Editing Calne (section)

==History==
In 978, [[Anglo Saxon England|Anglo-Saxon]] Calne was the site of a large two-storey building with a hall on the first floor. It was here that [[St Dunstan]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]] met the [[Witenagemot]]<ref>{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Calne}}</ref> to justify his controversial organisation of the national [[Roman Catholic Church|church]], which involved the [[secular priest]]s being replaced by [[Benedictine]] [[monk]]s and the influence of landowners over churches on their lands being taken away. According to an account written about 1000, at one point in this meeting Dunstan called upon God to support his cause, at which point the floor collapsed killing most of his opponents, whilst Dunstan and his supporters were in the part that remained standing. This was claimed as a miracle by Dunstan's supporters.<ref name="vch1800">{{cite web|website=British History Online|title=Victoria County History – Wiltshire – Vol 17 pp34-41 – Calne: The town to c.1800|date=2002|editor-first=D.A.|editor-last=Crowley|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol17/pp34-41|publisher=University of London|access-date=19 March 2016}}</ref>
[[File:CalnePigs.jpg|right|thumb|Bronze sculpture in Calne commemorating the town's longstanding pork-curing industry, by local artist Richard Cowdy]]

===Early market town===
In 1086 Calne may already have been, as it was later, a [[market town]] on the main Bristol-London road, with 114 households and a church.<ref>{{OpenDomesday|ST9971|calne|Calne}}</ref> 74 or more households were held almost outright by ''burghal tenure'' (as citizens of a [[borough status in the United Kingdom|borough]]), and the lordship of its large outlying land was divided between the king (of whom 45 burgesses were tenants) and the church.<ref name="vch1800" />

In the [[Middle Ages]] the king's successor as the lord of Calne [[Manorialism|manor]] and, as owner of the church's revenues, the treasurer of [[Salisbury Cathedral]], each had the right to hold a market and a fair in the town, with two triangular market places or fair grounds. A modest hospital was provided on a modest endowment from 1248 until it provided no accommodation in 1546 and was sold two years later by the [[Crown estate|Crown]].<ref name="vch1800" />

Reflecting the large area of the king's estate, until the late 19th century Calne had [[Tithing|tithings]] at Eastmead Street, [[Quemerford]], Whetham, Whitley, and part of Beversbrook, all now within Calne parish; and furthermore [[Blackland, Wiltshire|Blackland]], [[Calstone]], [[Stock, Wiltshire|Stock]], [[Stockley, Wiltshire|Stockley]] and [[Studley, Wiltshire|Studley]], all now in the surrounding parishes.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Calne in the ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (1870-72) |url=https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/descriptions/843660 |access-date=27 February 2022 |website=A Vision of Britain through Time |publisher=University of Portsmouth}}</ref><ref name="vch-outside">{{Cite book |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol17/pp51-64 |title=A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 17 |date=2002 |publisher=University of London |editor-last=Crowley |editor-first=D. A. |series=[[Victoria County History]] |pages=51–64 |chapter=Calne outside the town |access-date=27 February 2022 |via=British History Online}}</ref>

===Industry===
Calne had a significant [[woollen]] [[broadcloth]] industry in the 18th century, and evidence of this can be seen set around the triangular green by the parish church, where 24 [[listed building]]s remain, five at Grade II* including the Tounson [[almshouse]]s for the neediest poor<ref>Five Grade II* listed buildings at ''The Green'':<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1247409|access-date=2 October 2013}}<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1247413|access-date=2 October 2013|fewer-links=yes}}<br/>(17th-century rear wing and a front range of c. 1750 with a [[Palladian architecture|Palladian]] five-bayed façade)<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1247437|access-date=2 October 2013|fewer-links=yes}}<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1270902|access-date=2 October 2013|fewer-links=yes}}<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1270992|access-date=2 October 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1247409 |desc=7 The Green (east side) |access-date=7 November 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1247437 |desc=20 The Green (south side) |access-date=7 November 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1270902 |desc=Priestley's House, 19 The Green (south side) |access-date=7 November 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1270992 |desc=The Tounson Almshouses, 10–13 Kingsbury Street (south west side) |access-date=7 November 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref> and [[Georgian era]] clothiers' houses. Nearby are some of the 14 original mills along the Marden. St Mary's church was extended by the generous donations of rich clothiers and wool merchants in the 15th century.

Houses of the 17th and 18th centuries have external walls of stone and [[timber-framing|timber-framed]] walls inside. Most of the stone is [[limestone]] rubble, laid with [[ashlar]] dressings in houses of higher quality; the walls of many houses were rendered smooth. Until the 19th century, quarries beside the London road northwest and southeast of the town were sources of stone for building.<ref name="vch1800" />

A relic of 19th century [[lime (material)|lime]] extraction, a kiln, exists in the grounds of St Mary's School. This solid marine deposition is chiefly one chemical, calcium carbonate, and is dug in nearby pits for its main use in cement and as fertiliser on acid ground.<ref>Lime Kiln – detailed Grade II listing<br/>{{National Heritage List for England|num=1271034|access-date=2 October 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref><ref>{{NHLE |num=1271034 |desc=Lime Kiln at ST 9950 7136, in Grounds of St Mary's School, Curzon Street (north side) |access-date=7 November 2013|fewer-links=yes}}</ref>

===Former canal===
[[File:Calne canal.jpg|thumb|A view of Calne from the canal, 1828]]
The [[Wilts & Berks Canal]] linked the [[Kennet and Avon Canal]] at [[Semington Locks|Semington]], near [[Melksham]], to the [[River Thames]] at [[Abingdon, Oxfordshire|Abingdon]]. Much of the traffic on the canal was coal from the [[Somerset Coalfield]]. As the canal passed through open country near Stanley, east of Chippenham, a short branch led through three locks to a wharf in Calne. The canal was completed in 1810 and abandoned in 1914.

===Former railway===
[[Calne railway station]] opened in 1863, the terminus of its own [[branch line]] of the [[Great Western Railway]] running east from [[Chippenham]], with one intermediate stop: Stanley Bridge Halt. The opening of Black Dog Halt in the early 20th century provided insufficient demand to slow a progressive decline. The branch closed as a result of the Beeching Axe in September 1965, having made the biggest loss per mile of any line in the country.{{fact|date=October 2022}}

===Wiltshire pork and ham===
Subsequently, Calne's main industry other than being a small [[market town]] was the imposing C&T Harris [[pork]] [[meat processing|processing]] factory. It is said that the pork-curing industry developed because pigs reared in Ireland were landed at [[Bristol]] and then herded across England on [[drovers' road]]s to [[Smithfield, London]]. One resting place for the pigs was at Black Dog Hill, just west of the town, and the Harris family of butchers took the pigs that were not expected to survive the onward journey.

==== C&T Harris ====
The Harris business began in the second half of the 18th century, when widow Sarah Harris and her son John relocated from Devizes and began trading as pork butchers in Church Street (Butchers Row). Brothers John and Henry Harris, sons of John Harris, continued separately in business, at High Street and the original Church Street shop respectively. Their products included bacon and hams preserved using the [[Wiltshire cure]] method, which the family had developed.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=26 February 2000 |title=The cure for bacon lovers |url=http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-cure-for-bacon-lovers-726169.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090519221809/http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/the-cure-for-bacon-lovers-726169.html |archive-date=19 May 2009 |website=The Independent |via=Internet Archive}}</ref>

John Harris and his wife Mary Perkins had eleven children, and three of them, Thomas, George, and Charles, expanded the family business.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=La Vardera |first=Dee |title=C&T Harris (Calne): An Illustrated History |publisher=Amberley Publishing |year=2022 |isbn=978-1398108486}}</ref> The businesses of Charles and Thomas merged in 1888 as C. & T. Harris & Co.<ref name=":1" /> C&T Harris documented their work in a company magazine between 1927 and 1939,<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=C & T Harris Magazine |url=https://www.calneheritage.co.uk/2023/06/blog-post.html |access-date=2023-07-19 |website=Calne Heritage Centre |language=en-GB}}</ref> each issue containing an article by their managing director, Sir John Bodinnar.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Sir John Francis Bodinnar |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp79845/sir-john-francis-bodinnar |access-date=2023-07-13 |website=National Portrait Gallery |language=en}}</ref> 

C&T Harris built a five-storey factory in the centre of the town in the 1930s,<ref>{{Cite web |title=C&T Harris Bacon Factory, Calne, Wiltshire: 1952 aerial photograph |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/services-skills/education/educational-images/ct-harris-bacon-factory-calne-3308 |access-date=2023-07-13 |website=Historic England |language=en}}</ref> which at its height employed 2,000 people to process 5,000 pigs each week into bacon, pies, sausages and cooked meats.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=McLean |first=Patrick |date=2016-02-15 |title=Loss of bacon factory was huge blow for Calne |url=https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/headlines/nostalgia/14277244.loss-of-bacon-factory-was-huge-blow-for-calne/ |access-date=2023-07-13 |website=The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald |language=en}}</ref> The business declined in the 1970s, due in part to competition from Danish bacon. The company (by now Farmers Meat Company Ltd) closed in 1982,<ref name=":0" /> and the factory was demolished over the next two years.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-12-14 |title=The day they knocked down the Harris factory in Calne |url=https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/17298906.day-knocked-harris-factory-calne/ |access-date=2023-07-13 |website=The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald |language=en}}</ref> Its site was later redeveloped as housing and the town's public library. The departed industry is celebrated by a bronze sculpture of two pigs, installed in 1979 by Calne Civic Society on Phelps Parade in the town centre.<ref>{{Cite web |last= |first= |date=26 October 2020 |title=An interview with Richard Cowdy, Sculptor |url=https://www.calneheritage.co.uk/2020/10/an-interview-with-richard-cowdy-sculptor.html |access-date=2024-11-29 |website=Calne Heritage Centre |language=en-GB}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=2017-10-05 |title=Calne's stolen bronze pig sculpture found after appeal |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-wiltshire-41515864 |access-date=2024-11-29 |work=BBC News |language=en-GB}}</ref>