Shropshire Routes to Roots - Sources and collections

Lydbury North

Contents

1. Lords of Lydbury North
2. Walcot House
3. Estate managers
4. Estate labourers
5. Other buildings
6. Quiz

Quiz answers

Here are the answers to the Lydbury North quiz.

1. What caused the initial decline in the traditional way of life at Lydbury North?
   • a) This is not true. The Powis Estate was central to the community. This state of affairs continued with most of the villagers being employed by the estate in some capacity up to the outbreak of hostilities in 1914.
   • b) Correct. Many lost members of their family at the Front.
   • c) The role of central government did result in the diminishing of influence by the Powis Estate, but it was not the initial reason for the change in the way of life in the village.
2. How many years ago was Bury Ditches constructed?
   • a) Incorrect: this would make the hillfort medieval.
   • b) Incorrect: 1000 years ago the Normans were preparing to invade Britain. They constructed other types of defensive sites, in particular Motte and Bailey Castles.
   • c) Correct. The Iron Age is the period in which most hillforts were built. The Iron Age finishes with the invasion of Britain in 43AD by the Romans. However, many consider that Bury Ditches is in fact Bronze Age in date making it around 3000 years old.
3. What labour force would have been involved in creating a hillfort like Bury Ditches?
   • a) Correct: the construction of such a large monument would have involved a large organised and skillful workforce. They would have had simple implements of flint, bronze and possibly later iron.Women and children would have helped in moving soil and other materials in baskets and buckets.
   • b) Incorrect: this was not a specialised activity, but would have included any manpower available.
   • c) Incorrect: although these are defensive sites many Iron Age hillforts had a predominantly agricultural role. Many could be best described as defended enclosures.
4. How high are the banks at Bury Ditches?
   • a) Incorrect: many hillforts have ramparts which do not appear to be much more than this. However often the ditches have silted up and at Bury Ditches they are significantly deeper.
   • b) Incorrect: 1 metre high banks even with a palisade on the top would have not afforded sufficient protection.
   • c) Correct: some of the banks stand up to 7 metres (over 20 feet in height). These are equivalent to the great ramparts at Maiden Castle and Old Oswestry.
5. Name one of the families who went to the Holy Land on Crusades and came back to have chapels named after them in their parish church?
   • a) Correct: local tradition has it that Roger Plowden built a chapel to give thanks for his escape from prison while on a Holy Crusade.
   • b) Incorrect: Lord Clive of India did live at Walcot Hall, but he did not dedicate a chapel in the parish Church.
   • c) Incorrect: a member of the Oakeley's did indeed travel to the Holy Land along with the Plowden's and Walcot's, but did not create a chapel on his return.
   • d) Correct: a member of the Walcot family vowed he would create an altar in his parish church on his safe return from the Crusades.
6. What contribution did Mr. Douglas make at Walcot?
   • a) Incorrect: Although his father had been a blacksmith.
   • b) Incorrect: Lord Clive of India's son created the arboretum and began the collection of exotic seeds.
   • c) Correct: Mr. Douglas is said to have given Lord Powis seeds from a fir tree. The tree is now known as the "Douglas Fir", and Walcot Arboretum has some of the oldest in England.
7. What is Lord Clive of India principally famous for?
   • a) Correct: In less than ten years Lord Clive laid the foundations of the 'Raj', the British Empire in India.
   • b)Incorrect: Although Lord Clive did restore order after the incident in which the Nawab, or ruler of Bengal, imprisoned 146 British men and women in a room 20 feet square one hot night. By the following morning only 23 were still alive. Lord Clive recaptured Calcutta and defeated the Nawab's forces.
   • c)Incorrect: Lord Clive did however live at Walcot Hall for a time. He returned from India in 1752 with a tremendous fortune but within three years he had spent most of it and returned to India.
8. What morbid reminder of the Civil War is present at St. Michael's Parish Church?
   • a) Incorrect: The chapels were built at the time of the Crusades, not during the Civil War. However the Walcot's are known to have been staunch Royalists.
   • b) Correct: these are considered to be the result of an execution carried out during the Civil War.
   • c) Incorrect: Although the candlesticks date from the Civil War they are probably a consequence of Archbishop Lauds reforms. Archbishop Laud was one of King Charles I's principal advisors. His intolerant policies towards the Puritans contributed to the origins of the Civil War.

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