From Inside Blogs: Chippenham

Showing posts with label Chippenham. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: Locally Sourced

I was really pleased to see this sign outside the station cafe last week. I believe Chippenham to be slightly slower on the uptake re locally sourced produce and food miles than some of the other towns nearby.

There are a few notable exceptions: the farm shop close to where I live for one, plus the greengrocer in town sells produce from our local market gardeners in Bromham whenever possible. Sheldon School has had a March food festival as a pupil led fund raiser the past couple of years.

The Revolutions restaurant uses fresh, seasonal local produce, as does the recently opened Bridge Brasserie across the road. In fact they cheekily tweeted they'd take any spare garlic of mine when I said I had an excess of it recently ;)

Steamers shows just why station cafes should be independent. Thank goodness Chippenham station is too small to have received the attentions of the chains found elsewhere. I love the play on words with the cafe's name; the regularly changed art displays on the walls by local artists; and the fact that it doubles up as an internet cafe as well as serving the town's daily commuters. It also serves great coffee and bacon baps!

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the twelfth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

Monday, April 4, 2011

OOTS: Almond Blossom with Bees

If the above YouTube video isn't working you can watch it here.

March 'roared out like a lion' so I'm really pleased I was able to capture the glorious almond blossom hanging over the pavement round the corner from our house before it was turned into confetti. The air was alive with the hum of honey and bumble bees all crowding in to drink their fill of the available nectar. I was happily just standing under there taking it all in when I realised I had my camera with me to capture it to share with you :)

It's also a great way to introduce this month's Out on the Streets, where I invite you to share the plants and flowers which can be seen publicly in your neighbourhood. I'm planning on telling you about the Green Flag scheme for our public parks and perhaps showing you a little of the public planting I found on College Green in Bristol last Saturday. You can choose to share whatever you like, as long as it's in the public domain.

If you'd like to join in but are unsure of what to contribute, you might like to look at the Out on the Streets and the Public Planting labels for inspiration. I'm particularly looking for good planting ideas whatever the season and/or planting using edibles. Those of you in the UK you might like to tell us how the spending cuts are affecting what the council is planning for your neighbourhood this year.

Mr Linky is set up below ready for your contributions. Do please remember to paste in the link to your specific post rather than your blog's URL, so we can still get to see your contribution after you've gone on to writing about other things :)

I'll also be using Mr Linky to post in any news items I find instead of my usual roundup post. I'm just about to start on my Census work, so I'll be pushed for time to write posts containing lots of links. I've found quite a few items to share with you the past couple of weeks, which are worth a look at.

So, see you soon, Out on the Streets!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: John Coles

I've often wondered who exactly John Coles was and now have the answer courtesy of my research for today's post. He was a pharmacist who owned a pharmacy and general grocer's store at the top of the town where Coates' flower shop is now. There he made medicines, invalid wines and other products such as garish dyes, furniture polish, insect powder and 'Chippenham Scour Mixture', a cattle remedy. He was a keen supporter of secondary education and was Chippenham's Lord Mayor three times in 1891, 1898 and 1914, so he must have been well respected during his lifetime.

On his death in 1916 he left a legacy to the then Chippenham Borough which they used to purchase a suitable plot of land for the provision of a public park. When I was researching D for Donkey Field, the purchase of this land was also documented in the papers I was looking at: just over £4,000 for 15 acres of former farm land.

John Coles Park opened in 1923, which I believe makes it one of the younger parks of its type in this country, those resulting from a local benefactor. This kind of philanthropy was more common during Victorian times when the provision of open spaces became a popular way to improve a town and general public health. However, age doesn't really matter: its continued presence and use in the heart of the town is much more important.

Changes are afoot at the park this year which I hope to tell you more about in my regular Out on the Streets meme. The Town Council - who look after the park nowadays - have decided to apply for Green Flag status and to have a Friends of the Park scheme to help with upkeep. I'm expecting the latter to happen all over the country this year when the fallout from the round of local government spending cuts bites ever deeper.

Talking of Out on the Streets: look out for my kick-off post in early April where I'll be asking you to show us what's out and about re public planting in your neighbourhood.

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the tenth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

ABC of Chippenham: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

Thanks to the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Chippenham is a railway town. He decided that his Great Western Railway line from London to Bristol - nicknamed 'Brunel's billiard table' at the time because the line is relatively flat compared to others in the UK - would be routed through the town and was also based here for a while whilst it was being built. When you visit many of our towns and cities, places of heritage are often marked with a blue plaque like the one above. The temporary presence of one of our greatest Britons ever was deemed to be of significance by the Civic Society.

The plaque is placed on a small building to the side of the railway station. This was Brunel's office which he used whilst supervising the works in Chippenham and the surrounding area. He left quite a mark on the town in 1841, but you'll have to wait until a later letter to see exactly what that was...

This is for ABC Wednesday and is the ninth in my themed round of posts about Chippenham.