Tilshead & Elston

Today’s adventure took us down the road a bit to Tilshead, Amesbury, Shrewton, Winterbourne Stoke, Elston, Orcheston – a good number of villages in the Wiltshire area that are mentioned in our family tree as far as our ancestors being born, living or dying there. They are also some of the cutest villages we’ve been to and the great names of streets, roads and pubs – I’d like to know the history behind the “Long Arms Steeple Ashton”.

Tilshead is where Me Jenny’s Grandfather, George lived before he headed for the wide open spaces of South West Australia. He was the forward party, probably to check things out before his wife, Alice, their two daughters, his brother, James and wife and 2 children came over the meet him… then the two brothers took up land in North Kukerin in WA – 2 adjoining farms which they named ‘Tilshead Farm’ & ‘Elston Farm’… named after villages in this area and both of which we went through today.

So Tilshead was our first stop. It has one road running through it with a handful of old houses/buildings on each side, including the Rose and Crown hotel, which doubles as a post office!

Some other lovely buildings on the main Tilshead Road.

The Thomas a Beckett Churchyard

I so want to believe that our ancestors frequented this church… and we did manage to find Jenny’s Great Uncle and Aunty’s gravestone.

Hello Charles & Florence Kellow.

The next village was Shrewton. Another lovely spot.

And the skies opened up and it absolutely poured! There were two cemeteries in Shrewton that I wasn’t to look around, but we couldn’t get out of the car for fear of being washed away.

On our way to Amesbury, we drove up over a rise and there was Stonehenge… (this is not my photo…. look at the sky!)

Me Jenny said “It looks smaller, but I guess that could be because we are far away.”

So, onto the next village of Amesbury… where the Sundial Cottages very optimistically had an actual sun dial on the outside wall. Maybe in 1832 it was less rainy.

This weather app is surprisingly accurate with when it’s going to rain and when it’s going to stop.

To wait out the rain, we popped into The George hotel for a spot of lunch. Lovely mushroom soup was perfect for a cold rainy day.

I love that you are allowed to take dogs to indoor venues.

And check out the cool furnishings in this place…

Over lunch we were reading about another site similar to Stonehenge – Woodhenge which was only 5 mins from where we were sitting.

Originally it was rings of wooden poles in the ground. It was an aerial photo in 1925 that showed dark circles which promoted them to explore and excavate the area. Now shorter cement pillars of differing sizes sit in the ground to mark the circles.

Check out how close it is to Stonehenge… coincidence?

They painted the top of each ring a different colour, I guess to make its more obvious that they are set out in rings…

On our way back home, we drove through Orcheston and then Elston, (which effectively joins Orcheston to Shrewton and is the other name chosen by Jen’s GF & his brother (George & James) for their farm in Australia.

As we drove around we thought perhaps one of them worked on a farm there or must have had some connection to this very small area to want to keep it alive in their new home across the world. Another mystery that will forever remain unsolved.

Our last stop was Winterbourne Stoke. I knew of St Peter’s church graveyard there and that there were some Kellows buried there.

It was still a bit wet and rainy, but I braved it and went exploring in this churchyard… and found these. They are all Kellow and appear to be part of the same family. Not part of our direct line, but they have to be related somehow. I won’t rest until I find the link.

A massive day!