"The World Turned Upside Down"....The Levellers today ..... on the wireless

Now I have always been fascinated by that upsurge of political debate before, during and after the English Civil War.

An Agreement of the People, 1647

From discussions on politics and democracy, to arguments about how the land and wealth should be more equitablty distributed, to competing religious visions,  the middle decades of the 17th century had the lot.

I often return to the Putney Debates when the army of Parliament sat down and talked out the future of England  after the Civil War.  Debates which were echoed again in Februray 1944 when members of the Eighth Army in Cairo, met, and debated on their expectations of a post war Britain, voting for the nationalisation of banks, land, mines, and transport in the United Kingdom.*

All of which means I have booked my seat beside the wireless today to listen to the "Levellers", from the BBC Radio Four programme In Our Time.**

In which "Misha Glenny and guests discuss the group which came to be known as the Levellers and emerged during what would become arguably one of the bloodiest and most turbulent periods of English history. 

After the First English Civil War, the Levellers started calling for reforms to achieve legal and social equality. They pushed for a new constitution, extended franchise, popular sovereignty, and religious toleration. 

To do this, the Levellers pioneered the use of pamphlets and petitions, as well as taking to the streets in their thousands to demonstrate wearing their signature sea-green ribbons and sprigs of rosemary. 

To some they were radical, and to others not radical enough. Though the Leveller movement itself may have been short-lived, the arguments that they made have both inspired and challenged generations since.

Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024

With, Teresa Bejan, Professor of Political Theory and Fellow of Oriel College, University of Oxford, Ted Vallance, Professor of History and Dean of Research and Doctoral Study at the University of Roehampton, and, Clare Jackson, Honorary Professor of Early Modern History and Walter Grant Scott Fellow in History at Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen"

And because I can I will remember the three soldiers who were sympatheic to the Levellers and who took part in the Banbury Mutiny and were executed.

Location;In Our Time, BBC, Radio 4

Burford Church, 2024

Pictures; An Agreement of the People, 1647,Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024, and Burford Church, 2024 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

 *Cairo Forces Parliament, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairo_Forces_Parliament as well as The Troops' Parliament, Karl Hansen, Tribune, May 8, 2023, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/05/the-troops-parliament and The Desert Parliament , Olivia Humphreys October 26th, 2019, Tribune, https://tribunemag.co.uk/2019/10/the-desert-parliament

**The Levellers, In Our Time, BBC, Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002wkhq 

Adventures in Middle England …... no. 6 … a pint ..... a pub .... and a bit of history

This is the story of two country pubs …. both “half as old as time” and both fascinating places whose stories can only best be shared over a pint on a warm summer’s day with the old couple in the corner.

The Bewicke Arms, 2024

Ideally such pubs are best “chance discoveries” which you come across on one of those aimless trips down country lanes with no purpose other than to find out what’s around the corner.

This way of exploring somewhere to drink, is in start contrast to those friends of mine who buy the guides to pubs and during quiet winter evenings plan the spring and summer day outs with the option on a series of stay overs.

But for us falling across The Bewicke Arms was pure chance on a day when we had hit on the village of Hallaton.  

Sadly it was closed but a quick glance on line offered this from CAMRA,  “17th century pub, thatched roof and low beams, but modernised interior. 

A sign to light the way, 2024

Pub reopened August 2023 after a long period of closure. Popular for Thai food. No bus service to Hallaton these days.  The pub is located within a grade 2 listed building”.*

And that led me back to Historic England who told me it was a listed as a Grade II building in 1984 describing it as a “Public house and dwelling. Late C16 - early C17. Render over ironstone rubble with thatched roof. 2 storeyed, large 2-unit plan with gabled right hand bay containing canted bay window to ground floor and 3-light casement above. 

Doorway left of this, and a 3-light casement beyond it. 2 other upper 3-light casements. Fenestration probably C19 or C20. Coped gables. Gable and axial stacks”.**

Now, Hallaton is a small village of just over 590 people about 17 miles from Leicester and despite CAMRA’s dismal warning, there does appear a bus.  

In Hallaton walls have their own flowers, 2024

And for those who are interested it’s the 747 from the Haymarket bus station in Leicester, takes  36 minutes but and there always is a but there is only one every four hours.

So best watch the time before ordering another round of drinks in The Bewicke Arms, which brings me back to the pub which I know was run by a Thomas Peck in 1891.  He was 79 a widow and was assisted by his daughter Phobe and Sarah Simpkin who described herself as a “General Servant was aged 14 and like the Peck’s had been born in Hallaton.

Back then the occupants of the village derived their living from the land, and associated trades like blacksmith with a high proportion working for the railway, along with some charwomen, a grocer, butcher, a dressmaker and the schoolteacher.

A decade later the job profile had changed little, and the population stood at 609.

In the fulness of time I will dig deeper into the village and perhaps we will return during opening times.

The pub in Great Tew, 2024

And that is what we had done when we visited the Falklands Arms in Great Tew.  

It dates from the 16th century, and the interior is all you would expect from an old pub in the heart of a rural village.

The rooms are small, boast wood and stone floors with a mix of panelling and bare brick walls.

All of which is perfect for a night with a series of pints pondering on the pubs stories, but that is a tad unhistorical and so I shall go offer and look its past in the historical records.

Inside with stories from the 16th century, 2024

But not before I call back the memories of similar nights in the pubs of Kent which were just a short journey from Eltham, that bit of south east London where I grew up.

Never underestimate  the joy of being 18 with friends who not only had cars but didn't drink, all of which was a recipe for long summer evenings exploring picturesque villages and sampling rough cider at a shilling a pint.

But that is for another time.

Location; Hallaton & Great Tew

Pictures; pubs with history, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Bewicke Arms, Hallaton, CAMRA, https://www1.camra.org.uk/pubs/bewicke-arms-hallaton-174431

** The Bewicke Arms Public House, Historic England, https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1061672?section=official-list-entry

Census returns, 1891 & 1901, Enu 4 Hallaton, Leicestershire

Adventures in Middle England ……… from Leicestershire into the Cotswolds … No. 4 ..... fields … the empty road …. and no one to talk to

 I had forgotten just how quiet and empty bits of Britain can be

It’s an obvious observation but when you live in a city which is at the heart of an urban region it is possible to traverse a heap of other neighbouring cities and towns along with their suburbs without encountering a field, a farm or flocks of sheep and the odd herd of cattle.

True if you take to the motorways, you do get glimpses of fields, which may host a tractor, a rusty piece of farm equipment and some livestock, but the speed of travel means they are gone in a glance.

Not so if you choose to travel by country lanes, advised of course by Sidney Sat Nav and accompanied by Vera the Voice whose pronunciation of places can at times be eccentric.

The lanes and small roads my twist and become incredibly narrow while the occasional lumbering tractor creates a backlog of snaking traffic but it’s worth it.

Worth it because setting aside the tractor, there can be so many surprises from the wealth of wildflowers that grow beside the road, to the tunnels of trees which envelope you and the variety of cottages which just hove into view.

And to these can be added the sleepy villages, some more picturesque than others, which may still boast a pub but will almost certainly have a church with or without medieval bits and which if you are very lucky may be open to casual visitors.

Nearly 60 years ago on an ill-advised holiday when six of us booked a four berth caravan in Dorset  I remember the day we had gone our separate ways for the afternoon and I came across a small church in the middle of nowhere.

The door was unlocked, and I was the only occupant.  

The sunlight shone through the stained-glass windows illuminating specks of dust and casting shadows across the pulpit, font and stone tomb of a long dead squire and his wife.

But it was the mix of silence save for the ticking clock in the tower and the coolness of the interior which struck me after the fierce heat of the summer sun and the incessant buzz of insects which had accompanied me to the church door.

It was an experience only bettered when aged nine I was allowed to wander off from my grandparent’s house in a village outside Derby and explore the empty lanes, where nothing stirred in the heat of the day apart from the flitting butterflies and that hum from the telegraph wires.

For a boy from southeast London, it was magical if a little unnerving given that I never came across a soul, and only had those finger posts at crossroads as a point of reference.

Still, I never got lost, and the worst that happened was a bit of sun burn and a scolding for being late for tea.

Location; across Leicestershire into the Cotswold

Pictures; journeys in a rural background, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

Adventures in Middle England ……… from Leicestershire into the Cotswolds … No. 2 ..... a mutiny

 This is St John The Baptist in Burford, and it was here that three soldiers of the New Model Army were executed in 1649, following a mutiny over pay and political demands.

Burford Church, 2024

The issue of back pay was resolved, but the political demands went back to the Putney Debates which occurred two years earlier when in the middle of a bitter Civil War in which one in four died the army of Parliament sat down to discuss the future of England after the war with the King.

An Agreement of the People, 1647

Reading the discussions there is something very modern about the position of Colonel Rainsborough who argued that “... the poorest he that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest he; and therefore truly, Sir, I think it's clear, that every man that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put himself under that government; and I do think that the poorest man in England is not bound in a strict sense to that government that he hath not had a voice to put himself under...”

And this in turn reminded me of the Forces Parliaments which took place in the British Army in India and Egypt during the Second World War.  The Cairo Forces Parliament met in February 1944 and voted for the nationalization of the banks, land, mines and transport.

In their way it replicated those debates three hundred years earlier where the men who were fighting debated the future they wanted.

Now the Putney Debates and much more of the visions of the men who fought for Parliament was never taught to me.  

Part of the reason may well have been that the records of the discussions were lost until the beginning of the 20th century but I suspect the absence of this story may also be down to content.

Inside the church, 2024

In an age when history was still taught from top down the idea that there should be an alternative history where ordinary people wanted a share in how their country was run and believed that they had as much a right to that say as the rich and powerful was indeed a challenging one.

And in the case of the three soldiers who were executed it ran against the opinions and interests of the leading members of the army.

The mutineers were Levellers who had argued at Putney for a radical vision of the future including  popular sovereignty, extended suffrage, equality before the law and religious tolerance.

Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson, 2024

Dissatisfied with the opposition from the leading members of the army known as the Grandees, 400 troopers under the command of Captain William Thompson who were sympathetic to the Levellers set off from Banbury, where they were billeted, to speak with other regiments at Salisbury about their political demands.

The unit was engaged by loyalist forces, defeated, imprisoned in Burford Church where three of the the leaders were shot:

These were  Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson on  May  17th 1649.

According to the church web site “during their imprisonment,[ some of the the imprisoned  prisoners] left evidence of their time there, in particular a carving by Anthony Sedley in the lead on the font, which is dated 1649. There is also a "nine men's morris" board carved into one of the tombs in the Bartholomew Aisle”.

Walking into the church, 2024

It was by chance that as we headed through the Cotswolds last week we realized we would pass close to Burford, and so chose to break the journey, and after a fine meal at the Angel Inn headed on to the church and the rest is a collection of pictures and sense of walking through a bit of our radical history.

And ever since 1975 people gather each year to remember the Levellers, the Putney Debates and  Private John Church, Corporal Perkins, and Cornet James Thompson.** 

Location; Burford

Pictures; An Agreement of the People, 1647, and the church at Burford, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Levellers, Burford Church, https://www.burfordchurch.org/the-levellers

**Levellers Day, https://levellersday.wordpress.com/whats-happening-2024/