Alderbury & Whaddon

Local History Research Group

Alderbury’s local parish magazine – The Fountain

It is sad that so few of our old parish magazines have survived. In a unique way they mirror the life of the locality, allowing us reflection not only on the changes in social customs and attitudes, but also on those that remain unchanged.

Probably, the first parish magazine was in around 1895, although no copies have been found. An issue from 1901, however, refers to the end of the magazine’s sixth year. The Wiltshire county record office at Chippenham has a single copy from each of the years 1898, 1911 and 1923. There are photocopies of several magazines from 1901. The front cover shows a photograph of St Mary’s church and the editors were the vicar’s two daughters. In 1901 there were 125 copies sold each month for one penny each, the cost subsidised by the vicar and some local benefactors. There were reports about organisations that are no longer in existence, such as the Band of Hope, the Church Lads’ Brigade, the Alderbury Brass Band, the Unionist Club and the Pig Club. The March 1901 edition, fittingly bordered in black, contained a description of Queen Victoria’s funeral. From a local history point of view, the 1911 and 1923 magazines are not nearly so interesting. Parish news was confined to the inside and back covers with illustrated inserts from religious societies filling the rest of the pages; by 1923 the cost had doubled.

During the 1930s, some older residents remember the Rev. Starling’s news sheets containing notes about the history of Alderbury. After that, publication of any parish news seems to have ceased, probably due to wartime restrictions.

The present-day parish magazine, “The Fountain”, was started in December 1964 by the then Vicar of St Mary’s Church, The Rev. Christopher Pooley.

Christopher Pooley was born in 1913 near Bulawayo in what was then Southern Rhodedsia, the son of a mining engineer. His father died in 1919 and the family moved back to England. After his schooling, Christopher went to St Boniface’s College in Warminster, to prepare for missionary work in Central America. He began this work amongst the poor in Honduras. He joined the priesthood and was eventually made Deacon by the Archbishop of the West Indies in St johns in Belize. He then served in Castilla in Honduras and subsequently in La Ceiba. He returned to England nine years later to serve in London and Rugby, before becoming incumbent at Salwarpe in Worcestershire. Eventually, in 1963, he came to Alderbury. [Taken from an obituary by Gordon Mitchell (1986) The Fountain, Volume 21, Issue 5].

We have a good (although not quite complete) run of The Fountain from 1964 to date and these are slowly being scanned. We also have copies of variable quality of a few issues of the much earlier “Alderbury Parish Magazine”, from 1901 and odd issues from the 1920s. This parish magazine began in 1895, and if anyone has other copies of these hidden away, we would be grateful for their loan so we can scan them. Please contact us.

Examples of the 1901 issues and a sample from 1921 are made available but please note these are large files (1MB and 3MB respectively).

Village history

The post office

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Village war memorial

St Mary’s Church

Historical walk

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