Martinsell

A festival used to be held on top of Martinsell on Palm Sunday, which closely resembled an ordinary country fair. The principal feature of the meeting was the fighting which took place there. The inhabitants of the district would reserve the settlement of their quarrels till the day of the festival, and the scenes which then occurred were often of the most brutal character. But this part of the ceremonies was suppressed, and the fair soon died out.

People still meet on the top of the hill, however, and a curious game is played on the steep slope. A number of boys stand one above the other, and the one at the foot starts a ball, which is hit up the hill with hockey sticks, each of the players passing it to the one above him, until it reaches the top boy, when it is allowed to roll down, and the game is begun again.

I cannot find that any peculiar viands were sold. An old man said "land figs" were eaten, but these seem to be the ordinary fruit. I am told that boys play a game at Roundway Hill, near Devizes, on Palm Sunday, similar to that played at Martinsell.

Hill Sliding. ---Martinsell Hill, on the top of which is an ancient encampment, formerly used to be the scene of a great fair on Palm Sunday. Boys used to slide down the hill on the jawbones of horses; men from the neighbouring villages used to settle their disputes on this day by fighting; oranges were thrown down the slope and lads used to rush headlong after them. At the present day only a few children stroll about the hill on Palm Sunday

On Palm Sunday, it was the custom, some years ago, for everyone in the village to visit Martinsell which is within easy walking distance. Here a Fair was held. Recruiting was also carried on at this Fair, at the last of which a local lad 'joined up' and afterwards served in the Russian War, taking part in the siege of Sebastapol. This fair was stopped about the year 1860. Since then religious services have been held on Martinsell on Palm Sunday. A Feast Day was always made of the Monday following Trinity Sunday, when a fair was held; but now for more than 20 years this has not been observed.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, great sports were held up here on Martinsell. The custome still, I believe, survives in picnics for children. But at the original function a part of the programme consisted in sliding down the almost perpendicular face of the hill seated on the jawbones of horses, a practice which an antiquarian friend in the neighbourhood believes to show some trace of pagan origin. I can myself remember as a child the well-worn mark of a slide traced down this three or four hundred feet of precipitous turf, and the legend that a certain grave episcopal and academic dignitary, then living, had been persuaded to launch himself down it, without the assistance even of the horse's jawbone, and that having once started had to continue his career unchecked till he landed safe but sore in the vale of Pewsey. All trace, however, of the historic slide has long vanished. But within the memory of men only elderly, the pugilists of the neighbouring villages used to take advantage fo what was left of the ancient festival, and fight out their battles on the top of Martinsell. These encounters were sometimes so ferocious that unsuccessful efforts were made to stamp out the festival, which, however, died a natural death.