samedi 18 décembre 2004

More Scenes from Wiltshire Devizes and Roundway Down Roundway Down is a plateau at the end of a ridge running between the Vale of Pewsey and the course of the Avon to the north. But it stops abruptly, facing the open Wiltshire plain, a geographical feature that partly led to the unexpected defeat of superior Parliamentarian forces in one of the shortest battles of the English Civil War. Even on the most summery of afternoons, as it may have been on the 13th of July 1643, the slopes of Roundway Down have an ominous look to them. The Roundheads were led by Sir William Waller who had marched from Bath after retreating from the inconclusive Battle of Lansdown Hill eight days earlier. He positioned his 3,000 foot and 2,000 horse soldiers on Roundway Down and proceeded to fire canon shot into the Royalist positions a short distance away in Devizes where Sir Ralph Hopton was besieged. A Royalist relief force of 1,800 men under Lord Wilmot, which had advanced from the north, found itself blocked by Waller's positions. The Parliamentarians had the upper hand and the weaker Royalist force of Lord Wilmot had to charge uphill... but Waller made a mistake by advancing to meet his opponent on level ground where he was soundly outclassed by Wilmot's cavalry and unable to receive covering fire from his own canon. As Clarendon the contemporary historian wrote at the time... "Sir William Waller out of pure gaiety, departed from an advantage he could not recover." The rest, as they say, is history. Neither side knew of the steep drop on the other side of the battlefield (as seen in the above image) and Waller's routed horsemen plunged to their deaths in what is now known as Bloody Ditch. Witnesses in Devizes said... "...in a sudden we could see the Enemy's whole body of horse face about and run with speed, and our horses in close body firing in their rear, 'till they chased them down a hill in a steep place where never a horse went down nor up before." It was a surprising Royalist victory... over 600 Parliamentarians were killed and all Waller's guns, ammunition and baggage were captured. The scene was later called "Runaway Down" by soldiers who had been there... a name which would still be appropriate because it is much too steep to descend with a slow and sure step without breaking into a stumbling and dangerous run. Devizes, at the foot of Roundway Down, was a busy market town when I lived there nearly twenty years ago... and is probably more so now that many people working in cities choose to live in quieter rural retreats. The town has a good mix of shops and businesses which means that basically everything can be bought there whether food or drink. The vegetables are grown on thousands of acres of local farmland literally in the shadow of Roundway... and the beer has even less distance to travel being brewed on the corner of the Market Place. When Wadworth's beer was ordered by local pubs and hotels it was carted there the slow-and-easy way by horse-drawn dray... which I hope is continuing as it helps to keep the pace of life more leisurely even though it's thirsty work. Although I illustrate Devizes with one obvious photo of St. John's Church I do like to make readers, and some locals, guess as to where an image detail may be... however, the shadow of the painter up his ladder is not abstract enough to keep locals guessing... the "AR H" can only belong to the old and well frequented "Bear Hotel" in the Market Place. Off the busy streets are quiet alleys, churchyards, village pond "The Crammer" and Kennet and Avon Canal with it's famous flight of locks. Several streets carry names of their former associated trades including Wine, Snuff, Monday Market, Sheep, Hare & Hounds (maybe not) and Station (from Great Western Railway years). Overlooking all is the castle, now a private residence, built in Victorian times on the site of much earlier fortifications dating certainly from the Norman period... records mentioning a castle there in 1106. Several local boundaries passed through the strategically positioned castle including possibly that between former Welsh territory and the lands of Wessex... although more probably between the local Manors of Potterne and Cannings. Whatever, the word "boundary" is from the old French "devise" from which the town name has evolved thus (1152) Divises, (1227) Devises, (1330) Vises, (1333) Dyvyses, (1381) les Divyses, (1462) Visez, (1485) le Devisez... and more recently to Devizes. There's an amusing local legend worth repeating... it was at the nearby village pond of Bishop's Cannings where an Excise man stumbled upon a group of locals busily engaged in raking the surface of a dew pond on which the bright moon was reflected... "0h, zur, zomebody has been and lost a cheese, and we'm a-raking of un out thic thur pond." Simply amused, the Excise man rode on into the night... whereupon the wiser men proceeded to rake up from the watery depths several barrels of contraband whisky which had been smuggled in from the south coast. So was born the name "Moonrakers" for all Wiltshire folk. 7:12:47 PM    comment []