Honest John Arkell

Another day, another churchyard…

The Grade I listed church of St Margaret’s in Stratton St Margaret retains elements from the 13th century despite many later additions and a partial rebuild in the 19th century. The churchyard has also been extended several times, but I chose to take photographs in the oldest section around the church. Here I found the rather magnificent memorial to John Arkell, founder of the Kingsdown brewery, and his son Thomas buried with various members of their families in a large plot.

Last year the family brewery celebrated its 180^th anniversary and with more than 80 pubs across Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Hampshire, the Arkell name is well known. But it could have been a very different story.

Crippled by heavy taxation and an agricultural depression, John Arkell (1802-1881) gave up on farming and, with his cousin Thomas, left England in 1830 for pastures new.

The pioneering group, which included other members of the extended family, landed in New York during the winter of 1830/1, but their eventual destination was the uninhabited plains of ‘Upper Canada’.

Cousin Thomas stayed but John returned to England three years later. He established the Kingsdown brewery in 1843, and the rest, as they say, is history.

John died on October 21, 1881 aged 79 and is buried with his two wives and several of his children in the large family plot pictured below.

The Clifton Hotel

Any old building worth its bricks and mortar should have a spectral presence and The Clifton has long boasted one of its own. Supernatural sightings have included those of a hooded figure, possibly a nun, in keeping with the tradition that the pub was built on the site of an ancient priory. However, evidence to support this legend is lacking.

The surrounding area once comprised part of the former Kingshill Estate owned by John Harding Sheppard where around 300 houses were built along Clifton, Albion, William, Redcross (renamed Radnor) and Exmouth Streets between 1877 and 1880. The Clifton Hotel, complete with a tiled mural of Brunel’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, was built around 1878.

As with so many Swindon Streets, Clifton Street grew piecemeal across a number of years. Among the 19th century builders was Job Day who constructed an unspecified number of cottages in 1882 and Edwin Harvey who built eleven houses in the same year with further properties in 1883. W.H. Read designed Clifton Street Schools in 1884-6 and the Primitive Methodist Chapel, built in 1900, was designed by R.J. Beswick.

To date no documentary evidence of a priory has made an appearance, and neither has the nun. Apparently religious ghosts have slipped out of fashion in recent years.

Ghostly goings on at The Clifton hit local news headlines during one busy Christmas Day celebrations when a poltergeist joined Christmas revellers.

Manager’s wife Mrs Blanche Chirgwin reported sherry glasses jumping from shelves behind the bar while her husband recalled an eerie presence in the beer cellar. Then there was the story of a previous landlord’s dog that went mad and a jammed attic window found open only to jam again.

One long serving landlord at The Clifton was Cardiff born Henry Jefferies and his wife Frances. Local trade directories place them at the pub in the mid 1880s and Frances was still there at the end of the 19th century.

During their occupancy of the pub, two of the couple’s sons died, Edwin in 1887 and Frank ten years later. Henry died in 1896 and was buried with his son Edwin Bernard Jefferies in Radnor Street Cemetery, grave plot A778. Frank died in 1897 and is buried in neighbouring plot A779. Frances returned to Cardiff where she married Isaac Edmunds in 1902. She died in 1920 and was buried back in Swindon with her son in plot A779.

The Paranormal Site Investigators (PSI) conducted an overnight investigation at the pub in March 2005. Despite a few bumps in the night the team failed to detect any ghostly activities. And still no sign of the nun.

Views of The Clifton Hotel in the 1950s and 60s published courtesy of Arkells and Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Cheers!

Come and join me for a swift half at these local pubs while I tell you the story of the people who once lived there.

The Mechanics’ Arms

Read all about Frederick George Leighfield – landlord at the Mechanics’ Arms

c1910 Ship Inn, Westcott Place.

Read all about Esther Swinford – victim of a shooting tragedy

c1970 The New Inn, Cromwell Street.

Read all about Comrades of the Great War

1911 The Eagle Hotel, Regent Street.

Read all about Pte William Henry Thomas – art student

Robert Dibbs and TRIP week

If you worked for the Great Western Railway in the Swindon Works, you joined the Mechanics’ Institution. The requirement was pretty much essential and the benefits extensive and if you weren’t a member you could not go on TRIP. Not a trip or the trip but TRIP.

TRIP began with a day’s outing to Oxford in 1848 for some 500 members of the Mechanics’ Institution. At its peak in 1924 29,000 people travelled in 31 trains numbering 520 coaches to seaside (and other) destinations across the UK.

It’s fair to say Swindon pretty much emptied during TRIP. With the Works closed, some shops cut their prices, others cut their opening hours. But who would have guessed that TRIP would impact upon a funeral.

Robert Dibbs, the landlord of the Red Cow Inn in Princes Street, died suddenly during the night of 11/12 July 1888 and was found by his daughter sitting in his armchair in the bar-parlour ‘quite dead.’ An inquest returned a verdict of ‘death from heart disease’.

Before moving to Swindon Robert Dibbs had previously served in the Mounted Police in London. He had subsequently joined the Swindon Troop of the Wilts Yeomanry where he held the rank of sergeant and as such was accorded a military funeral. However, there was a problem – it was TRIP week.

The Swindon Advertiser reported in the Saturday edition July 21, 1888:-

The mortal remains of the late Mr Robert Dibbs were interred with military honours on Monday afternoon. Deceased had been a member of the Swindon Troop of the Wilts Yeomanry ever since its re-establishment, five years since, having been promoted to the rank of sergeant. Previous to his coming to Swindon, Mr Dibbs had been in the Mounted Police in London for several years. Not only did the members of the Swindon Troop of Yeomanry attend the funeral, but also as many members whose service could be enlisted of the Swindon Companies of Rifle Volunteers. And it was most unfortunate, from more than one point of view, that the funeral should have occurred during the Great Western “Trip” week, seeing that the greater part of the Volunteers were away from the town, and were thus prevented from attending. Every endeavour was made to obtain the services of a band, but without success, for only portions of the various bands of the town were available, and the consequence was that the musical part of the military funeral service had to be dispensed with. Notwithstanding that the circumstances were against a good muster turning out to pay respect to their late brother in arms, yet the numbers, both of the Yeomanry Cavalry and the Volunteers, were far in excess of what might have been expected.

Image published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Robert Dibbs was buried on July 16, 1888 in grave plot E8312 which he shares with his son George Dibbs who died in 1895.

Read about the phenomenon that was - TRIP The Annual Holiday of GWR’s Swindon Works by Rosa Matheson.

James Sweeper – Ostler

James Sweeper was born in Marlborough in about 1824 the son of William and Harriett Sweeper. On December 8, 1845 he married Jane Gilbert at the church of St. Peter, Marlborough.

By 1851 James and Jane with their two young children Eliza 2 and 2 months old George, lived above the stables at the Queens Hotel, Swindon. He was 28 years old and employed as a post boy – a job description open to interpretation. Sometimes described as a mail carrier, a post boy was also a person who rode one of the horses pulling a carriage. The two roles could be, and frequently were, combined.

In 1861 James and Jane and their 5 children lived at the Queens Hotel Tap, Railway Station, Swindon. In 1871 James, now widowed, lived at the Queens Hotel Stable with daughter Eliza and sons George, Henry and William. However, sorting out the various town centre Queens Hotels is confusing.

The Queen’s Tap pictured on Trip day 1934 published courtesy of Local Studies, Swindon Central Library.

Swindon Junction Station (now called Swindon Station) was built in 1841-42 by J.D. & C. Rigby. A far more impressive building in those days, it originally consisted of 2 separate 3 storey buildings straddling either side of the railway line and linked by a footbridge. These buildings contained the infamous refreshment rooms and the Queen’s Royal Hotel. Was this where James worked as a post boy and later an ostler (a man employed to look after the horses of people staying at an inn)?

The second candidate is an inn built in 1841 that once stood at the bottom of Corporation Street close to the Whitehouse Bridge. It later became known as The White House and was demolished in 2002, but in James’s day it was called the Queen’s Arms Hotel.

Finally, we have the only one left standing, the Queen’s Tap, opposite the station on the corner of Wellington Street and Station Road.

So where did James live and work between 1850-1870. My money is on the Queens Arms Hotel but then again perhaps he worked at all three hotels at various times.

Jane Sweeper died in April, 1868 aged 44 years and was buried in St. Mark’s churchyard. James married for a second time in 1875 when he was working as a horse dealer in East London. James married Lucy W. Hunt, a widow, at St Leonard’s Church, Bromley and by 1881 had returned to Swindon where they lived at 22 Holbrook Street with James’s son Harry.

It has been much easier to establish James’s last resting place here in Radnor Street Cemetery! He died in 1887 aged 65 and was buried on December 7, in grave plot E8582 with Lucy who had died earlier that same year.

Charles Edward Iles – licensee of the Rolleston Hotel

Today the Rolleston Arms is looking very smart with a new coat of paint and new signage. John Horsell, responsible for developing the new Rolleston Estate in 1890, was the first landlord. Charles Iles was landlord for more than 10 years until his death in 1938.

The Late Mr C.E. Iles

Funeral of a Swindon Licensee

The funeral of Mr Charles Edward Iles, licensee of the Rolleston Hotel, Swindon, who died after a long illness, on 21 March, took place last Thursday afternoon. The service at St Paul’s Church was conducted by the Vicar, the Rev. C.F. Harman, who also officiated at the interment in Radnor street cemetery.

Mr Iles, who leaves a widow, was a native of Swindon, and was 46 years of age. As a youth he was apprenticed as a boilermaker in the GWR Works, and served in the Royal Navy as an artificer from 1914 until 1920 when he was invalided out of the service.

He was licensee of the Foresters, Stroud, for three years, before taking over the Rolleston Hotel, where he has been for the last 12 years. Mr Iles was a member of the Western District United Service Lodge No. 2258 and Chapter Eliot.

The chief mourners were: Mrs Eva Iles (widow), Mr Charles E. Iles (father), Mrs Lawrence (aunt), Miss T. Gascoyne (friend), Mrs D. Kent (sister in law), Miss C. Warren (sister in law) Mrs Wenban (aunt), Mr A. Gerring (cousin), Mr H. Kent (brother in law), Mrs H. Kent and Mrs W. Harris (sisters in law), Mr Eli Mort, Mr J. Coster and Mr Harry Waters (uncles), Mr B. Menham, Mr W. Gascoyne, Mrs W. Gascoyne, Mr Johnson, Mr Cavel (representing Golden Carp Angling Association), Mr and Mrs C. Salmon, Mr Graham Davies, Mr Hayball, Mr J. Spackman and Mr N. Davies (representing Swindon Licensed Victuallers’ Association), Mr H.A. Reeves, Mr G. Beburn, Mr G. Wakefield, Mr F. Burchell, Mr Glass, Mr R. Matthews (representing Cirencester Brewery Co. Ltd.), Mr Halfpenny, Mr Charlie Baxter, Mr Watson and Mr Gilbey (representing A.S.E.).

Funeral arrangements were carried out by Messrs A.E. Smith and Son, 24, Gordon road, Swindon.

North Wilts Herald, Friday, 1 April, 1938.

Charles Edward Iles was buried in grave plot A352 on March 26, 1938. This was previously a public, children’s grave and two burials took place in the first year the cemetery was opened. Three year old Tom Wootton was buried here on October 20, 1881 and the following day Violet Lilian Murray aged 2 was buried in the same plot. The Iles family purchased the grave plot more than 50 years later when Charles died. His wife Eva remarried in 1941 and was buried with him when she died in 1979.