Friday, 2 April 2010

Chipping Campden: From The Beginning To Today


By Frederick Hoymer

Located in Englands Gloucestershire county, there resting in the Cotswolds hills is a town known as Chipping Campden. The town was beginning to form some time before the thirteenth century as a market area. Chipping Campden itself translates to market valley with the fields. The word chipping supposedly originates from the old English word ceping meaning market or marketplace. The word Campden is accepted as being a Saxon word meaning valley with the fields. This is a fitting name.

The high street buildings are made from a locally quarried type of oolitic limestone that has been fittingly named Cotswold stone. Chipping Camden is also home to a church considered to be one of the most beautiful in the Cotswolds; it is the church of Saint James. The church houses many elaborate tombs and was featured in Simon Jenkins book Englands thousand best churches. Chipping Campden is also home to the ancient Market hall which was built in 1627 by Sir Baptist Hicks with the purpose of giving shelter to the local market.

The town is also home to a few historical landmarks, such as the Saint James church which had ranked among the most beautiful churches of England in Simon Jenkins book Englands thousand best churches as well as being home to many extravagant tombs. In 1627 the ancient market hall of chipping campden was built by Sir Baptist Hicks with the purpose of creating a home for the local market.

This market area in the Cotswolds was beginning to merit itself a name in the early thirteenth century; it was earning the name Cepyne Caumpedene which translates to market campden. Chipping is a word that comes from the old English word ceping which means a market or a market place. The name picked up in popularity and the town continued to grow into its new title. People began raising sheep all around the cotswolds and then in Chipping campden the wool was sheered and sent to London, soon chipping campden was a town full of wealthy wool merchants in the middle ages.

The word chipping is derived from the old English ceping, meaning: a market or a market place. This is a fitting name for this small agricultural town due to its history of a being a rich wool trading center in the middle ages, and its former wealthy wool merchant occupants.

In the early twentieth century the town began experiencing an influx of craftsmen, who decided to make their home in Chipping Campden and introduce their crafts to the town. They occupied an abandoned silk mill and soon created the guild of Handicrafts which was founded by C R Ashbee. The town also has the famed and beautiful piece of horticulture art known as Hidcote Manor garden. The garden is one of the great gardens of England. The garden is the product of one mans lifetime passion. The self taught gardener Lawrence Johnston created his garden of rooms here. Johnston began creating the garden in 1907 and spent forty one years finishing it.

The Town Chipping Campden still stands strong and elegant as she has for many decades, even though the people who inhabit her are different and the shops that line her are new, she manages to retain the old time rustic feel that a historic town should.

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