Chapter 1
The Horse Age

There were only two cars in our village, one a big Studebaker at Hillesley House, and a Maxwell owned by our inventor and entrepreneur, Mr. Penley Werrett.
Those were the days of the horse in Hillesley. What an important part they played in our rural economy! The farms had their working horses, the butcher and baker their ponies and cobs, and a few, the hunters at the house, were kept for pleasure. Coal, beer, food etc. all kinds and merchandise of all descriptions, all these depended for their distribution upon horses. They were the link between village, town and railway station. It was the day of the carrier to Bristol when with a stout horse and a light covered cart he made journeys twice a week to the city. He would have an arrangement with one of Bristol's hostelries, the White Hart in Old Market or the Black Swan at Eastville, where parcels could be left or collected. The carrier would take all kinds of country produce into the provision merchants of the city and would return with goods from shops in Bristol. Orders to the fashion houses would be posted by farmers wives, the vicar's lady or even from the 'House'.
The village shoemaker ordered his leathers, the grocer his tea and sugar, and all these things would be sent by the various suppliers to the carrier's depot. It must have been a long lonesome journey in dark winter nights for the carrier and his horse and I expect his reward for his work was very modest.
Another man who made his living by horses was Edward Carter. He was partially crippled but he very gallantly struggled to bring up a large family by making boots, selling coal and 'hiring out'. 'Hiring out' meant transport to Charfield, Wickwar or Badminton, or any other place passengers wished to be driven. I remember Mr. Carter's horses well, there was 'Duke', a tough Welsh cob, and one which never had a real name - he was always called the 'Roan-un'. Between the stations, hauling coal around the village, an occasional Sunday evening drive to see the rhododendrons at Westonbirt, or a family outing to Sharpness Docks, 'Duke' and the 'Roan-un' must have covered thousands of miles in their long and useful lives.
Besides his working horses each farmer had his cob, which in spring cart or high gig took his master to market or the farmer's wife to social gatherings. They varied in quality according to their owner s tastes, some were content to jog quietly to Charfield sale or Chipping Sodbury market, others 'liked a bit of 'blood' behind which they could cut a dash.
Horses were characters then. We knew the name of each one. Some of them were great favourites, loved and cherished by their owners and the men who drove them. Others were not so lucky - poor food and 'long oats' (the whip) were their lot.
In another world, the world of pleasure or sport, were the horses at Hillesley House and the vicar's smart grey cob. To my childish eyes they were a race apart from the more humble animals by which ordinary people made their living. The Forrestier-Walker's kept four or five hunters and these were under the care of Harry Hearn. He was a rotund, Pickwickian figure, his short legs made shorter still by a life-time's riding. He had fallen in love with and married a Miss Mansfield who had been lady's maid to Mrs. Forrestier-Walker. She was tall and slim and always very nicely dressed. As she and her husband took a walk on a Sunday evening, a habit most well conducted couples had then, the village wags would remark, "There goes the long and short of it!" I well remember 'Dick', Mrs. Walker's hunter. He was crop-tailed and Hog-maned as most hunters were then, but Miss Freda's grey was turned out in what was then a modern fashion with plaited mane and long tail. Miss Honor rode a roan cob which was reputed to jump like a cat!
The Vicar, a Mr. Williams, had spent some time in Australia. He longed to ride when he came to Hillesley, but alas, the living was too small for such a luxury. By the time he had saved enough to buy, from Mr. Gould a Alderley, a smart grey cob, increasing weight had made riding impossible. Nevertheless, the Vicar cut a fine figure as he handled his cob in a high dogcart. Mr. Williams loved a day's ferreting or an evening at cards. He was much liked by everybody, lie succumbed to a pneumonia attack in his early middle-age. Mrs. Williams, a very gracious lady, went to spend a long widowhood at Cheltenham. There was a sale of the Vicar's outside effects after his death. I think it was arranged that the dapple-grey cob should go to a local farmer who kept him as long as he lived, but the Vicar's saddle was bought for me for one pound!
There are two occasions that live vividly in my memories of the horse. These happened just before the War came to change all our lives, and both of them were demonstrations of the importance of horses in the life of England at that time. One of them was a meet of the 'Duke's' when all the pomp and glory of Badminton as it was then, was on show in our village. I think this must have happened after the death of Colonel Blagden Hale and before the new heir to Alderley, Thomas Sherwood, had arrived.
It was then the custom for the hounds to meet at the Manor House but perhaps there was no squire to entertain them. It became Hillesley's privilege to stage the meet. At that time the Duke (the present Duke's father) owned the Portcullis Inn and much property in the village. Because of this we felt we had a share in the glory of the Duke's great position.
I think we may have had a holiday (was it a Saturday?) for the occasion for I well remember having a grandstand position in our shop window from which to watch. Hours before eleven o'clock, the grand display of horses, led and ridden by smart grooms, began to arrive from all directions. No horse boxes then, those strong short-backed hunters hacked many miles to the meet, and depending on where hounds finished, might have an equally long and weary walk home.
Farmers, prosperous tradesmen, sporting doctors and clergymen made up a large proportion of the early arrivals. I remember a group of rather weary looking animals which had come from a livery stable at Sodbury to carry some sporting Bristol butchers for a day with the 'Duke'. These sportsmen came to Charfield by train and were driven by the Railway Tavern 'fly' to the meet.
Just before eleven the real nobility began to arrive, in dog carts, landaus, and the still rare motor car. One by one they mounted their waiting horses, men in pink, or blue and bluff; ladies, all riding side-saddle, in severely cut habits and protective veils of net. The crowning moment was the arrival of the great pack itself led by the now legendary Will Dale and whipped in by Tom Newman. The Duke's hounds were 'our' hounds. We knew of that other pack which, led by their mustard livened servants sometimes ran into our country, but we were Duke's men to a boy. Our green-coated hunt servants, our stalwart dappled hounds, were owned and hunted by a Duke, and far superior to anything which pertained to a mere Lord of Berkeley!
My father farmed a bit of land and as an exercise in public relations one or two of the hunting principals rode into our yard to shake hands and pass the time of day. In spite of his strong Radical principles (these were the days of Lloyd George) he was, I think, rather pleased at this little courtesy. While he spoke to these gentlemen I gazed goggle-eyed at their beautiful horses - so very different from our two hard working cobs. Mr. Willie Harford, who kept some lovely hunters at Petty France, was one of those who came in, while Will Dale and Tom Newman called out a cheery greeting as they passed. Dr. 'Alfie' Grace, cousin of 'W. G.' and one of the family of sporting doctors, was another who did his best to make the hunt popular.
I think by this time the old Duke had given up carrying the horn himself. He was compelled to ride huge weight carriers whose slow gallop governed the pace of the hounds. The present Duke may already have been hunting hounds at that time. I remember my father pointing him out to me as the Marquis of Worcester, and saying that he was heir to an estate which then stretched literally from Hillesley to Chippenham.
The daughters of Badminton were there too - Lady Blanche and Lady Diana. Very beautiful they looked with their fair curls gleaming beneath their hunting hats and flawless complexions showing through their hunting veils. Such feminine beauty I had never before seen and I refused to be disillusioned by the remarks of the women in the shop who said that such beauty was due to wax and paint.
There was another marvellous parade of horses when what must have been the last pre-war fixture of Sherston Races took place. This event was on a Saturday so that we saw the race-goers as they went to the races and when they returned in the evening. Hillesley was on the route which most race goers from the Berkeley Vale would take to Sherston, and the races there were then an event to which all sporting people, rich or poor, had to go.
To my fellow schoolboys and I it seemed that every horse which could be harnessed to carriage, dog cart or even humble flat trolley, was pressed into service for that day of the Races. Amongst all the motley collection of vehicles, we waited eagerly for the appearance of the party from Berkeley Castle. They drove four-in-hand with servants in yellow livery, and after them the lesser gentry with two-horse carriages with great luncheon baskets strapped behind - what, we enviously wondered, did those great hampers contain? Most impressive of all was a lovely grey horse led by a diminutive groom which stepped daintily through the village en route for participation in one of the events.
At five or six in the April evening we watched for the returning cavalcade. Homeward bound, the carriage horses, the trappers and the ponies in their flat carts, stepped out smartly on their downward journey back to the Vale. We tried to deduce from the expressions of the passengers whether they had won or lost on the day. The carriage folk were reserved and gave nothing away but the men in the little carts drew up at the pubs with a flourish, and primed with another pint, would start off again to Berkeley with a merry if untuneful song. How shattered we all felt when we learned the sad news of the grey horse. We waited eagerly for it to walk down the hill, "Did it win?" we asked; "Got there too bloody late!" was the bitter reply.
It was soon after these events that war clouds gathered over Europe. Many of the hunters and carriage horses were commandeered for Army remounts, the gallant hunting gentlemen were recalled to the cavalry regiments they had once belonged to, and the fair Diana's of the hunting field became ambulance drivers in France or V.A.D. nurses at home.
Although hunting revived after four long years of war and some of the men came home, they brought new ideas with them. The cheap motor soon arrived, the tradesman got his motor van and the farmer replaced his market cob with an Austin car.
The tractors which had been imported from America to help with wartime ploughing, remained to spearhead a revolution in agriculture which eventually ousted the horse from the farm. It took many years before the horse became redundant as a work force but in 1974 a pair of working horses has become a novelty.