The Rank, North Bradley | One-Place Study

Something festive for the end of the year!

Amelia Kate Alford (known as Kate) was born in 1869, the youngest of eight children. The Alford family were a long-standing fixture on The Rank; John Alford and his wife Hannah, Kate’s parents, lived there for over five decades, appearing on The Rank in every census from 1861 to 1901.

Frank George Snelgrove was born in Yarnbrook, very close to North Bradley, in 1865.

In 1888, Frank and Kate were married at the church of St Nicholas in North Bradley. They chose a good day for celebrating a wedding – Christmas Day, in fact.

The Snelgroves, with Kate under her married name, appear on The Rank as a family for the first time in 1891, three years after Frank and Kate’ s marriage. By that point, their eldest daughter Mabel had been born, and their second daughter Emily was born shortly afterwards.

On 31st December 1938, Frank and Kate’s wedding anniversary was reported in the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser, having reached the golden milestone:

Christmas Day this year had extra significance for Mr. and Mrs. Frank Snelgrove, who live just outside Southwick, on the Trowbridge Road. It was the fiftieth anniversary of their wedding, which took place upon Christmas Day, 1888, in the Church of St. Nicholas, North Bradley, being solemnised by the Rev. Mr. Merewether, who was then the Vicar.

As the golden wedding day comes but once in a life-time, Mr. and Mrs. Snelgrove were naturally very pleased and happy about it, and they had many interesting things to say when a “Wiltshire Times” reporter and the photographer called upon them in honour of the event. These two, incidentally, the couple made very welcome – neither of the two journalists had ever tasted more pleasant or more potent home-made dandelion wine!

Both Mr. and Mrs. Snelgrove were brought up in North Bradley. Mr. Snelgrove, when he left school, went to work in a Trowbridge cloth factory, which now goes under the name of Salters.

The articles goes on to give a very sweet story about Frank and Kate passing each other, but never quite meeting, on their respective journeys to work:

When Mr. Snelgrove began his life’s work he had to walk each morning from his North Bradley home to the factory, and each evening walk the same distance – nearly three miles – on the return journey. To make this even more astonishing to the present generation, whose work is not so exacting, Mr. Snelgrove had to be at work by six in the morning, and he did not leave until a full 12 hours had ticked away, for work did not cease until six in the evening. (…)

An hour after Mr. Snelgrove set out for Trowbridge in those strenuous days, a handsome young girl would leave her father’s house and set out to do the same journey. She was a dressmaker employed by Miss Marks, whose “dressmaking establishment” was situated in Roundstone Street. After working hard all day, she left the shop at 7 p.m. – an hour after the clothworker – and walked back to her home. Thus this girl, Miss Alford her name was, and young Mr. Snelgrove were never on the road at the same time, and yet it happened, as these things do happen, that the two became friends, were engaged, and then were married, and these are the two around whom this story is written. This was when Mr. Snelgrove was 23 and Miss Alford 20.

Once married, the couple moved to The Rank:

The young couple made their home at The Rank, North Bradley, and lived in the same house for 43 years. The husband continued to walk to his work in the town until he was able to buy himself a bicycle. At home he found plenty to do, for besides his garden he kept a few pigs and fowls.

There is a lovely photograph alongside the article – sadly the scan isn’t brilliant, but it is clear evidence to support the reporter’s claim in another part of the article when they state that Frank could have been a man of 60, rather than 73, as he actually was!

On 7th January 1939 (the month after their golden anniversary), in a feature called ‘The March of Time’, highlighting stories from the newspaper’s archives 25, 50, and 75 years prior, the Wiltshire Times and Trowbridge Advertiser re-prints the report of the Snelgroves’ silver anniversary twenty-five years earlier, in January 1914:

SILVER WEDDING – The silver wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Snelgrove, of North Bradley, was celebrated on Christmas Day, they having been married at St. Nicholas Church, North Bradley, on Christmas Day, 1888.

There was a good attendance of guests and with the cutting of the cake, the chief toast was “that not only would Mr. and Mrs. Snelgrove live to see their golden wedding, but that they would break the hostess’s father and mother’s record, which was 59 years and six months.”

As for breaking Kate’s parents’ record, they very nearly managed it.

Frank George Snelgrove died on 8th December 1946, at the age of 81. Their marriage lasted just short of 58 years; another 18 months and they would have matched the family record, set by John and Hannah Alford. Kate lived for another fourteen years, passing away in 1960 at the impressive age of 91.

Frank and Kate were an enduring presence on The Rank for much of the time period covered by this One-Place Study, so, just because it’s Christmas, let’s raise a toast to the Snelgroves, whose secret technique for wine-making is preserved and passed down to us at the end of the 1938 article:

Lastly, here is an excellent piece of advice: If you want to make dandelion wine, pick the flowers when the sun is on them – two appreciative visitors can vouch for the increased flavour of the wine if that is done!