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Continue reading →: Paradise on The RankNo, I don’t mean The Rank is heaven on Earth though I’m sure some previous or current residents would say so! The subject this post is one the occupiers of a house at the very end of the The Rank in 1939 – a true ‘local character’ called Sammy Paradise.…
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Continue reading →: A Christmas WeddingSomething festive for the end of the year! Amelia Kate Alford (known as Kate) was born in 1869, the youngest of eight children. The Alford family were a long-standing fixture on The Rank; John Alford and his wife Hannah, Kate’s parents, lived there for over five decades, appearing on The…
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Continue reading →: A newsworthy potatoWhile doing research for this One-Place Study I’ve come across some small snippets that simply don’t fit anywhere else but are too good to ignore. This is one such snippet. In 1863, the Wiltshire Independent covers the discovery of an ‘Extraordinary Potato’. James Allen lived at the top end of…
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Continue reading →: From The Rank to the railway: the short life of Fred BennettOn the 1861 census, a young woman called Jane Bennett is recorded as the head of a household, living in a house on The Rank along with two other ‘households’. At first glance, it’s very easy to miss the only other person who lives with her (and I missed it,…
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Continue reading →: Wool Weaving on The RankThe families of The Rank were, for many years, associated with wool weaving. Many of the households on the census returns over the decades give indications that the families were working in the wool and cloth industry, either at home, or – later – in the factories in nearby Trowbridge.…
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Continue reading →: The Rank: matching residents with housesOne of the things I was really keen to do when starting this project was match the residents enumerated on every census from 1841 to 1921 (plus the 1939 register) with the houses they were actually occupying. On the face of it, this seemed a fairly reasonable, sensible, and straightforward…
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Continue reading →: No. 1 & No. 2, The Rank: A Tale of Two (Or More) GrocersThe first house on The Rank is a striking black and white house. It sits slightly back from the road at an angle, and has some outbuildings adjacent to the main house. In March 1893, an advert appears in the Trowbridge Chronicle for its sale by auction at the Old…
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Continue reading →: Census ReturnsI have added a page with census return transcriptions for The Rank; you can find a link to it on the site menu. Despite having worked with census records for a while, this was my first time actually transcribing the data in them (not to mention publishing it! A lesson…
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Continue reading →: Placing The RankThe Rank is a lane leading off Southwick Road in North Bradley. Southwick Road continues out of the village towards Southwick to the bottom left; Woodmarsh continues out of the village towards Trowbridge to the top; Westbury Road leads out of the village and over the roundabout towards Yarnbrook and…
Hello,
I’m Charlotte
Welcome to my One-Place Study focusing on The Rank in North Bradley, Wiltshire.
Here you’ll find posts about my discoveries tracing the history of the people of The Rank, as well as their history within the wider community in North Bradley.
If you have any information or memories about the people, places, or events on The Rank or in North Bradley in general that may help to paint the picture of this fascinating place, please do get in touch, I’d love to hear from you!
The Rank, North Bradley | One-Place Study 