News & Events
The Society publishes a volume each year, holds an annual meeting each summer, and produces a newsletter, The Recorder, in early spring.
The 2025 AGM
Our Annual Meeting will be held this year at 2.30 pm on Saturday 14 June at the Kennet Valley Hall, which is between Lockeridge and West Overton (for information about the venue see https://www.kvh.org.uk/). After the short formal meeting Stuart Raymond, whose volume on the papers of the Holford family of Avebury, 1695-1798, will be next in our series, will be our lecturer. Members, their guests and anyone interested in Avebury and the Kennet Valley, will be very welcome to attend. The AGM papers will be sent to members as usual well in advance of the meeting.
Our Recent Mailing
It is quite a challenge for our small local sub post office, a few streets away from the Wiltshire & Swndon History Centre in Chippenham, when we mail out a new volume to addresses across the world, but they are happy to have the business. We are pleased to say that our latest volume, 77, has now been sent to all our individual and institutional members, and to our individual members has gone with it the latest issue of our annual magazine, The Recorder. An online version in PDF format is available on this website, in the Publications section. It is a bumper issue, with plenty of interesting Wiltshire-related articles. To overseas members the mailing will take a few weeks to arrive, but if anyone has not received their copy by the end of May 2025 please contact us. Grateful thanks to our Hon. Secretary, Helen Taylor, for bearing the brunt of the packaging and labelling, and to Sally Thomson, editor of The Recorder.
Kenneth H Rogers
Ken Rogers, former Wiltshire county archivist, died in January 2025 age 94. He had been a member of our society since 1951, had served on our committee for many decades, and was the editor of two volumes, on Lacock Abbey charters and on early trade directories. He was unviersally liked and respected. An obituary, by Steve Hobbs, has been published in the latest edition of The Recorder, which can be found online in the Publications section of this website. Before he died, and with help from his son Edward, he was able to complete his book on Wiltshire and Somerset Woollen Weavers, a companion to his Wiltshire and Somerset Woollen Mills (1976), and this has now been published (https://www.hobnobpress.co.uk/books/p/wiltshire-and-somerset-woollen-weavers-by-kh-and-ej-rogers)
Latest Volume
77 Salisbury Domesday Books, 1413–1478, edited by John Chandler and Douglas Crowley, 2024
This edition, the sequel to volume 75, completes the publication of the Salisbury Domesday Books. A third volume is in preparation and will appear in due course offering an account of Salisbury’s topography and tenurial history during the 14th and 15th centuries, based on the evidence of the Domesday Books and other contemporary sources. The volume has xiii + 296 pages, is in our usual hardback format, and the price to non-members is £20.00, ISBN 978-0-901333-54-4. For more details about the content and the Domesday Books project see the Recent Volumes page of this website. The book was sent for printing in December 2024 and first copies have been received in January 2025. Subscribers’ copies will be mailed out shortly, and non-members may purchase copies by contacting the Hon. Secretary, c/o Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, or online via the Hobnob Press website, www.hobnobpress.co.uk.
Events
The society held its annual general meeting on 22 June 2024 in Mere. The meeting was followed by a talk given by Steve Hobbs, on ‘Unremembered Lives; Evidence from Church Court Records for Wiltshire, 1590-1620’, and ended with a walk around Mere led by John Chandler.
The British Record Society’s Hearth Tax Research Project launched its online publication of the Wiltshire returns of 1662 on 30th October 2024 at the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham. The launch event included information on the background of the project and a chance to look at the online resource, as well as to celebrate with some tea and cake! Although not a WRS publication much of the editing was carried out by a member of the society, the late Lorelei Williams, and Steve Hobbs has been working with the Project’s director, Andrew Wareham, to complete the online publication. The online edition may be accessed here: https://gams.uni-graz.at/o:htx.wltshr1
In 2014 the society published Ivor Slocombe’s edition of Wiltshire Quarter Sessions Order book, 1642-54 (volume 67, and now available online ). Ivor has continued his work and has now edited the records covering the years up to and following the restoration, 1654-1668. The edition is available on our resources page as a PDF file, with indexes.
The 2025 annual general meeting will take place on Saturday 14th June 2025 at the Kennet Valley Hall, Lockeridge near Marlborough. Full details will be posted in due course.
Forthcoming Volumes
Our volume 77, which we hope to publish around the end of 2024 will be the second part of the Salisbury Domesday Books, covering the years 1413-78, edited by John Chandler and Douglas Crowley. This will be followed during 2025 by The Letters of Lady Dorothy Long, 1661-1710, edited by Timothy Couzens, followed soon afterwards by Avebury 1695-1798: the Holford Papers, edited by Stuart Raymond. Other volumes are in preparation.