BROAD TOWN NEWS JULY 2026
Keeping everyone in touch with what is going on in and around our parish.
SOCIAL CLUB
Open every Friday from 8pm and members and their guests are all welcome. If you are not a member you can join for just £3.00 for the year - just ask Trevor behind the bar. Draught beers and lagers are for sale at just £3.50 a pint and there is a free pool table, so why not pop in and check us out. Find us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/FourWaysBroadTown
Food for Thought Fish & Chips will be selling their delicious Fish and Chips (and burgers, sausages, scampi etc) outside the Village Hall from 5 – 8pm on the last Friday in the month: 26th June
17th July (note changed date)
The Social Club and bar will be open from 5pm on these Fridays so why not pop in and enjoy a drink while you are waiting for your supper!
BROAD TOWN CHRIST CHURCH
Service Dates in July:
12 July 10.30am. Morning worship
26 July. 10.30am. Communion
Cottage Tea Afternoon. Do come and join us for our Cottage Garden Tea on Saturday July 11th from 2-4pm
Queen Elizabeth Cottage, Home made cake & scones and a cup of tea. In aid of the Church Maintenance Fund.
“Christ Church Cornerstone Project”
Last year a flaw was noticed on the SE edge of the church/vestry building that was affecting the wall. Initially we needed to undertake an asbestos survey/report to confirm there wasn’t any asbestos present. The report confirmed there was no asbestos present, however it incurred a considerable cost to the church finances. We are now in the process of getting quotes for a repair which are unfortunately likely to be costly. With this in mind we are in the early stages of setting up ‘Christ Church Cornerstone Project’ that will ring fence funds specifically for this purpose. Look out for this project and fund raising during the coming months.
COMMUNITY COFFEE MORNINGS
The two dates for the Coffee Mornings in July are Wednesday 8th and Wednesday 22nd. On the 22nd we will be having a Raffle in support of Christ Church Broad Town and the proceeds will be going to the Cornerstone project which is the repair of the SE corner of the Church. We look forward to seeing you all on July 8th to enjoy homemade cakes, sausage rolls and hot drinks. A reminder that the Coffee Morning on July 22nd will be the last one before the August break.
MADE IN BROAD TOWN CRAFT AND HOBBIES GROUP
We meet on the first and third Wednesday morning, 10- noon, in the Village Hall. Everyone is welcome, join in our activity, bring your own project or just come for a drink, biscuits and a chat. June saw us continuing our macrame plant holders, they were successfully completed and looked good. Our second meeting was a group activity of pressing flowers to preserve some gorgeous flowers and greenery we’ve grown. This was our second attempt at pressing and some of the previously dried flowers were then used to make some greetings cards. July will see a meeting on the 1st, when we’ll be continuing our own crafts and then on the 15th we will have a cross stitch session when some people will have their first attempt with help from others and others will attempt something more ambitious.
We will be meeting in August and invite the younger members of the community to join us. We will be providing the materials for various crafts, some seaside related. Please feel welcome to drop in with your children for a free morning of activities, although donations will be welcome. As usual suitable refreshments will be provided, and the carers can join in or enjoy some refreshments. Any questions , please email Helen or Linda at madeinbroadtown@gmail.com
BISHOP’S LETTER
800 years ago, on 14 June 1226, an extraordinary event took place at the heart of the post-Conquest still-new Diocese of Salisbury. The bodies of three of its early bishops (Osmund, Roger, and Jocelin) were removed from their tombs in the cathedral of Old Sarum. They were brought down the hill, and reinterred in the cathedral of New Sarum, then in its seventh year of construction. It was a sign that the cathedral community’s centre of gravity had shifted decisively. Its principal place of worship and prayer was no longer the windswept hilltop, under the watchful eye of the royal garrison. The community had moved, and it was important that the remains of its former leaders should move too. In life and in death, God’s people belonged together. It was not a custom peculiar to mediaeval England. Scripture records moments when the bones of the elders are moved as the community moves. On his deathbed, the patriarch Joseph prophesies that God will deliver his people from Egypt. He asks that when that day comes his bones should be reburied in the Promised Land. We could debate the theology of such removals at length. Presumably the unity in Christ of the living and the dead is not contingent on the place where the remains of the dead are located (or, indeed, on the place where the living are resident!) But the care with which such remains were treated, and the importance attached to their being close at hand tells us something. It suggests that our forebears were prepared to view those who had led them with respect and generosity. Roger, Jocelin, and Osmund were all Norman aristocrats heavily embroiled in the politics of the new regime. Despite Osmund’s later canonization all must have made enemies (indeed, Jocelin was twice excommunicated by Archbishop Thomas Becket, martyred in 1170, while Roger’s predilection for castle-building earned him the perpetual enmity of King Stephen). Yet the community honoured them; honoured the office they had held as Bishops of the Church; honoured (perhaps) whatever good they had seen in them as they exercised that office; and continued to pray for them as brothers in the Lord’s family as they were laid to rest in the new cathedral. Many commentators have observed that these are difficult times for leaders: I write this wondering who will be our Prime Minister by the time you read it. The scrutiny leaders are under is intense and the expectations of them are high - understandably, and necessarily so. Perhaps the strange rite of 800 years ago – that solemn procession from Old Sarum to New – has something to teach us. Something about our common origin in God’s loving purposes, which puts our differences into perspective; something about the roles leaders hold which transcends the qualities or defects that they bring to them; and something about our vocation to pray constantly – and to learn to pray for those we find hard to love. Nicholas Papadopulos, Dean of Salisbury
WHAT OUR S.I.D. SAW LAST MONTH
In Summary : 41,044 vehicles passed the SID located at Broad Acres monitoring Southbound traffic (heading to Broad Hinton) which equates to approx. 912 a day. 23% of vehicles were speeding
PARISH COUNCIL
Keep up to date at https://www.broadtownparishcouncil.org.uk
Annual Audit
The Parish Council has successfully completed the annual audit with only a few observations and no recommendations. The Auditor’s report is available on the PC website in the Funding & Accounts page for the 2025/26 financial year.
Notice of Public Rights for Inspection of Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2026
As per the provisions of the Local Audit and Accountability Act 2014 and the Accounts and Audit Regulations 2015, Broad Town Parish Council has made its Annual Governance and Accountability Return (AGAR) for the year 2025-26 available for inspection by any person interested, together with all accounting records; books; deeds; contracts; bills; vouchers; receipts and other documents relating to these records. If you have any issues to raise or wish to see the full accounts please contact the Parish Clerk on clerk@broadtownparishcouncil.org.uk. In accordance with the guidelines the full accounts will be available to view for 30 working days between 10th June and the 21st July 2026.
Next PC Meeting - Monday 13th July 6.30pm in the Village Hall on 13th July. All are welcome and the agenda will be posted on our website and on the notice boards in due course.
Annual Parish Meeting
The meeting was well attended and many of the local community groups presented their reports summarising events over the year and planned for the future. The presentation notes are included in this newsletter to inform interested residents who were unable to attend.
COMMUNITY REPORTS FROM THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING
PARISH COUNCIL CHAIRMAN’S REPORT TO THE ANNUAL PARISH MEETING 26 MAY 2026
s a Parish Council we aim to work collaboratively to deliver the best results for our community. Our main aim is to improve village life and to this end we have undertaken a number of initiatives such as:- Through our representation at the Wiltshire Council Local Highway and Footway Improvement Group the Council has achieved the implementation of a speed limit on the road towards RWB. This will not only benefit the residents living outside the 30mph zone but will help to improve the road safety of customers and employees of the various businesses along the road. - Obtaining a storage container which has been placed alongside the Churchyard and sited on land owned by the Rawlins family for which the PC is grateful. This is being used to house Council equipment (in preference to relying on various individual garages) and also some of the garden machinery used for maintaining the churchyard which had outgrown the garden shed they currently use. - Including the village shelter in the Council’s insurance to ensure that it can continue to provide joy and interest for residents, schoolchildren and passing motorists
Communication. We recognise the importance of good communication and we provide a regular monthly report in the Village Newsletter to keep residents informed and publish full Minutes of all council meetings and useful information from Wiltshire Council on the Parish Council website. An email highlighting recent communications is sent to subscribers each week.
Community Fund Grants. All grant applications are considered by an independent Advisory Board of residents who provide recommendations to the Council. The Parish Council would like to offer its thanks to this group who perform a vital service in assessing the applications throughout the year.
This year we have awarded grants totalling £6,778.50 to various community groups, including a grant of £2,225 to the White Horse Restoration Group to help fund their project on surveying the white horse and documenting the history of the horse and its upkeep.
On behalf of the village, the Council would like to thank the community groups that have applied for grants. We continue to encourage other community groups to make applications for grants to help provide these wonderful and important facilities to the community of Broad Town.
2026 Precept. In January the Parish Council set an annual budget of £11,187.00 for the current financial year with an increase in the precept of 3.47% in order to cover the increase in costs of our regular expenses.
Planning. Over the course of any one year, the Parish Council provides a local perspective on planning applications and this year has been another busy year with 17 applications to consider. The role of the Parish Council is as a consultee (not a decision maker) in the planning process and we strive to fulfil this role by clearly stating the impact of the application on residents, village life and our community.
Speeding. We have been deploying our Speed Indicator Device (SID) at different locations each month over the year, and statistics are collected and an analysis of the data gathered is published in the newsletter and on the website. We can never hope to prevent all speeders but we believe that the SID, in combination with the regular sessions by the Community Speedwatch team, is having a positive effect.
Closing remarks. The current Parish Council would like to extend its grateful thanks to everyone in the village who has supported us and worked with us to help this special community flourish.
COMMUNITY COFFEE MORNINGS - Reached their 10th birthday this spring and have continued to thrive during the last year. It’s been great to see some new faces, both those new to the village and those who have lived here for a while, but who have only recently discovered coffee mornings. The standard of cakes has remained high with some interesting new flavours joining the list of traditional favourites. We are grateful to our band of volunteer bakers who are happy to be on our rota to provide ’guest’ cakes, to complement those provided by the regular CCM team.
We hope the coffee mornings continue to provide a valuable meeting place and some companionship open to all those in the village, and that they are a valuable opportunity to catch up with friends if you have perhaps been unable to see them for a while due to holiday or illness.
The generosity of our attendees has continued to amaze us and donations we have been able to make over the last year from our surplus funds have included: £200 each to our village church, and to Dressability Swindon last June. Before our summer break in August, we also had enough surplus funds to donate £300 to Breast Cancer Now following our fundraising coffee morning in late July. Our Macmillan coffee morning and raffle in September enabled us to donate £200 after a very busy and enjoyable morning.
The village Christmas coffee morning and craft sale once again proved to be a popular and busy occasion and contributed to the overall total raised for Julia’s House Children’s Hospices. We held a free raffle during the last coffee morning before Christmas as a thank you to everyone who has attended and supported our coffee mornings during the year, and for their generous refreshment donations. The proceeds from this coffee morning were also donated to Julia’s House and our village church.
Earlier this month we joined forces with Made in Broad Town and Christ Church to provide the refreshments for the village plant sale, which again proved hugely successful.
In the spring we were able to donate £250 each to the Swindon and District Samaritans and to Wiltshire Sight, and more recently, £250 to Julia’s House Children’s Hospices. Since the last parish meeting, we have donated almost £1,900 to local good causes, and in total just under £12,000 has been raised over the last ten years.
Tomorrow our local Police Community Support Officer Kelly Hillier will be attending our coffee morning, giving everyone an opportunity to discuss any pressing local issues.
We would like to thank everyone who has both helped with and attended all our coffee mornings and other events over the last year raising such a tremendous amount. We also thank the solar fund for funding our hall hire costs. Without this support we would not have been to donate so generously to charity.
We are very happy to be able to run the coffee mornings as a small contribution to the social and mental wellbeing of village residents, and the fantastic total given to charity over the last year is a testament to the generosity of our villagers, so…thank you!
The Full Monty: it was fantastic to see 85 people having fun with family, friends & neighbours enjoying their Winter Whopper, Weanie or Green Goddess breakfasts while partaking in the special auction of luxury items. Your generosity & kindness raised £1,994.56 for Prospect Hospice.
MADE IN BROAD TOWN ANNUAL PARISH MEETING REPORT 2026
During last summer Made in Broad Town continued to run their relaxing but creative sessions in which we produced shell windchimes, paper iris folding, and the first of our beginner’s watercolour sessions run by local artist Maggie, resulting in some beautiful hand painted hummingbird pictures being made. We visited our village school to help the children make their own shell windchimes to sell at their summer fair.
We continued with our sessions during August when most other groups stop for a break, and this gave villagers an opportunity to meet socially which they otherwise might not have had. We also advertised these sessions at our village school offering free entry for anyone bringing children with them, and these sessions were well attended. The children enjoyed making collages, bracelets and potato printing.October saw another of Maggie’s painting lessons and our first evening session, where glass painting took place to make items either to take home or to sell at our Christmas fair.
In early November we very much enjoyed our first visit out of the village hall. At Great Cotmarsh Farm, farmer Katie Allen gave us a fascinating talk on producing sustainable fashion from her own flock of Castlemilk Moorit sheep. We are very grateful to Katie for giving us her time and for showing us around her dye garden.
Our Christmas cracker event in late November again proved very successful. On the day itself we were very happy to have been part of another big community event and had raised just under £250 for Julia’s House Children’s Hospices.
During our last session before Christmas, we made floral decorations for our Christmas tables using oasis, candles and greenery gathered from our gardens. 2026 began with our New Year Nibbles event which helped to lift the spirits which can be a little jaded at that time of year. When not eating the tasty snacks available, everyone enjoyed discovering that old Christmas cards can be magically transformed into useful notebooks.
In February we made paper butterflies and hearts, and in March PAT testing was again carried out on our electrical equipment. Our plant sale two weeks ago saw the end of several months of effort by a wide range of people including some who don’t even attend our group, but who all helped to cultivate enough plants to make a fantastic display for our second sale. This was not so much a case of ‘Made in Broad Town’ but more ‘Grown in Broad Town’ and it was great to run it in collaboration with Christ Church who held their own plant stall, and the community coffee mornings team who provided the refreshments. This was again as much a social event for the village as a fundraising event, but we were able to raise a huge £1,202.67 for Prospect Hospice, our largest charitable donation so far. This is in addition to the amount raised by Christ Church.
Also in May we launched our Broad Town 100 Project to try and create 100 ‘mini projects’ in the village to encourage more wildlife and increase biodiversity. Inspired by it being Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday, we gave away seeds and worked with our village school children to help them plant up the wooden planters we had made for their school playground out of upcycled pallets. Each child also planted a sunflower seed to take home together with some runner bean seeds. We will shortly be putting up a nest box, bug hotel and bat box in suitable locations around the village, and we will be returning to the school in the autumn to help them plant a wildlife friendly tree and some spring flowering bulbs. We are also looking forward to receiving photographs of villagers’ wildlife-friendly mini projects later in the summer, which we will display at the Saturday coffee morning on September 12th.
We often receive lovely comments from our attendees about how much they have enjoyed coming along to a session, which is always good and makes us think that we are offering something that people really enjoy. Some of our attendees just enjoy watching what is going on and chatting to others so there is no pressure to take part in the creative side of things, and there’s always simply the joy in discovering which new biscuits have been added to the box that week! Although we are open to any age and gender, we are still struggling to get more men to come along to the group.
Over the last year we have raised £1,450 for good causes. We have also increased our organising group to five people to broaden the range of skills offered, and we have already made good use of our new SumUp electronic payment machine, both to take payments during the recent plant sale, and to take £2 contributions at our regular Wednesday sessions. We hope we have continued to provide a meeting place for villagers which provides social interaction, improves physical dexterity and mental health, and we hope to continue on this basis into the future. We would like to thank the solar income fund for their continued support in enabling us to run the group on a voluntary payment basis which means the removal of any monetary barriers to participation. Lastly, we would like to thank the people of Broad Town for their continued support, whether that is through attending our sessions, buying our items, or by making and growing things for us to sell, whether they attend our sessions or not. In a small village such as Broad Town, the social function of the group is probably more important than the fundraising aspect, and we hope to be able to continue to run the group to maintain this important role.
BROAD TOWN SID Activity summary 21st April 2025 to 28th April 2026
We thank the Parish Council for purchasing, installing and operating the SID every month for BT residents. Working 24/7 the SID captured 328,174 passing vehicles in the last year (note the SID only captures data in one direction).
The year on year comparisons very sadly indicate our first reversal in trend (this has been raised with Sarah Holden (Wiltshire Police's Road Safety Supervisor) and also Kellie Hillier (RWB PCSO). Our latest year on year figures suggest that the reduction of speed limit to 40mph on the C415 from RWB can’t come soon enough.
Would a pavement in the new reduced 40mph change a driver’s perception of risk making them choose to decrease their speed?
Is there any merit in operating a second SID in BT?
Broad Town have exhausted all the measures previously recommended to address speeding issues e.g. Roundels, gates, road narrowing lines, CSW and the SID so can we now ask that the Parish Council, Wiltshire Council and the Police investigate and propose other ways of stopping Commuters from treating Broad Town like the Autobahn!
BROAD TOWN HISTORY WEBSITE We’re very grateful to the Parish Council for funding the Broad Town history plan (costing £403.20 (inc VAT £67.20) for a 2 year period (5th Jul 2025 to 5th July 2027) and the website domain (costing £57.96 (inc VAT £9.66) for a 2 year period (5th August 2025 to 5th August 2027)). The overall trend for site sessions continues to gently increase year on year. The majority of users are UK based, however, the site is regularly visited by users in the US, Germany, Austria, France and Iceland. Activities since the last report are :
• Revamped the site to place all documents, maps, piccies etc. on a map with clickable location markers to replace the lists that were outgrowing the page size. (www.broadtownhistory.com/places)
• Andrew Law’s BT in pictures paper (www.broadtownhistory.com/andrewlaw)
• Added a professional Researcher’s research on #29 Broad Town (www.broadtownhistory.com/29broadtown)
• Added 17 papers on digs and excavations written by Bob Clarke to Places map (www.broadtownhistory.com/_files/ugd/034dc9_56778331003c49dbb101b5fdb98d17c6.pdf)
• Added approx. 30 historic newspaper articles (www.broadtownhistory.com/newspaperclippings)
• Added Snowhill & updated Cobblers Hall to Places map (www.broadtownhistory.com/_files/ugd/034dc9_dcf88d9b52764a5a9620761067ada670.pdf?index=true)
• Added 3 x AI reconstructions of how BT would have looked in the early 1900’s (Coming in from RWB, Mill / Brewery & Coming in from Broad Hinton)
• Added Goldborough resting stone (www.broadtownhistory.com/_files/ugd/034dc9_13fd24a341da41e68f8440542d42d300.pdf)
• Added the results of White Horse Project (www.broadtownhistory.com/whitehorseproject)
Usage since the last report: on average 67 sessions were held every month and 19.6gb of our 50gb storage allowance has been used.
CHRIST CHURCH BROAD TOWN
With the absence of a vicar and churchwarden, it has been a busy year with the PCC working hard as a team, sharing the roles and keeping the church running smoothly. Time has been spent planning for the maintenance of the church building and churchyard, organising services, fundraising and preparing a Benefice Profile to support the advertisement for a new rector. A small team of clergy and lay worship leaders have enabled us to have a minimum of one communion service and one lay led service each month, services to celebrate Christmas, Easter, a marriage and sadly a number of funeral and burial of ashes services. We have also been delighted to welcome our village school for their harvest, Christmas, Easter and end of year leaver service where we give a young person’s bible to each leaver. We are grateful to the volunteers from the village and beyond who clean the church and provide flowers for these services. Numbers attending regularly remain small.
The church also supports the Open the Book team who go twice a month into Broad Town School to perform bible stories in school assemblies. The children really enjoy watching and taking part. The bible Society fee is funded by St Barts Church RWB from a legacy left by Gill Thompson who taught for many years at Broad Town school.
The church building has given us a few headaches! However, we were able to make the heating system safe so that once again we have the warmest church in the Benefice – well that is what we think. We are however mindful that the heaters are old and will need replacing at some point. Having just sorted out the heating we had an issue with an area of water seepage leading to a small area of unstable masonry. During investigation it was suggested that there may be asbestos present resulting in a thorough and nerve-racking survey of the church. Thankfully no asbestos was found. We are now in the process of getting quotes to solve the initial problem. We have also been logging and repairing or replacing the memorial plaques on the back of the church seats. This has been an interesting project with many longstanding Broad Town family names stirring memories! It began with requests for new plaques which we are able to source at no cost, but people have kindly made donations.
The churchyard is a beautiful and tranquil place for people to visit, reflect and relax. A surprisingly large number of people visit graves, often travelling some distance and they make very favourable comments. This is only possible thanks to the large number of volunteers who give their time and energy to create this special space. We are grateful to all the volunteers who keep the graves tidy, maintain the benches, cut the grass outside the church and those who join the working party each month. You do a fantastic job! We are also grateful to the Parish Council for giving us space in their container to store mowers and other equipment, the solar farm fund for the grant which enables the funding of the running and maintenance costs of the working party and the employment of a contractor to cut the main area of grass.
Our two main fundraising activities were the very successful plant stall and Christmas fayre both in conjunction with Made in Broad Town. Money raised from fundraising events goes into the account used to maintains the fabric of the church and churchyard and money raised at these two events was invaluable in helping with the costs of repairing the heating system and the asbestos survey. The account which covers the general running costs of Christ Church is funded through plate collections, monthly giving, the 100 club and private donation. We were able to cover all expenses except our parish share which is by far our biggest outgoing. It has not been paid in full for some time - last year we were able to pay more than 50%. Currently we are planning an afternoon tea at Queen Elizabeth Cottage in July and a stall in RWB market in September.
Looking forward, we hope and pray that in the near future, a new rector will be appointed who is able to breathe new life into the church and community. So far, two adverts have been placed,
WILTSHIRE & SWINDON PCC
Volunteers Week
https://wiltshirepcc-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/pcc-parish-column-4
RE-ISSUE: Home Office funding to support targeted action on serious violence in Wiltshire and Swindon
Home Office funding to support targeted action on serious violence in Wiltshire and Swindon https://wiltshirepcc-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/home-office-funding-to-support-targeted-action-on-serious-violence-in-wiltshire-and-swindon
Plans confirmed to invest £5.3m in victim support, crime prevention and community safety https://wiltshirepcc-newsroom.prgloo.com/news/plans-confirmed-to-invest-gbp-5-3m-in-victim-support-crime-prevention-and-community-safety.
PLEASE NOTE that all copy to be included in the next edition should be emailed to: BroadTownNews@gmail.com by the 22nd of EVERY month. Any queries should also be sent to this address.