You've ‘fallen down a rabbit hole’

I left the car at the farm shop at Stancombe Beech this morning and walked along the lane. I wanted to look at these trees on the neighbouring farm as I’d seen an old map yesterday which showed this spot marked as ‘The Wittantree’. I’ve known about this place as it is now called Wittantree Farm.

I’ve always been interested in the idea of a ‘Wittan’ because historically it would be the name for an important local meeting place:
The Witan (Old English: witena ġemōt; Modern English: ‘meeting of wise men’) was the term used to describe the council summoned by Anglo-Saxon kings, which operated from before the 7th century until the 11th century. These meetings of aldermen, thanes and bishops discussed royal grants of land, church matters, charters, taxation, customary law, defence and foreign policy.

They were also important locally as meeting places, particularly where the old administrative districts called Hundreds would have their meetings. The local village here is called Bisley, and before Stroud became the administrative centre in about 1360, it gave its name to Bisley Hundred.

This copse I’ve photographed is about where 'The Wittantree' would have stood. I must go and examine there more closely and ask at the farm for more information, which I doubt they will know. Whilst standing there today I noticed the poor state of the Cotswold stone walling which is becoming more and more common hereabouts.

I did a search for ‘The Wittantree’ online when I was preparing this blip and came across a mention of it in Laurie Lee’s book ‘Down in the valley: a writer’s landscape’, which I haven’t read. He mentions that he started a small local publishing firm with Frank Mansell, and
.....  ‘between us we set up ‘The Wittantree Press’. It was named after an old tree, a windswept tree, which is bent from the west to the east by the prevailing wind. He always felt that the way he walked bore that kind of windswept look about it, and he was absolutely right. Coming back from the pub in Bisley, after his drink, which was known as the Old Peculier, this gave him that sort of inclination. An inclination that I shared.’ ….. ‘And I remember his voice, he read his poems as naturally as birdsong and I can remember them now. I read one at his funeral, ‘Cotswold Choice’. My eyes are going, I can’t read them now but I can hear him, under this tree, and among these stone walls, I can hear his voice saying:

‘From Wittantree tree and Througham fields,
from Miserden and Slad
grand would I walk through summer
and happy times I’ve had.’

'Frank you’ll forgive me not being able to remember your verse with all its natural glory, I’m making it up a bit and editing it as I go along, t’wasn’t half as good as your original, Frank. See you later in the Butcher’s Arms. Sleep well, old lad.’
from ‘Down in the valley: a writer’s landscape’, by Laurie Lee.

This discovery was rather moving for me because when I first came to this area in 1975 with George Galitzine, it was to work for his friend, Richard Courtauld, a local farmer. Richard set up his own small press through which he then published Frank Mansell’s ‘Cotswold Ballads’ in which you can find the poem Laurie Lee is remembering, ‘Cotswold Choice’. When the book was launched at his farm, I met Frank Mansell, and bought a copy of his wonderful book. (I think I should blip the cover of it one day.)

I thought Helena’s comment to me after I told her how this story unravelled today, was very appropriate. She said I had like Alice, ‘fallen down a rabbit hole’.