Introduction
The naming of streets is by no means as straightforward, or as logical, as it may seem at first sight. Fairford, in common with other rural settlements, had little need to name all its streets (and number its houses) until the mid 20th Century when the town expanded and when the Post Office needed to find addressees. Gone are the days when ‘Mr Hawkes, Fairford’ on a letter would be sufficient! The final decision about names of streets in this area was and is the responsibility of the District Council, in the past Cirencester Rural District Council and latterly Cotswold District Council. Occasionally Fairford Town Council would be asked to suggest names, sometimes names were suggested by the developers and it appears that some effort was put into researching local connections. However, this was not always a harmonious exercise between the parties concerned! (See The Weavers and Groves Place). It is obvious how ‘roads to’ obtained their names e.g. Cirencester Road, Hatherop Road, London Road/Street. The uncertainty is about what date this happened. London Road was a Turnpike Road from 1727, the turnpike being at Claydon Pike. The Welsh Way/Gloucester Way was an ancient drove road from Wales via Birdlip to the crossing of the Thames at Lechlade. ‘Hyghe Street’ and ‘Mylton End’ appear in the 1603 Court Roll. Bridge Street, Calcot Street, and Mill Lane all appear in the 1662 schedule in the Fairford Booke. Of course they may have existed well before that but these are the earliest written references that have been found so far in old documents. There are some queries which have not been solved as yet, for example The Garratts which appears on the 1754 Inclosure Map – was this a personal name or was it from the medieval word for ‘watch tower’? The Plies which appears as Plyes Mead in 16th Century documents, was this connected to the wool trade? When did ‘Vicaridge Street’ become London Street? And why did Calcot Street become Park Street? These questions may never be answered, but if you have any documentary evidence to further any information contained in this booklet, FHS would be pleased to receive it.
John Faulkner after whom Faulkner’s Close was named in his Model T Ford Motor car at Dunfield
These books (recently transcribed) are the expense and receipt books of the King’s Chamber (known as the Chamber Books) covering 1485 to 1521. These are the earliest systematic private records of the financial transactions of an English monarch, giving an unparalleled insight into royal personality, the purchase of luxury items and material goods, the interaction of private and public, and the politics and finances of kingship. This is the entry in the Tudor Chamber Book, for August 1520 (E36/216 f102r), it has been translated into modernised English:-
‘Windsor 20s item for offering upon wednesday our lady day 6s 8d item to sir richard weston knight upon a warrant for the building of the new loge in the chace of cranbourn within the forest of windsor £79 17s 8d sunday at littlecote master darelles place./b> anno xijmo xixno day augusti item/b> for the king’s offering upon this sunday 6s 8d item for the king’s daily alms this week 37s 11d item for offering at our lady caversham upon our lady day 6s 8d item for william temple the king’s fletcher & other upon a warrant for certain stuff for the king’s own shotyng as it appears by the said warrant £7 9s 4d item to john holland riding from reding to bradstock for 3 dais at 12d the day 3s anno xijmo xxvjo day augusti item for offering upon friday saint bartholomew day 6s 8d item for offering upon sunday at fairford master tamez place 6s 8d item for the king’s daily alms this week 37s 11d’
In 1520 Henry VIII was 29 years old, so he would have been a fine figure of a man, tall, bearded and athletic. The King had recently (June) returned from the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’, the meeting with Francis I of France. The summit was arranged to increase the bond of friendship between the two kings following the Anglo-French treaty of 1514. Each King tried to outshine the other, with dazzling tents and clothes, huge feasts, music, jousting and games. The tents and the costumes displayed so much cloth of gold, an expensive fabric woven with silk and gold thread, that the site of the meeting was named after it. At the beginning of July, Henry met with Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor in Calais. He had returned to Windsor by 30 July.
According to his itinerary for his August Royal Progress, Henry was at Windsor from 1-13, Reading 13-16, Yattendon 16-18, Sir Henry Norris’s residence (he was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber at that time), Littlecote 18-22, (Sir Edward Darrell’s residence), Bradenstoke Abbey 22-25, and Fairford from 25-27 August. He only stayed a few days at each place so probably this was not one of his huge 1,000 entourage trips. It is not clear if Catharine of Aragon accompanied him to Fairford. Extra guests were normally housed in local houses or maybe a camp was set up north of the town. There must have been a large number of servants and horses to stable. Warwick Court or Beauchamp Court, ‘Edmund Tame’s’ house is described by Leland as hard by the Churchyard, so may have been approximately on the site of Fairford House with its buildings the ‘backside going to the very bridge’. It may even have been that the King’s visit was on E
Prince of Wales feather [ostrich] with ’ich dien’ from window 11, St Mary’s Church
dmund’s invitation to look at the completed windows in Fairford Church as they were completed by 1517. What a sight that must have been, brightly coloured glass on one of those days when the sun shines and reflects the colours of the glass on the stonework. Sir Edmund would not have failed to point out the feathers and motto of the Prince of Wales.
He attended Church on the Sunday at Fairford giving a half a mark (6s 8d) in alms on the day. During his time in Fairford Edmund Tame the younger, a teenager must have made a good impression as Henry knighted the boy (or perhaps the King was borrowing money from the Tames as he would have been needed money after the Field of the Cloth of Gold). In Sarah Brown’s ‘Fairford Parish Church’ there is a slightly different account of this visit “Sir Edmund met the royal party at Lechlade on 26 August and entertained them at Fairford until 2 September… Almost certainly Henry would have attended mass at John Tame’s new church as the feast of St Augustine fell on the 28 August”.
It was not the first Royal visit to Edmund Tame’s House. In the Royal Progress of 1502 Henry VII and Elizabeth of York reached Fairford at the end of August on their way back from South Wales. It is very likely that they visited the Parish Church which would be structurally complete but without the stained glass windows. In Samantha Harper’s ‘Henry VII and Elizabeth of York’s Royal progress, Summer 1502’ she says ‘It is not unfeasible that Flours [Bernard Flower, the royal glazier] involvement with the church had been a royal suggestion’.
Edmund Tame, the elder
Edmund Tame was born in the 1460s. By 1500 when his father, John Tame died, he was already a rich man as he had inherited most of his father’s lands. In 1500 Edmund had a ‘bargain’ with the King Henry VII (E101/415/3 f289v):-
‘that the kinges grace & sir reginold bray haue made a bargayn with edmond tame of fairford in gloucester shir for cl sakkes of wulles whereof twoo of fyne and one of mydell wulles to be deliuered at london pakked & dressed redy to be shipped to calais & to be taken after the weght of the bealme of london for the price of x marces & anoble for euery sakk.’
Modernised: ‘that the King’s grace & Sir Reginold Bray have made a bargain with Edmond Tame of Fairford in gloucestershire for 150 sacks of wools whereof two of fine and one of middle wools to be delivered at London packed & dressed ready to be shipped to Calais & to be taken after the weight of the beam of London for the price of 10 marks & a noble for every sack thereto be delivered at his costs & charge before April next.’
Sir Edmund became High Sheriff of Gloucestershire and was also a member of the Commission for Peace for Wiltshire. By 1516 his is listed as attending the King’s Royal Chamber and was knighted the same year.
The Tame Coat of Arms in the porch of St Mary’s Church, Fairford
The Oxpens
These ancient oxpens used to accommodate pairs of oxen for ploughing. The building and the site was restored after the Ernest Cook Trust took over the Estate in the 1950s. The used to farm with oxen in Gloucestershire up to the 1960s.
The photograph shows Alex Iles, farmer of Park Farm and with his stockman, William Westbury in the early 20th century when the enclosure was in use.
The site appears on 19th century maps but probably dates from much earlier as there is a mention in a 17th century documents for Wurmstalls [animal enclosure] near the Greate Greene. In the early 2000s the some of the old Cotswold stone tiles were stolen and the photo shoes after this has happened. They were later replaced and the site tidied up and is now a picnic site.
The tower in Gassons field is a water tower. It was gravity fed from the reservoirs in the woodland between Pitham Brook path and the Quenington Road that served Dynevor Terrace. These two reservoir were fed from a pump in the Fairford Mill through pipes across the field and were put in place in the early 20th century.
In the water tower was a large tank under which water tank on a cart was place was filled by pulling a chain/rope to relese the water.
See attached article by Syd Flatman for further information Fairford waterworks
Fairford Street Names
In the early 2000s the some of the old Cotswold stone tiles were stolen and the photo shoes after this has happened. They were later replaced and the site tidied up and is now a picnic site.