Memories of Kington St Michael
by Charlene Ellis (née Morse)
Thomas Elmes/Elms was born in Kington St Michael and his wife,Catherine, in nearby Sevington. They married and raised a family of nine children in the village. These were my great-great grandparents. Their sixth child,John,was my great-grandfather who married Selina Barnett in 1858.
Selina came from Gastard but gave her address as Easton Piercy, where it is thought she was employed at the time. Catherine died in that year but Thomas lived on for a further ten years. John and Selina raised seven children, the youngest of which was my grandmother Louisa Kate (or Kate as she was known) born in 1880. She married Charlie Morse, whose family lived at Days Lane, Kington Langley. Their cottage was demolished in the late 1960s when the Malmesbury Road was dualled at the time the motorway was constructed.
After their wedding in 1899 they lived at Moorshall but by 1910 had moved to Stanton St Quintin, where my father was born in 1917. John Elms died in 1909 followed by Selina in 1916. When she died she owned a number of properties in the village, two of which we’ve identified. These are the premises presently occupied by Kington Antiques and Kington Club. Of course in those days they were a pair of cottages with gardens, the front extensions being added later.
My grandparents subsequently moved to Marshfield and then Coates and Perrotts Brook in Gloucestershire, where I was born. The family returned to Kington St Michael in 1948 where we lived at numbers 76 and 77. My grandmother having been widowed in 1944 moved into one of the Almshouses where she lived until her death in 1970.
On my marriage I moved to Swindon but my parents lived in the village until 1980 when they moved into Chippenham.
At one time it seemed that a large part of Kington St Michael was related to us but I know very few people there now. Occasionally I meet someone in the churchyard which I visit to attend family graves. From my childhood I remember most of the names of the families and those such as Bolton, Broom, Brewer, Canter, Card, Cook, Daniels, Duckett, Doughty, Dyer, Farr, Fry, Gainey, Hatt, Harris, Henley, Higgins, Jones, Mace, Messenger, Nash, Page, Rooney, Tayler, Weston, Wicks, Woolford and Young spring readily to mind.
The village policeman was PC May and the shop, now occupied by the antique shop was owned by Mr and Mrs Alley. There are other names that I recall, too numerous to mention here. I have a postcard[see below] taken about 1950/1 showing the main street and me as a little girl sat on my bike in the middle of the road.
Charlene Ellis (nee Morse)
January 2012