Hear
BBC Wiltshire's report on the launch of Down Poulshot
Features interviews with John Quinn, Michael Hues
and the book's author, Nora Dixon.
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Down Poulshot is written by Nora Dixon and published
by Poulshot Village Trust.
Poulshot Village Trust was set up in 1972, when the village
was designated a Conservation Area.
Nora Dixon spent twenty years talking to residents and studying
parish records before the publication of Down Poulshot.
There have been nine vicars in Poulshot since 1891.
Since 1893, fifteen landlords and landladies have worked behind
the bar at The Raven.
In 1901, Poulshot's population was 309; in 1999 it was 401.
Down Poulshot is available from Devizes Books, Ducks,
D'Arcy Books and the Devizes Information Centre.
Down Poulshot costs £10.00.
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| Major
John Bartholomew at the launch of Down Poulshot |
Major
John Bartholomew, who married into a Poulshot family, also spoke
of the spirit within the village.
He
pointed out that when the school closed in 1974 people regarded
Poulshot as "a dying village."
Thirty-or-so
years later, there were some 70 children playing on the Green during
the Jubilee celebrations, which Major Bartholomew said was "a
jolly good sight."
Making
reference to Nora Dixon's book, tracing the changes in Poulshot's
history through the twentieth century, Major Bartholomew said, "this
book will be of interest to anyone who understands Poulshot and
wants to be part of it."
Michael
Hues, chairman of Poulshot Parish Council, was hugely encouraged
by the turn out for the launch of Down Poulshot.
He
agreed that the book's launch and the recent Jubilee events gave
a taste of how the village worked and played together a hundred
years ago.
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| Nora
Dixon with a copy of her work, Down Poulshot |
Despite
all her hard work, Nora Dixon, the writer of Down Poulshot,
is philosophical about her achievement.
Writing
in the book's foreword, she says: "without the contributions
of many Poulshot people, the book would never have been written."
The
idea for a "millennium record" of life in Poulshot in
the twentieth century came from two leather-bound books, donated
by the late Brigadier Peter Hind, who, in 1980, lived in Poulshot's
Old Rectory.
Nora
recalls: "he gave us these two beautiful leather bound books
with the aim of writing the history of the village in them."
But
it was felt that the books were too precious for the Poulshot Village
Trust to use for such a project.
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