From The Files

TROWBRIDGE: Wiltshire Education Committee are concerned about growing vandalism on school playing fields which they are finding extremely difficult to control. At Trowbridge Nelson Haden School the caretaker was threatened by two men intruders. The chairman, Mr Nigel Anderson, said it presented them with a great problem because any fence was capable of being broken today. Intruders had been seen on the playing at Nelson Haden School, and children ran over cricket pitches and other parts of the playing field area seriously interfering with the work of maintaining them. The sports pavilion at Nelson Haden School had been broken into and three canoes which the boys had made had been found broken up. A javelin was also stolen and the walls of the pavilion seriously damaged. Mr Philips said the presence of Alsation dogs deterred intruders but the caretaker at Trowbridge was not living on the school campus and therefore could not keep a constant watch. In 1962 the chief education officer wrote to the clerk of the school governors, he felt that the committee should consider some means of finding money to provide fencing. Lady Nye said she had visited the Nelson Haden playing fields and others in the county but this damage was not a problem which could be easily solved. Fences had been erected and immediately cut. As far as Nelson Haden School was concerned she was fairly confident the caretaker might soon be living on the school site again.

WESTBURY: It may seem hard to believe but back in 1835 when most of us would probably consider that educational possibilities were not all they might be, the ancient parish of Westbury was said to have no less than 18 schools. Then the parish included Dilton Marsh, Bratton and Heywood and there were six schools in Westbury itself, six at Westbury Leigh, three at Bratton, two at Dilton Marsh and one in Heywood. The old school in Leigh Road, now used for a clonic, was built in 1844 as a girls school for about 60 pupils. From these small beginnings Westbury Secondary Modern School grew. As much of the history of the past 100 years that the staff and pupils can collect will be used for an exhibition shortly to mark the centenary of the 1870 Education Act.

July 6, 1990

WARMINSTER: An Egyptian papyrus scroll which has been in the library of St Boniface College, Warminster, for over fifty years, is to be sold at Sotheby's next Tuesday on behalf of its owners, the St Boniface Trust. This is a charitable trust set up to administer the property of the St Boniface Missionary College when it closed in 1969. The scroll stayed in the library when the college was leased by Warminster School. The 12-foot-long scroll depicts parts of the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. It was known to be a copy, but this was thought to mean a modern copy. So it was a surprise when the British Museum, after examining it last year, dated it at about 300-330BC. It is an ancient copy of what was then already an antiquity. It appears to have been inscribed in the city of Thebes, now Luxor, in Upper Egypt. The scroll came to Warminster about 1935. It was presented to the St Boniface Missionary College by Sir Charles Nicholson, a noted architect of the time who had designed the college library and chapel. The scroll had been part of a collection of Egyptian antiquities established by Sr Charles' father in the 1850s.

July 1, 2005

MELKSHAM: An online service encouraging businesses to work together and focus on getting people back to work will be launched tomorrow. A team fromYour Melksham Online will be in the town centre tomorrow morning handing out balloons, pens and other promotional materials, as well as speaking to business owners. Spokesman Andrew Russell said: "Melksham has a lot of potential but needs to wake up to the 21st century. We want all local businesses to support this initiative and help people to get back into work." Local companies will be asked to recommend each other to potential customers and hold workshops that will show jobseekers what kind of employment is available in their town. In exchange for holding the two hour workshops on what their businesses do, companies will receive eight weeks free advertising on the Your Melksham Online website.