Hilary's Diaries - Hilary Townsend President of Stalbridge History Society
October 2021 Hilary Townsend
I have just read in the September edition of the History Society Newsletter Heavy Metal where Geoff Jeans describes the skill and hard work they needed to bond a cartwheel at the Forge.
In 1990 the editor of the Dorset County Magazine had asked me for a feature about the history and work of the Forge. Geoff and his father Claude agreed to meet me there and be photographed - the pictures used in the Newsletter were taken then. This feature led to a request a year later for another one from a magazine called Old Glory, devoted to old methods of transport such as carts and wagons and especially `the old steam engines that once powered the nation’ it still says. I went back to the Forge and Claude explained to me with tremendous enthusiasm how a wheel was bonded and what the terms were. ‘This here is the villey`. He pronounced it `villy`. He pointed to the wooden edge that the spokes come from. `Then, when the tyre is cooling off you have to leave a gap between villy and tyre. 
Christopher Jeans and his father
c 1890's (Stalbridge Archive Society)
I walked home that summer morning deep in thought. Claude and Geoffrey with their long pale features framed by short dark hair had, to my mind, mediaeval faces. Such men would have been among Chaucer’s pilgrims to Canterbury. The word villet or fillet might well have come from the French filet, a string, and the name Jeans is from the Norman French for a Smith. Claude pronounced the word `villy` as if it had come straight to him from the French. William Barnes lists it as a Dorset dialect word from a fillet or cloth tied round a cheese.
Geoffrey Jeans and his father Claud (Stalbridge Archive Society)
We know that the blacksmith’s trade at the Forge had been passed down from father to son by word-of-mouth for hundreds of years. That day had I perhaps had a brief glimpse of the Dorset and the England at the time of William the Conqueror?
© Hilary Townsend
October 2021 |
Hilary's Diary
Nov 2021 Sept 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 Diary 2020 |
Discover Dorset – Blackmore Vale Dovecote Press 2004
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Blackmore Vale Childhood Dovecote Press 2006
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One Woman’s Fight for Architectural Heritage 2012
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Stalbridge to Siberia and other places - Silk Hay Books 2018
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Titles by Hilary Townsend
Hilary, from a family of yeoman farmers, grew up in Dorset. As a personnel manager in industry, and later lecturer in management subjects, she wrote magazine and newspaper features for UK and North American markets.
Hilary, from a family of yeoman farmers, grew up in Dorset. As a personnel manager in industry, and later lecturer in management subjects, she wrote magazine and newspaper features for UK and North American markets.
