Thursday 8 June 1989

Television Series On Town And Villages

TELEVISION SERIES ON TOWN AND VILLAGES
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Warminster and some Wylye Valley villages will be on television later this summer during a series of 10 programmes entitled 'Along A Wiltshire River'.
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Local historian Danny Howell helped to compile the half-hour programmes, the first of which was shown on Monday at 10.35 p.m. The river in question is the Wylye, which is rated as one of the finest chalk trout streams in southern England.
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The series was made last summer and is presented by Clive Gunnell for HTV West. He follows the route William Cobbett took through the Wylye Valley from Wilton to Warminster in 1826.
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During his stroll 'Along A Wiltshire River' he views the local landscape, relates much of the Wylye Valley's history and meets several 'characters' who recall days past and how things have changed for better or worse.
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Included amongst the interviewees are former Norton Bavant farmworker Fred Strickland, Mr. and Mrs. Bill Robins of Heytesbury, and Linda Beagley who keeps the Ram Park flock of Jacob sheep at picturesque Sherrington.
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Clive Gunnell was assisted by Warminster's resident historian Danny Howell during the making of the Wylye Valley programmes. Mr.Howell, who has written a dozen history books about the area, arranged the presenter's route, chose and organised the appearance of the interviewees, and scripted about 80 per cent of the series.
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He also goes before the camera twice himself, to tell some of the history of the now defunct Carson and Toone iron foundry, off EastStreet, Warminster, and as a finale to the series, on a very windswept Arn Hill overlooking the town, he extols some of the virtues of living in Warminster.
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The ten programmes have a running order as follows: 5th June - Wilton House; 12th June - Wilton; 19th June - Oak Apple day at Great Wishford; 26th June - Great Wishford village; 3rd July - Steeple Langford.

On 10th July - Wylye village; 17th July - Stockton and Bapton; 24th July - Sherrington and Boyton; 31st July - Heytesbury and Bishopstrow; and 7th August - Warminster.
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The final programme, devoted entirely to Warminster, as well as Danny Howell's two interviews, includes appearances by Jack Field, the chairman of the Warminster History Society, who tells of Warminster's former prosperity as a wool and corn market; David Pollard who shows how he restored the faceless clock in the tower of St. Laurence's Chapel; and Ann Sawyer, of the Wiltshire Trust for Nature Conservation, showing off the Smallbrook Meadows nature reserve.
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Clive Gunnell comments on the architecture in the Market Place, and remembers Cobbett's quote that Warminster in 1826 was "a very nice town: everybody belonging to it is solid and good. There are no villainous gingerbread houses running up, and no nasty shabby-genteel people, no women trapesing around with showy gowns and dirty necks; no Jew-looking fellows with dandy coats, dirty shirts and half-heels to their shoes. A really nice and good town."
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Clive Gunnell is no stranger to television viewers, having already presented many series before, including similar walks along the Cornish Coastal Path, the Cotswolds Way, and through the Forest of Dean. He is also a presenter of the HTV Farming programme on Sunday lunch-times, and now runs his own film company.
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He is currently recording a series about the Wessex countryside, with particular emphasis on old crafts such as hurdle-making, dowsing, and charcoal burning.