Mysterious happenings in 17th century Gloucestershire

A very peculiar unsolved missing persons case took place between 1660 and 1662 in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire. On 16 August 1660, a 70 year old man, William Harrison disappeared! He was steward to the Lady of the Manor and left his home to walk two miles to Charingworth. His manservant John Perry was sent to look for him, neither returned by the next day. So his son Edward Harrison was then sent to look for the pair, and on his way, of course, he meets John Perry, who had not been able to find his master; so they head for Ebrington and heard that Harrison had been there the previous night (he was going to see a tenant).  During their return to Chipping Campden they heard that some of William Harrison’s items had been found on the road locally; including a hat slashed by a sharp implement, a bloodied shirt and neckband.

‘The Howse that was so fayre’

This is the story of ‘The Howse that was so fayre’, investigated by Chipping Campden History Society over the past eighteen months. In 2013 Gloucestershire Local History Association’s annual Local History Afternoon carried the theme of ‘Gloucestershire’s Special Houses’. There was an obvious one for us, Campden House.

Robert Welch Designs: Archive and Collections Project

Who was Robert Welch and why Gloucestershire?

Robert Radford Welch (1929 -2000) was a silversmith, industrial and domestic designer who was born in Hereford and grew up in Malvern. After studying in Birmingham and London, he set up a studio and workshop at the Old Silk Mill, Chipping Campden in 1955. This building was formerly the workshops of C. R. Ashbee’s (1863-1942) Guild of Handicraft, from 1902, and still houses the workshop of one of the Guild silversmiths, George Hart.