tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post5119104174046682865..comments2024-03-23T12:38:46.260+00:00Comments on The History Girls: STEPPING FROM THE SHADOWS: Robert FitzHarding: minor character, major player by Elizabeth Chadwick.Mary Hoffmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06241989732624913706noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5502671101756463249.post-38712706615072855622017-12-13T12:44:18.695+00:002017-12-13T12:44:18.695+00:00This is most interesting! I live in Wotton-under-E...This is most interesting! I live in Wotton-under-Edge a small market town which was a Berkeley holding for centuries. The Manor House here was their Dower House so Berkeley women have had great beneficial effects on the town. Joan, Lady Berkeley was said to be responsible for the layout of the Main Street in burgage plots which are largely unchanged to this day, after a disastrous fire destroyed the old town (there is still a road called Old Town, though). She also obtained market rights and Borough status for the town. Katherine Lafy Berkeley endowed a grammar school for 12 boys in 1384 which still exists today, Katharine Lady Berkeley's school, the second oldest school in the country, now has more than 1500 pupils and is held in high regard still. My children had a superb education there and it is perhaps a reflection of the sense of history which imbues the school and the town that my daughter decided in her early teens that she wanted to become an archivist - she now works at The National Archives at Kew and is currently managing their WWI Centenary programme. The Berkeleys also paid, I believe, for our Town (market) Hall and presented a magnificent silver gilt Mace, still in the custodianship of the Town Council. I was Town Clerk here for more than twenty years so got to heft it about from time to time! <br />John Berkeley, the latest incumbent of Berkeley Castle, died a couple of weeks ago and there was a brief modest notice in our local paper, the only clue to alert people that this was a Berkeley of Berkeley Castle being one of his Christian names of Grantley, also a surname associated with the Berkeley family. His son Charles now becomes the castellan. To give them credit, the local paper did twig who this was by the following week and published a short obit for him but he was very modest and kept a low profile. <br />Whilst I was TC, we celebrated the 750th anniversary of the granting of borough status and Mr Berkeley came to the celebrations, he still took an interest in the town. Berkeley Castle still has a substantial private archive within the castle, managed by David Smith, the former County Archivist so in good hands. <br />When we were researching the market rights, I happened to be approached by the family which had traditionally held the annual fairs in the town. The traditional site is now too small for the modern fairs and they were seeking (unsuccessfully, alas) a new site so that they could add us back into their calendar. Through them, I became more conscious of the importance to them of their traditional routes and visits. Our annual fair was the Feast of the elevation of the Holy Cross which is in September which fascinated me as that is the dedication of our small Roman Catholic Church here in Old Town. We would have slotted in between visits to other local fairs, such as Chipping Sodbury mop, still held today and this pattern, repeated each year, dictated the route of the fair families' peregrinations through the year, they retain those routes to this day and hate to change it. And back in medieval times, local people would have known exactly when the fair would be coming and when they would be able to stock up from the traders which would follow it. Market days also remained unchanged over the centuries, it seems, the day granted to Wotton all those centuries ago was Friday (thus not clashing with nearby towns) and the small remnants of a market continued to be held on Friday until very recently, within the last twenty years. I love how these distant events continue to shape our lives today! <br />Sorry if I have rambled on too much! Rosie55https://www.blogger.com/profile/13807799892949072960noreply@blogger.com