Here is what he has shared.
From AD 950 to 1650, Frome was larger than Bath and originally grew due to the wool and cloth industries based here, helping to make Frome one of the wealthiest towns in the South West. It later diversified into metalworking and printing, although these have declined in the last 50 years.
The town grew substantially in the 20th century but still retains a very large number of listed buildings, however much of the substantial architecture and older buildings from the 1300’s, 1400’s and 1500’s have long since disappeared.
Or have they?
Many of the older streets in Frome have remained unchanged in their layout for a thousand years, and many of the buildings you now see dating from the 1700, 1800 and 1900 are in fact ‘modernised’ versions of the original, much older buildings that originally stood there. To this day, many share the same foundations, cellars and in some cases main support walls and other features of the original building. A good example of this is the Wheat Sheaves Inn on Bath Street, which has an 18th Century façade created when Bath Street was cut, but underneath and in the cellars, the medieval walls, archways and other structures remain.
Our excavation work and research continues, however, if the stories and myths about extensive tunnels prove to be as extensive as suggested, they all seem to originate from the older sites in the town from the time when Frome became more prosperous (1200 - 1700), although above ground the buildings have changed or even been completely replaced.
The earliest reliable maps we have date back only to the 1700’s, and are patchy at best. Other than the street plan north of the town centre, we have very little to go on and much of what Frome looked like before the late 1700’s is now lost.
We would particularly like to hear from anyone who has knowledge of this lost period of Frome’s history, 1200-1700 or is familiar with any of the older buildings in or around Frome – to help us piece together the background to why so many tunnels were apparently created here!
Source - The Frome Tunnel Team
People often ask us ‘why are there secret tunnels in Frome?’ This is a very good question and is not easy to answer, although we have formed some opinions. Also it would appear that Frome is not that unusual in having such stories, since many older towns and cities in the UK have similar stories and a few still have access to them. What seems unusual about Frome is that the stories involve such a complex and extensive network in such a relatively small place.
Although the history of Frome reputedly begins in the 7th century AD - about 685 AD the Abbot of Malmesbury, St Aldhelm, founded a monastery here and it is supposed that settlement grew up around. In fact, traces of settlement have been found dating from the bronze age and the Romans left many traces in the surrounding area. In the 9th century Alfred the Great created a network of fortified settlements across his kingdom. In the event of a Danish attack all the men in the area would gather in the local burgh to fight them. If Frome was a burgh a ditch and an earth rampart would have surrounded it with a wooden stockade on top. In 934 the king held a meeting of the Witangemot (a kind of Saxon parliament) at Frome. (Source: wwwlocalhistories.org)
No comments:
Post a Comment