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Braydon
Braydon maps
Historic maps of Braydon and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Braydon maps
Braydon photos
We have no photos of Braydon, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Purton| Wootton Bassett| Ashton Keynes| Cricklade| Clyffe Pypard| Great Somerford| Blunsdon| Wroughton
Braydon area books
Displaying 1 of 12 books about Braydon and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Braydon
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Wiltshire memories
Tree in Brinkworth Church Graveyard.
I cannot remember what year it was. I climbed the tree that was in the graveyard while watching my mum who was in the school playground supervising the children in the playground at dinnertime. The only problem was the branch I stood on was not as strong as I thought it was. It snapped and I fell down on to the round-topped wall that was below. The man that worked at the post office came out and saw me laying there and called my mum who came and found me and took me home.
Holidays
my grandparents used to live in church walk in purton , my father and his brothers and sisters grew up there and every summer we used to go to stay there for our holidays.
they had feather beds and gas lighting and we used to go to bed with a candle.
the milkman used to come and fill up the pewter milk jug each morning.
we all got up early in the morning and went looking for mushrooms over the fields then go home and cook up a good breakfast. There was a well in the garden and we used to get water to wash our hair and it came out really shiny and healthy.Our grandfather used to take us on long walks over the fields.
we laughed and loved and were very happy there.
Purton is still a beautiful gentle little village, i visited there last year and saw my grand parents house , i havent got a house now, i am renting , and am thinking of... Read more
Grandmother's House
I have so many fond memories of my grandmother's house. The house is on the left of the picture and has two bay windows and is painted white. As a child I would play with the turkeys which were kept in the stables at the rear. They were surprisingly companionable! My grandmother had a raised pansy garden and to me they all looked like velvet! I remember enjoying the smell of the old lilac tree in one corner of the garden.
I can remember from 1956ish, when I was 6, we had huge Christmas parties and all the family would come from far and wide. The table would groan under the weight of food. We would have a new outfit and everyone would "do a turn"! Grandmother was a lovely pianist and we had some good singers!
The back servants stairs, which led from the small back room down to the kitchen (as servants then, did not use the main stairs) were a source of fear and... Read more
The Mansells
1952 is apporoximate. I know I wasn't very old as I went to the village school (now converted to private dwellings) next to the little church. My mother was housekeeper to the ex Bishop of Malmesbury for about nine months and we lived in at the Mansells. The Bishop was confined to a wheelchair after what must have been a severe stroke. He had no speech or movement and was looked after by the gardener, a Mr Pearce I think. It was in their cottage next door that I saw my first television. It had a small screen which made everything look green. It was my job to feed the chickens, corn in the summer and sometimes hot mash in the winter. Being what we now call free range, they would lay their eggs all ever the place. The Bishop had a small alter in a tiny room upstairs and mother had to wash and starch the lace trimmed alter cloth every week. There is a room downstairs with... Read more
Paddling in The Thames
We used to love looking in the stream for cray fish, minnows and small creatures. We were fascinated by the clear water as we had no streams in London,where we lived. I remember telling my mum about the small creatures that looked like sticks and had bits of gravel and sticks on them, like a coat. She didn't believe me, but I later (many years later) found out they were larvae - I think of the Caddis fly. Our friends in London never believed us, that we had paddled in the clear, clean Thames either. The river they knew was a dirty, dangerous thing.
Staying at ALEX FARM
The Luce family lived at Alex Farm, Audrey and I were best friends at Cirencester Grammar School, I used to love staying at the farm with Aunty Gwen, Uncle Gil, Colin, Tony, Peggy and Audrey and doing farm chores. We were sent to Cricklade on bikes to shop and had to go beside the gravel pits (now the water park I guess) and we were always looking out for the swans there as they would attack if there were cygnets.
RAF Lyneham, 1947-48
My first job, after leaving Chippenham Secondary School in 1947, was in the Met. Office at RAF Lyneham. I sometimes cycled there from my parents' home at Box, between Chippenham and Bath. Airfield security seemed almost non-existent in those days, and one could go straight onto the station from the main road without even going through the main gate. As we were doing shift work at the office, the staff had to live on or near the airfield except on our days off. The senior civilian staff lived in the Officers' Mess, but junior staff members like myself were in the Sergeants' Mess, where I think we were regarded with slight disapproval by a few of the older NCOs.
At that time, RAF Transport Command was operating Avro York aircraft, replaced by the Handley-Page Hastings a year or so later. There were frequent flights from Lyneham to Malta and North Africa, and of course there was the Berlin airlift in 1948.
