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Chipping Campden lies at the very north-eastern tip of the Cotswold Hills in the county of Gloucestershire. Travel just a mile or two out of Campden and you can find yourself in Worcestershire in the Vale of Evesham, or on the road to Stratford upon Avon in the county of Warwickshire, having left the limestone uplands behind you. Whilst plentiful Neolithic, Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman remains have been recorded in the area around Campden, and Campden's position on the Whiteway, an ancient trackway running from Cirencester through Campden on its way to Stratford on Avon, may be indicative of pre-Roman origins, no substantial evidence has yet been found of any settlement at Chipping Campden that pre-dates Saxon times. However, the name of the town, in particular the shortened form 'Campden' used extensively by locals, is very definitely of Saxon origin, being a development of the word Campadene, meaning a valley with fields or enclosures of cultivated land. Not only that, but almost every other place-name in the immediate neighbourhood is of Saxon origin. By the time the Domesday Book was compiled in 1086, the manor of Campden was one of the most populous in the Midlands, with about 350 people living within its boundaries. About one hundred years later the town's market charter was obtained from Henry II by Hugh de Gondeville who was largely responsible for the town layout that persists to this day, in what was an early example of medieval town planning. The High Street, set on a curve said to follow the natural route of the River Cam, was made wide enough at its centre point to hold a market, which by 1247 was held weekly, and it was by the end of the 13th Century that the prefix 'Chipping' (from the Old English ceping, meaning market or market place) had been added to Campden's name. back to top of page THE WOOL TRADE For as long as sheep have existed in England they have been grazed on the Cotswold Hills, and some woollen products were exported as early as Roman times, the Romans having developed sheep farming around Cirencester, the second largest Roman settlement in Britain after London. Sheep farming continued to thrive from those early times until, during the 14th Century, two major factors combined to bring the wool trade to even greater prominence. First, there was a serious shortage of labour on which arable farming relied, because various plagues, including the Black Death, had drastically reduced the population of England. Secondly, English wool was being sold to Continental Europe in large quantities, which made trading in wool a very profitable business to be in. Within this trade boom, the Cotswolds were particularly prominent simply because some of the best wool was produced there, due in large part to a breed of sheep known as the Cotswold Lion. This breed had been developed from other native breeds to produce a sheep that gave a very heavy, long fibred fleece. In addition, a combination of ancient tracks and the good roads left by the Romans facilitated the transport of fleeces to various South Coast ports from where they were shipped to the Continent. If the Cotswolds in general occupied an important position as regards the wool trade it is no exaggeration to say that Chipping Campden became one of the major towns in which wool was traded. Wool was brought to Campden from as far away as the Welsh Marches to be sold before being sorted, packed and sent for export by pack train. Some measure of the size of the trade conducted in Campden can be gained from documents of the time. One letter from the son of a Merchant of the Staple at Calais ( the Staple, or licenced market, being the one place through which all English wool had to be traded, giving rise to the term 'woolstapler' for a merchant who traded in wool at that location) tells his father of having packed just over 22 sarplers (which was about 4,000 kilos) 'at Campden'. As the result of another transaction, another local merchant, William Weoley, ended up in the unhappy position of being owed £1,180 by a Florentine company, a sum which would be worth in excess of £500,000 at today's values, and which Weoley had to enlist the help of Henry VI to try to recover. Campden's importance as a wool town, established during the 13th Century and very important during the 14th Century, began to wane during the second half of the 15th Century, a period which saw a fall in the export of raw wool in favour of a tenfold increase in the export of finished cloth. Eventually the Staple at Calais was replaced by an Inland Staple, the terms of which restricted wool dealing to specific towns in England. A petition raised in 1617 in an attempt to have Campden included as one of those specific towns failed and it was not long thereafter that wool trading in Campden disappeared altogether. Reminders of the wool trade still exist in Campden, in particular in the form of some of the buildings. William Grevel, the son of a local man, became one of Campden's (and by repute one of England's) most successful wool traders, and in 1380 had a house built at the northern end of the High Street. The house still exists as a private house, one of its most impressive and unusual details being the two storey perpendicular bay window, a feature found on very few houses of that period, although it has been suggested by certain authorities that these windows were a later addition. There is also a memorial brass to William Grevel in the parish church of St James, the church itself having been rebuilt and beautified by the wool and other merchants of the town, as a consequence of which it is today called a "wool church". Almost opposite Grevel's House is another building with close links to the wool trade, now called Woolstaplers Hall, built for another wool merchant, Robert Calf. Like Grevel's House this is also a private residence, but in this case the link with its original owner is the name - Calf Lane - of the road running behind it, parallel with the High Street. back to top of page BAPTIST HICKS From the late 13th Century, the manor of Campden had undergone various divisions and amalgamations, and it was not until the 16th Century that it fell into the hands of a single owner. Thomas Smyth was a wealthy, successful and influential figure of the time, and through marriage he acquired one half of the manor of Campden. He then set about buying various plots of land until he owned nearly all of Campden, the few parcels of land that were not in his possession being bought at a later date by his son. Unfortunately neither Mr Smyth nor his son were at all popular with the townsfolk, and the arrival of Baptist Hicks in the late 1500s was probably greeted with some relief. Hicks was, like Smyth, a self-made man, having come from a Gloucestershire family of moneylenders and traders in fine textiles. He was also a man of considerable wealth, reputedly providing financial support to James I by way of loans as large as £150,000, and it was this largesse that no doubt helped to bring about the knighthood that was conferred on him in 1603. Shortly after that Hicks bought the manor of Campden from Thomas Smyth's son Anthony, together with the nearby estate of Weston Park. Although he built himself a substantial property in Kensington, London, in 1612, naming it Campden House, he chose to spend much of his time in Campden itself. Whilst here he involved himself in the lives of the townsfolk and spent very large sums of money for their benefit. Not only did he pay for significant work to be carried out on St. James's church, he also built the nearby row of almshouses at a cost of £1,000. (An aerial view of the building reveals it to be in the shape of a capital letter " I ", no doubt as a compliment to James I ). Then, in 1627, he paid for the building of what has become one of Campden's famous landmarks, the Market Hall, a structure that was intended to protect the locals from the elements when selling their eggs, butter and cheese and the like. However, the most substantial building erected by Sir Baptist Hicks was undoubtedly his own mansion, Campden House, built next to St James' Church. Built between 1610 and 1620 this magnificent Jacobean mansion survived for less than 30 years, being burnt to the ground in May 1645 by the Royalist commander who had commandeered Campden House as a garrison in December 1643. The lodges and gateway adjacent to the church escaped the fire, as did the two banqueting houses which have recently been restored by the Landmark Trust for use as rented holiday accommodation. back to top of page DOVER'S GAMES If Sir Baptist Hicks left his mark on Campden by way of the buildings that still stand in tribute to his generosity, it was another local resident, a contemporary of Hicks, whose legacy also persists to this day. That man was Robert Dover, a lawyer who moved to the area in the early 1600s. Around 1612 Rober Dover decided to consolidate a number of minor local festivities that took place around Whitsun to create a major annual event to be held on the Thursday and Friday of Whitsun week on an area of common land which at the time was called Kingcombe Plain, a part of which is now known as Dover's Hill. The improvement that Robert Dover's intervention gave rise to was so great that the Games became a popular gathering, with people travelling up to 60 miles to see them. Amongst the events that took place were horseracing, hare coursing, wrestling, fencing and various other tests of athletic prowess. In addition there was much feasting and drinking, accompanied by music and dancing, and it is possibly with some justification that the Games were seen by some as a protest against the Puritanism that had been gaining a hold in the North Cotswolds for some years. Much was written about the Games including a collection of poems by different authors, one of whom was Ben Jonson. The classical education of the time led the authors of these poems, published in 1636, to dub the Games "the Olimpick Games" thus predating the modern Olympic Games by over 250 years. A few years later the Games came to an end with the outbreak of the Civil War, but they were revived in 1660 with the Restoration of Charles II and continued without a break for almost 200 years. The beginning of the end of the Games in their original form started in the early 1800s when the games started to attract larger and larger crowds from the industrial towns of the Midlands. The Games themselves had arguably become more brutal, with shin kicking, using metal tipped boots, having become an event in its own right and backsword fighting reaching such levels of ferocity that in one celebrated fight between one contestant from the nearby village of Mickleton and the other from Campden, one of them lost an eye and the other was mortally wounded. Whether the tenor of the Games was responsible or not, the crowds gradually became more and more disorderly and violent until, in 1852, the owner of the land on which the Games were held was persuaded by the Rector of Weston-sub-Edge (in whose parish the Games were held) to obtain an Act of Enclosure, and this effectively put a stop to them. In 1951 Robert Dover's Games were revived as part of the celebrations for the Festival of Britain, and they are now held as a regular annual event in early June, on the Friday immediately following the Spring Bank Holiday. The format is that there are various games and contests on and in the vicinity of Dover's Hill itself starting in the early evening, a bonfire and fireworks as darkness falls, followed by a torchlight procession from the Hill down to the Town Square where there is a display by a marching band and dancing until midnight. On the Saturday following Dover's Games another old tradition is continued in the form of Scuttlebrook Wake. A procession of decorated floats carries the contestants for the title of Scuttlebrook Queen to the Town Square where the winner is crowned, the local Morris Men dance, and in the evening the area known as Leysbourne, at the northern end of the High Street, plays host to a selection of traditional fairground rides and sideshows. back to top of page ASHBEE AND ARTS AND CRAFTS Charles Robert Ashbee, born in 1863, formed the Guild of Handicraft in 1888, establishing workshops in Essex House, Mile End Road, London. The Guild craftsmen worked in a wide range of disciplines including cabinet making, printing, bookbinding, silversmithing and jewellery making, and by the turn of the century the Guild had established an international reputation for itself. This satisfied one of Ashbee's aims, that of raising standards of craftsmanship and encouraging his craftsmen not only to make artefacts but to contribute to the design process as well. His second aim was to see his craftsmen take charge of their own affairs and create a better life for themselves. It was this thought in his mind, combined with the steady decline of working conditions in London, that prompted Ashbee to investigate the possibility of moving his men away from the foul air of the capital in favour of the clean air of the countryside. In total Ashbee looked at more than two dozen possible locations, but eventually decided that Chipping Campden was the ideal place, having as it did sufficient vacant dwellings for the craftsmen and their families, the part derelict silk mill to house the Guild workshops, and an excellent railway connection to London. So it was that in 1902 Ashbee, together with some 40-odd craftsmen with their wives and children, arrived in Chipping Campden. They soon settled in, taking over some of the more prominent buildings in the town. Ashbee himself moved into Woolstaplers Hall, and the adjacent Braithwaite House was put to use as a hostel for the unmarried men working at the Guild, as well as being a store for the Guild library. Further down the High Street, beyond the Square, Island House was home to the Essex House Press book bindery, and Ashbee established an architectural office in Elm Tree House in Lower High Street. At this time, evening classes were being run by the Grammar School with the aid of a County Council grant, and Ashbee took over both the classes and the associated grant. He later transferred them to Elm Tree House which he had taken over in December 1904 under the new name of Campden School of Arts and Crafts. The School flourished and soon had over 300 men, women and children being taught a wide range of subjects. By 1910 the influence of the School was such that thirty subjects were being taught in at least five satellite locations around Chipping Campden. Sadly, the successful integration of the Guild and its workers into Chipping Campden was not matched by its financial performance. In the first two years of its presence in Campden profits were down ; in 1904 the workers had to be put on short time ; in both 1905 and 1906 the Guild made losses ; and in 1908, in the face of further losses brought about by poor trading conditions and competition from cheaper, mass produced goods, the Guild of Handicrafts was finally wound up. Although the Guild's presence in Campden was relatively short lived it is no exaggeration to say that its influence continues to be felt to the present day. Many dwellings that would otherwise have disappeared still stand today, having been rescued from ruin, being either repaired or rebuilt. The Hart family still operates a silversmithing business in its original location in the Old Silk Mill. The late Robert Welch, a designer of international repute, occupied offices in the Old Silk Mill and the shop bearing his name still operates a short distance away. Younger craftspeople also have workshops in the Old Silk Mill, as does a stonemason, and a new gallery there showcases the work of painters, cabinetmakers, photographers and textile artists. Between the wars the movement to preserve and protect the character of the town continued, led to a great extent by F.L. Griggs, an artist who had first visited in 1904 and later moved to Campden. Finally, an exciting new development in the form of the Court Barn Museum provides a truly unique repository for historically important materials relating to the skill and imagination of artists and designers, architects and craftspeople who have worked in Chipping Campden and the surrounding villages of the north Cotswolds, beginning with the Arts and Crafts movement in the early twentieth century and continuing to the present day. The Court Barn opened on 28th July 2007 and is located in Church Street, close to the historic almshouses and the ruins of Campden House. To visit the Court Barn website click here. back to top of page PRESENT DAY There is a small, modern industrial estate on the outskirts of town which houses various service companies, a cheese maker, and the world renowned Campden and Chorleywood Food Research Association (with which few, if any, who indulge in the hobby of home beer- or wine-making would instantly make the connection with Campden tablets, an indispensible aid to the sterilisation process) and another at Northwick Park that is longer established and occupied by companies involved in the main in light industry, but in essence Campden is a tourist destination. It has numerous upmarket shops selling clothes, shoes, jewellery, glassware, books and items for the home, together with galleries offering paintings, sculptures and photographs. For a small town (population approximately 2,000) it has a surprising number of good restaurants - French, Italian, Greek, Oriental, English and Modern European - which may explain why the High Street is often crowded in the evenings, even on a wet night in winter, and especially on Fridays and Saturdays. And then there is the town itself, quiet, unhurried, with eloquent reminders of times past in the form of the buildings and its connections with the Arts and Crafts Movement ; an interesting Town Trail for those with an hour or so to spare ; the Ernest Wilson Memorial Garden for a moment of tranquility ; and of course numerous walks in the surrounding countryside. Little wonder that John Masefield wrote the following lines in his poem 'On Campden' : On
Campden Wold the
skylark sings,
In Campden Town the traveller finds The inward peace which beauty brings To bless and heal tormented minds back to top of page |