Welcome to the Wroughton History Group website
Programme
Evening meetings are held at 7.30 at St Joseph’s Church Hall Devizes Road Wroughton, SN4 0RZ (3words///cried.member.left).
Our 2024 programme continues with a talk on the 11th April from Bill King “Toast Racks and Egg Cups” – this talk examines the background and social history of a unique British institution in place from the time of Alfred the Great until the present day. (see the programme page for details). This is followed on May 9th by David Dawson, Director, Wiltshire Museum “Gold from the Time of Stonehenge” The Wiltshire Museum is the home of the best Bronze Age collections in Britain. The talk outlines the remarkable craftsmanship and stunning objects found with the burials of the chieftains, important women and priests who used Stonehenge for their ceremonies.
Everyone is welcome – first visits are free, then returning non-members will be charged £2 per event.
Open evenings are for everyone to get together over tea/coffee and chat about events – members often bring items of interest, such as old photographs, for a group discussion. The next open meeting and our AGM is on 25th April 2024
We have a Facebook group and reminders about the talks and events are added there.
We do have some social events – days out (see programme for details), Christmas Crimble and an annual dinner.
Membership
Anyone is welcome to join – the annual subscription is currently £15, renewing in April 2024. Please contact the committee or come along to a meeting if you want to join the group. Our simple constitution can be viewed here.
Exhibition – 7th October 2023
On Saturday 7th October 10am to 4pm WHG held an event at the Ellendune Centre – this included activities for children, various stands including some finds made in the village, a history of the Wroughton WI, history of Listers and a vintage Post Office display. The Wiltshire Finds Officer , The Royal British Legion, Richard Jeffries Museum and the Parish Footpaths Group attended. Bill King brought some of his extensive WW2 collection. A huge thank you to everyone that made the event a success – especially everyone that attended.
Preddy’s Cart
History of the Wroughton High Street Post Office
2023 Wroughton Carnival
WHG had a stall and a parade float at the 2023 carnival – the carnival theme was gardening and growing. The WHG float was farming during the 1940s and featured several farmers and land girls, as well as vintage farm implements and pictures of village farms from the 1940s
2023 Wroughton Duck Race
The History Group had a stall at the Duck Race on May 1st selling our books and giving the village an opportunity to see some of our photos – the next opportunity to meet us is at the Ellendune Centre on 7th October (or of course come along to one of our meetings).
AGM
Our 2023 AGM was held on 13th April. Fiona Meredith stood down as programme secretary and has been replaced by Linda Dibbens as programme secretary
Walks
The history group have produced a walk booklet that features many of buildings mentioned on the site (including racing stables, mills, manor houses and ‘lost’ pubs). The walk is a booklet that can be downloaded and printed: Wroughton Village Walk.
We also occasionally run guided walks – look out on Facebook for details of these.
Wroughton – then and now
WHG have started a new project of photographing parts of Wroughton undergoing changes, so that we have a record of how the village is changing. If you know of any planned changes please let us know so that we can capture the view before it changes. Visit our ‘now and then’ page where we will add the pictures.
Romans in Wroughton
Roman remains have been found on the airfield. Cotswold Archaeology worked at the site of the Science Museum storage facility.
A Romano British cemetery was discovered containing 20 graves. As the burials were of varying ages, they are likely to be from the local settlement. Two brooches found suggest the site dates to the 2nd century AD. Also found were lime kilns that produced the mortar used in Roman buildings and loom weights used in making cloth. The group celebrated the discovery as part of the 2019 carnival
Books and activities
Details of all our books can be found on our books for sale page.
Although we are very serious about our research but we do have a lot of fun too. We never fail to have a laugh at our meetings and we very much enjoy our annual outing and trips to local villages and places of interest in the summer, not to mention our pleasure in taking members of other history groups round the older parts of Wroughton.
