The Wiltshire Moonrakers

The view from here is - cosier. There's the feeling of being in a great bowl - in amongst these sturdy, red-brick homes.

Bishop Cannings has a story.

It seems the villagers were wont to dealing in illicit spirits - the alcoholic kind, not the witchy stuff. This was in the days when most of rural England seemed to be doing the same - smuggling in French brandy to the coves of Devon and Dorset, trundling it in farmers' carts past dim-witted Excisemen, hiding it in the most unlikely places before selling it to foppish aristos who served it to the local magistrate. We've all seen the films.

It seems the Smugglers of Bishops Cannings had hidden their barrels in the village pond.

(Why, for God's sake? Couldn't they find a haystack? Or a secret passage to the crypt of the church?)

So, they hid the barrels in the village pond. Then, by the light of a full, Westcountry moon, they set out to retrieve the contraband. At this point, the Excisemen turned up, wanting to know what they were up to at such an ungodly hour.

Thinking quickly, the smugglers played dumb.

"Arrr - we be raking for that girt big cheese"

So, that's why Wiltshiremen are known as "Moonrakers".

And, if you believe that story.....

Meanwhile, Devizes town council are planning to put up a plaque, claiming that a pond in the town, known as the "Crammer" is the Moonrakers' pond.

There'll be tears before bedtime. I'll warrant.

Battle Reflections