I have walked this delightful hill often over the past four years, and have seen and experienced its many moods. Dreary occasionally, windy often, sun-kissed on special days, and with an ever changing wide expanse of sky to enjoy, for Pentridge Hill is rarely seen without a fringe of white cumulus cloud. It is special in other ways too, for on every walk it throws up surprises; buzzards wheeling overhead; an abundance of wild flowers; recently a wonderful display of May blossom; a new orchid to discover; shy deer always, and the tiny goldcrests flittering amongst the trees on the knoll, are but a few of them.
It seemed for me that a quiet day was indicated for 3rd June. This perhaps in deference to my age, as I planned to walk up the hill for bonfire and firework festivities - our special Jubilee celebration! However, I received an invitation to join my daughter and family at Winchester, which of course, I couldn't and wouldn't want to refuse. Bank holiday driving always troubles me a little, so I spent a restless night worrying about it, but the journey to Winchester proved easy and uneventful both ways. I left Woodyates in bright sunshine and, at times had the road entirely to myself, so was able to enjoy the views and signs of Summer. Hedgerows bursting with life and trees in bright new leaf. However, at Stockbridge the sky clouded and a light rain was falling.
I was welcomed by my three grandsons - now all with 'dark-brown' voices, and had a 'mind stirring' few hours being both entertained and teased by them all. The day had turned very wet, and when I found an odd moment to collect my thoughts, they were mostly of regrets about the possibility of the bonfire evening being rained off.
It was not to be - I had worried needlessly, for having been waved off at Winchester with darkening skies and light rain still falling, I found on approaching Salisbury and my first glimpse of the Cathedral spire, that the clouds were breaking. By the time I reached home a perfect evening was developing.
My neighbours collected me at eight o'clock. We drove to Pentridge and parked on the village green, festive with buntings and flags. 8:30 saw the five of us making our way up the hill. The walk was pleasant and companionable, with country evening smells to tease our senses; not too much mud by the gate, and time for several rest stops to admire and 'drink-in' the increasing loveliness of a near night time walk. We reached the top and bonfire area as daylight was beginning to fade. There is I think, always something special about being high - incomparably above everything and everyone.
A cool wind was blowing, but the sky was clear and the views extensive. The sun was sinking in a blaze of glory as people gathered, and the odd glass of warming wine was handed round and picnics consumed.
The sunset was particularly wonderful for me and evoked memories of those we used to watch very regularly from our house and garden on the Malvern Hills. There, we would see the sun sink most beautifully behind the Welsh mountains.
As darkness gathered, we could see other beacons, flickering in the distance, together with spurts of colour and patterns from various firework displays in the valley around us. Our fire was lit and caught immediately and magnificently - a masterpiece of organisation - and we were soon drawn to its light and warmth. The time flew; there were many friends to talk to; our own fireworks to enjoy, and a glowing bonfire that spread its warmth far and wide.
I loved being there in the dark. Again at Malvern, we often left our home on the side of the hill to enjoy a night time walk, particularly if the moon was high to guide us. So, Monday, June 3rd brought back many happy memories for me - like the fire – I glowed with them!
Pentridge Hill was magical on Jubilee night. We were all happy. The bonfire was still 'glowing' madly and spreading it's warmth in all directions when we made our way down at mid-night, tired but content.
I wish to thank Mary, Richard and all those who made it such a memorable occasion for me personally.
Everywhere this year, the dominant colour is green. Earlier in the spring, I was convinced that by this time of year we would be crying out for water, and that the whole place would be a burnt sienna. (I think that’s a colour isn't it?) How wrong I was! Instead trees, hedgerows, grassland, cereal crops, oil seed rape, peas and beans have all excelled themselves in their vegetative growth and hopefully their seed crops as well, all top and no grain, nuts or tubers is not good for anyone. In the garden my main crop potatoes already have haulm four feet six inches high. If it grows much more, I'll have to get a tree surgeon in to cut it down before I can dig the tubers. Its amazing what a good dressing of chicken manure washed in by copious amounts of rain can do.
The point of all this is to emphasise, (That is the correct spelling; I have just looked it up in the dictionary. I know there is a spell check in this machine somewhere, but goodness knows where, probably hiding somewhere with the letter "K" I shouldn't be surprised.) Back to the prolific greenery. That wasted more time, the 'k' for back had moved again. I might consider sticking it up with blue tack. We must stop going off at tangents, it takes me long enough as it is. If your gardens aren't as good as you think they should be, it's because flowers are only produced, when times are difficult, for example when short of water or nutrients. This triggers off a mechanism in the plant, which wants to ensure the survival of its species and reproduce itself, in many cases it produces flowers to attract insects so that its seeds are fertilised as the insects fly from flower to flower. This year the wet and windy summer has meant that not only have we not had a bumper crop of flowers, but butterflies and other flying pollinating insects, have not been seen. Birds too have been affected, some still trying to rear their first hatching, others building their second or third nest. Possibly heavy rains in the past month or so have destroyed previous ones, and washed out fledglings not old enough to survive.
Now, on to less gloomy topics, birds generally have appeared much more colourful this year, hopefully making up for the flowers. On Thursday, 18th of July my wife and I were sitting in our kitchen, when I, on looking out of the window, saw a bird slightly smaller than a blackbird sitting on the fence. Nothing unusual there I hear you say, but this one was a bright pink colour. We both saw it and we had not been drinking.
The disappointing thing was it did not stay around long enough for us to obtain any more information. Since I believe that it was in fact a rose coloured starling, a native of Asia which usually gets no further than west of the Danube, we would not have understood what it had to say anyway. An occasional visitor to this country, it rarely comes this far west.
A rare bird was not the only interesting find of this month. In the church yard at St. Mary's we have a substantial number of knapweed broomrapes, a plant I have never seen in such profusion before. We certainly live in a world of surprises.
The biggest surprise of the month however, was man made and colourful. Some three weeks ago I was sitting writing at home, when I heard a vehicle approaching rather rapidly down the lane. "Strange" I thought. It wasn't rush hour, or a school day, nor yet time for anyone to come home from work. In fact it was a white car with a flashing green light on its roof, followed immediately by an ambulance with its blue light flashing. "What could this mean?" I asked myself, there aren’t many houses here as anyone who knows Woodcutts will tell you, and the residents of at least three of them were out. This meant that there must be a problem in one of the remaining two properties. So off I went to investigate, to see if there was anything I could do. I put my obviously good tracking skills to use, following the flashing lights; I waddled off in hot pursuit. On my arrival I was assured that the doctor and paramedics had it all in hand. To digress slightly I would like to say thank you to these people and many more like them. They roar off into the countryside at a moments notice with no idea of what they will find at their destination. They are doing a wonderful job, for which on all our behalf’s I will say Thank You. Now back to the matter in hand, who had the doctor and ambulance personnel come to see? Well it was young Martin, who has recently passed his 11+ exam. Well done Martin! Mind you his visitors were not there as a result of his obvious, academic ability. Unfortunately, he is a diabetic and had fainted and was comatose. The medical team soon had things under control and Martin was carted off to hospital, where after treatment he soon recovered, to his family's relief.
His younger brother, Jonathan, not to be outdone, decided he needed time off school too, and proceeded to find an obliging wasp or bee to sting him. He was so successful that his Mum had to cart him off to the surgery for treatment. He recovered very quickly and went back to school. (Sorry Jonathan I was only joking.)
So you see we do have dramas at Woodcutts, it isn't all wild flowers, buzzards overhead and rain, we live in the real world too. We also travel out to foreign parts as well. As I intended to show, when explaining about the visit down to the village school, for its wonderful displays on the evening of the 5th of July. Unfortunately I am running out of time and space, and as usual the deadline is already passed, I hope the editor will accept this. Until the next edition, when I write about the school, May God be with us all.
.......they set on 9th June 1817, led by Jeremiah Brandreth (‘The Nottingham Captain’) to march on nearby Nottingham.
But it was with them as it had been earlier, when men from Salisbury and Blandford and around about had plotted the Penruddock Rising against Cromwell’s government – there was no general rising and they were betrayed by a fellow conspirator who was anxious to save his own skin. The small bank of Derbyshire men was no match for the Militia. They were housed in gaols at Derby and Nottingham and subsequently brought to trial at Nottingham Assizes. Three men were condemned to be actually hanged and beheaded, and the rest had their sentences commuted to transportation. Which is how the ‘Pentridge Rising’ came to be mentioned in a book about the early days of the penal settlement in Australia.
This, however, was not quite the end of the matter for me, still, way back somewhere in the recesses of the clapped-out computer that serves me as a brain, there was a memory of a prison in Australia known as Pentridge Gaol. It is in Melbourne, and has a certain notoriety, having the remains of Ned Kelly buried there for instance, and being thought of as some rough equivalent of our Dartmoor. When I’d first heard of it, a good few years ago now, through a cousin in Australia I had made some rather half-hearted enquiries about how this prison had come by its name. The best guess going at that time being that perhaps the first Governor had married a girl who had originated from Pentridge! I thought this a bit improbable myself.
Had we now stumbled over the answer to this question then? Had Pentridge Gaol taken its name from the men transported for their part in the ‘Pentridge Revolution’? This didn’t seem to be likely either, since the early convicts in Australia weren’t shut away in prisons: they had to buckle-to to wrest a living from the inhospitable soil. Had one of them made good eventually and perhaps himself joined the Prison Service out there?
The Derbyshire County Archivist had thoughtfully provided me with the address of the Public Record Office for the State of Victoria, which is where Melbourne is, so I wrote to them to ask if anything were known about how Pentridge Gaol came by its name. The reply was quite a long while coming, and in the meanwhile my next door neighbour had down-loaded from the internet some information that was of interest. It seemed that part at least of Pentridge Gaol had been closed down, and that there was now a Pentridge Village built on the site, with residences for sale which estate agents were recommending as highly desirable!
The reply from the Record Office, when it eventually came confirmed this: and contrary to my original assumption, it was the other way round. There had always been a place called Pentridge and when the gaol was built there it just took its name from the village. I say ‘always’ – but they quoted ‘Place Names of Victoria’ by a Les Blake, which records that the village dated from 1840, the gaol being built there later. It was said that the village took its name from its developer, or a local land-owner or big-wig, an Irishman whose name was Joseph Pentridge.
Well, since that name is built up from those two Celtic elements, this sounded plausible enough, especially if that name was known in Ireland. A gazetteer of Ireland in Salisbury City Library showed, however, that there is no place of that name in Ireland, none of my Irish friends at St Osmund’s Church had ever came across the name; and I was disappointed to find that the Irish telephone directories, impressively to be found in Salisbury Reference Library contained no trace of any such name. So a curious chap like me can’t help wondering, ‘However did that Irishman, in Australia in 1840, come by the name of Pentridge? I guess we shall never know. But then a Wild Goose Chase has to end somewhere!