This was taken from a Gazette and Herald article in the 1950’s and reprinted in The Villages magazine in March 2008.
“Where they can remember the plough teams of oxen” by Bernard J Hall
Sitting in the sun-bathed garden of the Rectory at Calstone one morning a few days ago, it seemed as if the whole world stood still and nothing changed. A sudden burst of machine-gun fire from a nearby practice range and the drone of a passing aeroplane proved this wrong and brought thoughts of developments, during the last 100 years, flooding into one’s mind.
In those 100 years Calstone, and with it nearby Blackland, has suffered from change. The post office and the only shop have been closed. Six industries which flourished in the village have ceased.
Yet, with all these changes the population of Calstone and Blackland has remained constant – the figure of 350 at the last census varying little either way. And always, until well after the turn of the century, teams of oxen were used for the cultivation of the steep and heavy land.
Today the villagers turn to Calne for all their needs, and one or two have drifted from the land, which for centuries has provided the people of Calstone with their livelihood, to town work.
Mr. George Maundrell, who with his brother, Mr. Michael Maundrell, farms the 1,364 acres of land round the village, says proudly: “I think that probably we were the last people working oxen in Wiltshire. The last team was sold in 1906, and the ox-carter died only two years ago in Swindon.”
With the Maundrells, farming at Calstone and Blackland is a tradition. Records show that members of the Maundrell family have been working the same land – all on the Bowood estate – for nearly 400 years. Through the years the land has yielded good crops: today there is mixed farming there and a well known pedigree dairy shorthorn herd of cattle can be seen grazing on the pastureland.
The special care of ‘‘Shepherd” Maslin, who lives in the village, is the flock of sheep. In this aspect of farming life there has been a vast change. Fifty years ago Calstone was the central collecting point for thousands of sheep brought in from a radius of some five miles for washing. Today, though the man-made “Wash Pool” still exists at the spot where rises the River Marden tributary of the Avon, the large flocks of sheep are no more to be seen.
Relic of the Paper Mill
Just below the old “Wash Pool” is an expanse of water, some four acres in extent, now the reservoir for the water supply of Caine, but once the reservoir for driving the water wheel, at the long-since defunct paper mill.
The paper mill was one of the rural industries which has died out, leaving Calstone no poorer financially, but poorer in its contribution to village life in general.
Three other mills have suffered the same fate – a snuff mill and two flour mills.
An interesting glimpse into the past life of Calstone was given by the village’s oldest inhabitant, who defied me to mention her name. She lives in an old-world thatched cottage at Theobalds Green (known locally as Tibbies Green), and from her 83 years can recall many changes.
“Calstone used to have a ‘whitening ring’,” she recalled. “A horse went round and round grinding down the chalk brought from the downs. The women used to sit round and roll the whitening into balls. Nowadays you get the whitening in powder, but we used to make the balls and sell them at seven for a penny. In those days we had no linoleum on our kitchen floors and it was the thing to whiten the floors.’ She spoke too of the paper mill where, she said, many of the women of the village used to work. Sadly she spoke of the losses the village has suffered. “We used to have a post office and shop, but when the big stores started sending out delivery vans to the village the people turned to them. Stamp sales dropped off and so both the post office and the village store ceased to be.”
Signs of Development
All that remains is a telephone box and a letter box. What cannot be got from the vans which visit the village the inhabitants travel to Calne or Chippenham to fetch for themselves. There is a bus service which passes through the village three times a day each weekday except Wednesdays when there is no service. On Sundays there are two services.
The only signs of development within the village are the erection by Calne and Chippenham Rural Council of four Council houses. They are in grey stone behind the thatched cottages at Theobalds Green. Ecclesiastically Calstone and Blackland is a parish but for purposes of local government administration they form only part of the parish of Calne Without, with the chairman of the council, Mr. A.J. Roach, living at Whetham Farm, Calne.
A sunken walk with the high bank of the rectory garden on one side leads to the Church of St. Mary The Virgin. Here, if only the gravestones of this 15th century church could speak, there would be stories to thrill.
Pre-Cromwell Fragments
Inside can still be seen the original hinge of the now blocked-up doorway to the rood-loft, hanging almost crazily from the wall. Over the rood beam is the coat of arms of George II, which he had put there.
The sanctuary windows contain a few – very few – fragments of the original stained glass – fragments that survived the Cromwellian purge.
Recent ‘discoveries’ made in the church are still not yet adequately explained. Turning back the altar cloth one finds a half stone with the inscription: “YT MERCI” then a gap and then “ICI JIT J …”
Recently this was recognised as Lombardic French and the initial letter “J” regarded as a beginning of someone’s name. The query arises, was “J” connected with Stanley Abbey?
A search of the bell tower reveals a memorial tablet which was found when work of underpinning the porch had to be carried out, and beneath it, the skull bones of an adult and a child. Another unexplained mystery! An epitaph on the wall of the church at Calstone reminds one that the highways were always dangerous. It is erected to the memory of a Rogers, one of the old Bath Road coachmen, and reads:
“While passengers of every age
With car I drive from stage to stage
Death’s stable hearse passed by unseen
And stopped the course with my machine”
A link with America is provided by the Estey organ built by Negro labour, as good now as the day it was built, and believed to be of considerable value.
Calstone, small and scattered a parish though it is, claims a place in the sporting world: this is established through the Maundrell brothers, one a horseman, the other a Rugby footballer. Mr. George Maundrell, who lives at East Farm, has had many successes in recent years, at point-to-point meetings and also rides to hounds. His brother, Mr. Michael Maundrell, has been a playing member of Devizes Rugby club since prewar days and is at present captain of the side.
Mr. George Maundrell is a manager of the small village school — the rector is chairman — which formerly was a Church school. Three years ago it was taken over by the education authorities.
At Tibbles Green there is a grey stone-built Methodist chapel, dating from 1866. A reading room was built in 1883 by Lord Fitzmaurice, and attached is a free lending library.
A Good Landlord
Principal landowner is the Marquess of Lansdowne, to whose family the Bowood estate has belonged for centuries. This is the land farmed by the Maundrell family, and its boundary on the edge of the downs, which surround Carstone on three sides, is marked by a monument, or as it is called in many parts of the country, “folly”. The monument, an imposing pillar easily seen from the Calne – Beckhampton road, was erected in 1848, though its actual significance is somewhat obscure.
The present Marquess is affectionately referred to by the villagers as a ‘good landlord’.
So, there is Calstone, quiet, dreamy, nestling beneath the downs. It has seen change. Yes, and violence — the Cromwellian war, and in the second world war two bombs broke the peace which surrounds the village. One last point flashes into your mind. Why is it called Calstone?
Text books say that the name should be Calstone Wellington. The first element in this name, you read, may be Calne, the name of the stream on which it stands. The manorial addition is said to be from the family of Ralph de Wilinton.
Villagers may tell you that Calstone has a different derivation. The downs are full of chalk, or calcium. It is rumoured that many people died of internal calcium stones hence Cal-stone! Perhaps both are correct.