Over the late summer months, passers-by will have noticed a lady in a pink boiler suit working hard to clean and repaint the railings at the end of the Carriage Drive. This was Celia James, a painter and decorator who also does work at the Pound.
The ornate gates originally here were sacrificed during the Second World War as were so many railings in the town, ‘to contribute to the war effort’, the idea being that they would be melted down and the iron used to make weapons and so on.
There is much scepticism about whether this was anything more than a morale-boosting exercise, but such was the fate of the gates here – Lord Methuen, seeing that railings were being taken from so many houses in Corsham, felt it his duty to make a similar sacrifice.
Temporary wooden gates followed, to be replaced by the present gates in 1962. They were last refurbished some ten years ago, but not very well and had rusted badly.
They are now resplendent in a new coat of paint, complete with the Methuen crest.
Celia had previously worked on restoring the War Memorial at St Bartholomew’s Church for the ‘Corsham Remembers’ service in August 2014.