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The clergyman, Robert Francis Kilvert started his famous Diary on 1 January 1870. At one point, in 1874, he asked himself why he was bothering with it, and wrote this:
“Why do I keep this voluminous journal? I can hardly tell. Partly because life appears to me such a curious and wonderful thing that it seems a pity that even such a humble and uneventful life as mine should pass altogether away without some such record as this, and partly too because I think the record may amuse and interest some who come after me.”
The diaries stopped in 1879 when he died, aged only 38. The complete set of (it is thought) twenty-nine notebooks quickly dwindled to 22 after his widow culled them and the remaining ones were passed down to a younger generation, to emerge with publishers just before World War Two.
Three transcrpts were published, in 1938, 1939 and 1940 and proved very popular with the public – sheer escapism from the horrors of war. A halt was called however, when paper shortages and other restrictions plagued the publishers and the original diaries were returned to the family. A few years later the publishers came calling again, only to be told that the diaries had all been destroyed!
Three of the originals eventually turned up however, all having been gifted to friends of the family. One wonders if there are more out there…
(Thanks to the Kilvert Society for this background information)
In July 1874 he wrote “Today, after 23 years I went to Britford again.” More about that visit in a later blog, but he was back the following year.
25 August 1875
“I went to Britford Vicarage to stay with the Morrises till Saturday. Late in the evening we loitered down into the water meads. The sun was setting in stormy splendour behind Salisbury and the marvellous aerial spire rose against the yellow glare like Ithuriel’s spear, while the last gleams of the sunset flamed down the long lines of the water carriages making them shine and glow like canals of molten gold.”
Two days later he paid his first visit to Stonehenge.
27 August 1875
“We had breakfast before Church and immediately after service Morris and I started to walk to Stonehenge, eleven miles. Passing through the beautiful Cathedral Close and and the city of Salisbury we took the Devizes road and after we had walked along that road for some six miles we saw in the dim distance the mysterious Stones standing upon the Plain. The sun was hot, but a sweet soft air moved over the Plain ‘wafting’ the scent of purple heather tufts and the beds of thyme, making the delicate blue harebells tremble….
The first impression was of a group of people standing about and talking together. It seemed to me as if they were ancient giants who suddenly became silent and stiffened into stone directly anyone approached but who might at any moment come alive again. It is a solemn awful place. As I entered the charmed circle of sombre stones I instinctively uncovered my head. It was like entering a great Cathedral Church.”