20th March 1646: Forced to feed soldiers
Almost at the end of the Civil War Campden was unwilling host to a large number of Parliamentarian troops. Two Roundhead colonels were up on Dover’s Hill watching the road from Evesham. The last remnants of a Royalist army were marching to try to get to Oxford to join up with the rest of their comrades. Most of the Roundhead troops had been sent into ‘Cambdin’ so that they could ‘ffeed and refresh themselves abundantly’. The report continues ‘which they did’. Provisions being already short in the town so near to the end of winter, Campdonians would have been forced to slaughter animals needed for breeding and to bring out the last of their stores to feed the hungry soldiers.
Baptist Church
March 1874: Disestablishment of the Church of England?
The status of the Church of England has more than once been a burning issue. Back in 1874 the question was to be debated in Campden. A public meeting was organised by the Baptist Minister, Rev W. R. Irvine, who had arranged a speaker supporting the suggestion of disestablishment. The meeting was crowded with supporters of the other point of view. The visiting speaker couldn’t get a word out. First there were three cheers for the Queen, three more for the House of Lords and three for the Volunteers. The promoters of the meeting received groans. Then some members of the Volunteer Corps marched in with hat-bands inscribed ‘Church and State forever.’ In the end the attempt to hold the meeting was abandoned. Mr Griffiths was then voted into the chair and those present passed an antidisestablishmentarian resolution.
As everyone knows, antidisestablishmentarianism is said to be the longest word in the English language. So that is when it became an important word in Campden.
March 1968: Loss of a postmark
Campden suffered a great loss, mainly noticed by those philatelists who collected postmarks. Up until then Chipping Campden had had its own
postmark, which was also used for mail from Ebrington. Postmarks were being rationalised all over the country and many places were hit in the same way. Complaints and objections flooded in and one Campden councillor said,
We will eventually finish up with one postmark saying England.
