BETWEEN THE WARS

In the years after the first world war, Easton was a close-knit farming community of around three hundred residents. Having somehow survived the appalling agricultural depression of the 19th century and the trauma of national conflict, life was starting to improve.

Most people kept a pig and grew all the vegetables they needed. There was a church, a chapel, pub, village shop and bakery. The Post Office boasted one of the few telephones in the village. There was a carpenter’s shop, a smithy and the village had its own policeman and postman. Boots and shoes were made and repaired here and Miss Harriet Stagg was busy with her dressmaking. The village school was thriving with 80 pupils.

Villagers worked hard but also knew how to enjoy themselves. Many spent convivial evenings in the Bruce Arms. A local branch of the Women’s Institute was formed, joining up with Milton Lilbourne. There was a whist club, cricket and football clubs, bingo, fetes, bazaars, children’s concerts and occasional dances.

The village street was flanked by a row of tall elm trees, each with its own rookery. There were several horse chestnuts keeping the children supplied with conkers and a jealously guarded walnut tree in the school grounds. Children played impromptu cricket and traditional games in the street – hopscotch, skipping, marbles, hide and seek, tipcat, five stones.  Football and rounders matches attempted in fields were rarely finished without interruption from furious farmers.

The street was not tarred – in winter it was covered in mud and in summer was very dusty. Cows were driven up and down twice a day for milking leaving their marks behind them, so walking on the street at night with no lights could be a tricky business. The village road man would scrape away the mud, leave in piles to dry and then wheel it away before the cows kicked it over the road again. The milk from farms was conveyed in churns to Savernake station twice a day.

The village shop and bakery were run by Walter Howse. His wife, Elizabeth, looked after the shop which supplied the bulk of the village grocery needs from 7.00 a.m.-7.00 p.m. and enjoyed a good trade in sweets and tobacco. The bakehouse was a long low building leading off from the shop. At the far end a heavy cast iron door opened up showing the low dome shaped oven roof and baking floor of smooth flat stone blocks heated by wood. Mr Howse, assisted by his son Ron, baked three times a week and Ron delivered the crisp oven fresh loaves round the village by horse and cart. On occasions such as Christmas when large family gatherings were planned, housewives with small ovens could rent the use of the baker’s for twopence a time, including a rice pudding.

The village was well served by visiting tradesmen – Eddie Amor, the oilman, brought paraffin, dispensing it from a tank lashed to the floor of his van. Rusher’s mobile fish and chip shop came on Wednesdays and Saturdays - Thursday was the day for Mr Jeeves, the Pewsey butcher. Fresh fish came on Friday and during months with an R in them, Mr Perry the watercress farmer came from Milkhouse Water. There were travelling salesmen offering a wide range of books, fancy goods and the ever-popular patent medicines. Newspapers were delivered from Phillips, the Pewsey newsagents.

The farms were moving to mechanisation, but motor cars were rarely seen in the village street and bicycles were by far the most popular forms of transport.

A small motor bus plied twice a day between Hungerford and Pewsey, picking up at the top of the village. Mr Brookes, the village carpenter kept a pony and trap and offered trips to the station. On Saturdays, a carrier with horse transport went from Easton to Marlborough - he would do shopping and deliver parcels for a few coppers and take passengers who weren’t in a hurry, as it could take all day to go there and back.

The largest upheaval anyone had experienced happened in 1929 when Savernake estate sold off a great deal of its outlying land and properties. Now villagers had the opportunity to own their houses and choose where and with whom they would earn a living. In 1914 less than 10% of Wiltshire farms were owner occupied – by 1941 that figure had risen to 41%. Lives here changed for ever and most were glad of it.

The village population grew in 1928/35/45 when a number of local authority houses were built along the main road towards Burbage.

Easton Street

Mr W Hillier resting with his pipe