Angie, one of the participants of the Ripple Effect Salisbury project shares her reflections on the Autumn and Winter sessions and how the river has shaped her life as well as the landscape. Thanks so much to Angie for capturing the essence of the river and for the lovely images too.
Angie's Reflections
During our Autumn and Winter sessions, we have focused more on the history and cultural heritage of the river, and the way that the city of Salisbury has grown up around it. We have had the pleasure of being entertained and educated by staff from Wessex Archaeology, the Environment Agency and Salisbury Museum. They have all willingly and enthusiastically answered our questions and taught us so much. We’ve produced sketches, collages, notebooks and photos from all our experiences which are a lovely reminder of what we have done. Neither my husband, Rob nor I, are particularly artistic so joining the Ripple Effect project was a wee bit out of our comfort zone. Little did we know how much fun it would be, sharing others experiences and pooling our knowledge has been intensely stimulating. We are quite a diverse group of folk from very different walks of life and that means that someone always asks the question I hadn't thought of, but want to know the answer to.
Having been born and bred in Salisbury, all the things we have done during the project have served to remind me just how important the local rivers have been in my life. From splashing in the shallow paddling pools at Fisherton Rec or in Churchill Gardens, feeding the ducks at Harnham Mill with my Grandma, catching tiddlers from the island in Lizzie Gardens, attempting to cross the ford in our village on my pony, playing ‘Pooh sticks’ with my friends, raising frogspawn in our garden and returning little froglets back to the river, watching kingfisher, egret, duck, swan, moorhen and coot living and breeding, my Dad bringing home trout and grayling for supper after a relaxing evening fishing, swimming in and boating on the river as a teenager, my dogs splashing around on hot days, participating in duck races... The list goes on and on. What memories does this spark for you?
Photograph taken by Angie exploring the river
Green spaces and water meadows
Nowadays, the rivers provide a green space for us to enjoy some relaxation but, from time immemorial, water has been an absolute requirement for life to survive and thrive. According to the Doomsday Book of 1084 even our little village had a mill and as we are at the bottom of a valley, it is most likely to have been a small watermill though sadly, no evidence is visible today.
Like thousands of others before us, we made the walk down from Old Sarum to Salisbury, following the course of the Avon as it meanders through the water meadows. Water is the life blood of any village, town or city and was most likely an important reason why the settlement shifted down from the ancient hill fort, where water would have to be stored in cisterns, to the lush meadowland below where it was plentiful.
We learnt about the drowning of the meadows and just how essential that was to produce early grass and then late hay to feed the sheep, something that can only really be achieved on chalkland. This allowed our predecessors to have larger flocks, produce more wool and make bigger profits. A lot of this wool was shipped out to the continent via Southampton, such was its demand.
For the last few centuries my ancestors were agricultural labourers and shepherds, working the land on Salisbury Plain, raising the sheep for meat and the wool on which Salisbury grew. Consistent water supplies were essential, not just for the animals but for the wool fulling and dyeing processes. Fulling Mills could be found on the Wylye, the Bourne and the Avon around Salisbury (Harnham, Fisherton, Laverstock) and whilst the cloth and textiles may not have been of the finest quality, over the centuries it has clothed lower and middle class citizens and the military.
Photograph taken by Angie of keys and artefacts at the Salisbury Museum
Keys, hand axes and salmon
It’s heartening to know that it’s not just me that loses things and that even hundreds of years ago the people of Salisbury dropped all sorts of day-to-day items in the streets. They all got dropped or swept into the drainage channels that ran down the centre or side of our streets as is evidenced in the naming of “New Canal” and are shown on John Speed’s map of 1611 and many others subsequently. When the drains were covered or filled in the 1850’s, all manner of interesting things were preserved and are now held in the Drainage Collection in Salisbury Museum. It was fascinating to see all the keys, horse pendants and shoes, pilgrim badges, arrow heads, spurs, spoons, knives, toys, rings, seals, brooches, scissors, leather cutters and shears.
We also enjoyed a visit to Wessex Archaeology where we learnt all about the processing of soil and the multitude of details that can be gleaned from pollen, snails, rock and pottery shards. Holding a small, knapped hand axe that is 1000’s of years old has the amazing ability to connect one back to our ancestors, whilst reminding us that our time on this planet really is an insignificant blip in grand scheme of things and that we are mere custodians at the present moment.
It also came as something of a surprise to many of us that Atlantic Salmon use the River Avon as a spawning ground, so we’ll all be on the lookout over the coming weeks for the tell tale signs of cleared depressions in the gravel where the females have created their redds. So, the next time you are by a river, take some time to think about how important a resource it has been in the past and how it has shaped the landscape around you.