anyway it's a street? The story of the area through time from the Victorian brewery and maltings, the building of the Steam Mill, the visit by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the reason for the name of the Chequers pub.
28 June Kingsdown Madhouse
The Georgian buildings that started as a place of incarceration for locals, became an asylum for mental patients, and ended as an old people's home. We review the graffiti inside and outside its walls and the story of its owners from James Jeffries to Dr Henry Crawford MacBryan.
19 July Ancient Hamlet of Ashley
26 July Repeated for larger audience
Now just a strange junction off the A4, the area developed because it was once the main road to Bath. We look at the farms which developed there, where Brunel stored his goods, Ashley Manor and the MP who lived in Ashley House.
30 August Sale of Village 1912
The local lords of the manor, the Northey family, owned most of Ashley and Box but decided to sell individual plots for development after about 1885. By 1912 they were keen to dispose of the rest. We look at how many modern houses developed then.
27 September Military Village in World War 2
Memories of residents about the Second World War, including the day war was declared, rationing, Box Home Guard, the Bath Blitz, a visit by the Queen Mother to Box and the burial of five German airmen in the cemetery.
26 April Disappearing Village Shops - This date FULLY BOOKED but repeating on
10 May AVAILABLE please contact Library to reserve your place
A review of shops which once existed in Box and its hamlets, including Arkwright corner shops of 1950s, Victorian local department stores and Georgian bespoke tailors. We invite memories of shops, the people who ran them and the goods they sold.
24 May Market Place and its Origins - This date FULLY BOOKED but repeating on
7 June AVAILABLE please contact Library to reserve your place
Why is it called a Market Place when it's not a recognised market and anyway it's a street? The story of the area through time from the Victorian brewery and maltings, the building of the Steam Mill, the visit by Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the reason for the name of the Chequers pub.
28 June Kingsdown Madhouse
The Georgian buildings that started as a place of incarceration for locals, became an asylum for mental patients, and ended as an old people's home. We review the graffiti inside and outside its walls and the story of its owners from James Jeffries to Dr Henry Crawford MacBryan.
19 July Ancient Hamlet of Ashley
26 July Repeated for larger audience
Now just a strange junction off the A4, the area developed because it was once the main road to Bath. We look at the farms which developed there, where Brunel stored his goods, Ashley Manor and the MP who lived in Ashley House.
30 August Sale of Village 1912
The local lords of the manor, the Northey family, owned most of Ashley and Box but decided to sell individual plots for development after about 1885. By 1912 they were keen to dispose of the rest. We look at how many modern houses developed then.
27 September Military Village in World War 2
Memories of residents about the Second World War, including the day war was declared, rationing, Box Home Guard, the Bath Blitz, a visit by the Queen Mother to Box and the burial of five German airmen in the cemetery.
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Everyone Welcome
Library staff are arranging extra local history books to be available for members to borrow after the meeting. Please bring along your old photographs and any Box memorabilia for discussion. |
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Laura Geater, Community Library Manager, Corsham and Box Library March 2018