Blanche Parry

Footpaths, Roads and Tracks

Most of the paths and tracks you are walking, cycling (or roads: driving) along are very old indeed. If a footpath joins a road then originally there were three tracks that joined at this point. Why? What was there for people to come from different directions so often as to form a distinct track in the landscape. Also look for curves in the road. What did the road have to avoid? At Rowlestone (see below) it was an Iron Age enclosure whose ramparts were still visible. A deep road or path, below the level of the fields on either side, usually shows a very ancient way, worn down by all those feet that came before you...

You could also try some hedge dating ‐ see last section.

Tyberton

From an Old English name + OE tun, a fenced complex of buildings, homestead or estate.
Possibly, but less likely, to be from Welsh ty, house as the complete name is Tyber or similar.

Church: St. Mary

The present Church, built 1719‐20 in the grounds of Tyberton Court (demolished 1952), replaced a Norman church, though the stone south door was retained. Described (by Mowl & Earnshaw, see Reference Books) as 'a very modest brick building', it was paid for by William Brydges, local landowner and cousin of the 1st Duke of Chandos, probably to commemorate his first wife, died 1718.
Although Sugwas was a port on the mercurial River Wye (shallow in summer, flooding in winter) it is likely the bricks were made on site as field 15 Brick Kiln Hopyard (Tibberton) is very near.
Bridges' second marriage led to the rebuild of Tyberton Court and he retained the architect John Wood the Elder (1704‐1754) to complete the house's interior.
John Wood's later fame was due to his designing many of the new buildings in Bath, including both Parades and the Circus, while other projects included Llandaff Cathedral. Pevsner described him as 'one of the outstanding architects of the day'.
William Brydges also retained John Wood to design and build an oak reredos lining a plaster apse, itself fitted inside the square altar end of the Church. In their correspondence Wood never calls this a Communion Table but always the Anglo‐Catholic, High Church term 'altar'. He reused his designs for the Circus in Bath. This refurnished apse was possibly to commemorate Brydges' father, died 1727.
Wood's inspiration was 17th century Jacobean, the iconography that of the Anglican, Laudian Church (see Dore Abbey), with additional mystical symbols popular in the 17th century. The reredos, carved in bold relief, has 4 festoons of carved entwined cord each with 3 trophies. The left&hyphen and right‐hand festoons duplicate Christ's Passion, a device to impress a kneeling worshipper. Religiosity combines with Freemasonry symbolism, photographs available in Mowl & Earnshaw.
See: The AbbeyDore Deanery
In the 19th century the Tyberton estate passed by marriage to the wealthy Lee Warner family of Walsingham Abbey in Norfolk. In 1861 the household at Tyberton consisted of Daniel Lee Warner, his wife and 6 children and 16 servants ranging from the butler to the 13 year old page.

In the 19^th century the Tyberton estate passed by marriage to the wealthy Lee Warner family of Walsingham Abbey in Norfolk. In 1861 the household at Tyberton consisted of Daniel Lee Warner, his wife and 6 children and 16 servants ranging from the butler to the 13 year old page.

Compline

Compline, the final Christian Church Service of the day, at about 7 p.m., for Benedictine monks.
Prayers were offered at 7 fixed, canonical, times during the day and once in the night. New research shows that having two periods of sleep was normal for thousands of years for everyone: first sleep / the watch / morning sleep. The 'watch', usually about midnight to c. 2 am, is recorded as being used for cooking, cleaning, working, sex, talking, study, anything until one was tired and went back to sleep. The Church followed normal practice in having this break, for a Service, in the night. Rembrandt's painting 'The Night Watch' uses the term. Sleeping patterns altered with The Industrial Revolution when gas, and then electric, light became prevalent and people did not go to bed at sunset.