During the seven years or so that I have been researching the history of Chilcompton, and I have only been continuing something which other more learned people had started, I have had many visitors and enquiries and I can truthfully say that 90% of these have come from the descendants of just one of the old Chilcompton families, the Vaggs.

To digress for a moment, I would like to relate a strange coincidence concerning one of the many war evacuees who came to this area from London in 1939/40 to escape the expected wartime bombing. Her name was Jean Taylor and she lodged with my partner Mervyn Fowler's parents, who had a butchery business and smallholding at Clapton, and she often visited my father's house and shop in Lower Chilcompton knowing my father as 'Uncle Bert'. On leaving school Jean did secretarial duties at Shearn's Midsomer Norton Motor Co. and at Tommy Bull's garage at Stones Cross, Midsomer Norton, before returning to London in 1947.She eventually married Derek Vagg, a Londoner, and by chance she discovered one day, many years later that her husband was a grandson of a Henry Vagg of Chilcompton. In conjunction with C. Mervyn Vagg of Australia and his cousin K. Malcolm Vagg of Canada, Jean researched the history of the Vaggs, which meant returning to Chilcompton after a lapse of thirty years and sifting through many of the old books and documents still in existence. The result was a 120-page book edited by C. Mervyn Vagg printed in Melbourne, Australia, and published under the name of 'The Vagg Odyssey, a thousand vears of the Vaggs. This followed two previous Vagg booklets, one called 'They came they saw, they stayed' by Albert Vagg, and one by the aforementioned Mervyn, called 'Somerset Vaggs in Australia'.

In bygone days the Vaggs had lived in every part of Chilcompton and had inter-married with many of the other notable village families viz. the Tookers, Salmons, James's, Marchants, Pennys, Purnell's, Beavens, Stockers and Gaits. The Vaggs also spread to the surrounding parishes of Downside, Stratton-on-the-Fosse and Ashwick, besides being mentioned in Shepton Mallet and Wedmore. Another village in Somerset where the Vaggs were prominent was South Petherton, and in the middle ages one of the Vaggs there was thought to be a knight.

There could have been Vaggs in Chilcompton during the eleventh century and at least one went on the Crusades in the twelfth. Marmaduke Vagg died abroad in the fourteenth whilst negotiating the Treaty of Bretigny with the French during the 100 Years War. When the Civil War was drawing to its close in 1645, the Vaggs and the Stockers of Chilcompton met the Cavaliers and Roundheads at Shepton Mallet to act as mediators.

The Vaggs also fought on the losing side in the Monmouth Rebellion and were to suffer as a result at the hand of the infamous Judge Jeffreys. At that time one or two Vaggs were sent as convicts to the West Indies (one being Edward Vagg) where a number of 'dusky' Vaggs were to perpetuate the name.

On the 19th March 1608, Edward Vagg was baptised at Stratton-on-the-Fosse, and it was his grandmother, Charity Plummer, who from 1603 to 1625 was the copyhold possessor of Plummer's Close on Stratton Common, and her son Austin was copyholder in reversion. John Salmon, Gent., made an agreement with them which allowed him to 'work for coals' in Plummer's Close in return for one-eighth and one-sixteenth respectively of the coal raised. A payment would also be made for 'loss of herbage and trespass' and when the mine was 'worked out, the works would be carried away and the ground cleansed'. This was believed to be the first vertical shaft coal mine in these parts.

Over the centuries the diversities of the Chilcompton Vaggs ranged mostly from being minor gentry to counsellors, farmers and butchers. From 1738 to 1749 the grist (corn) mill in The Valley was owned by Edward William Vagg, Yeoman. It is believed that Samuel 'Collins' Vagg, who founded the famous Collins Music Hall at Islington Green, London, had Chilcompton connections. In 1784 at Greenditch, Chilcompton, farmer William Vagg was living in a house which is now called 'Silverstream' and owned 33 acres of land, which included part of the Britannia Yard and the house which later became the Britannia Inn. He was presumably the same William who, in 1754, was the first toll-gatherer at the turnpike gate situated at the foot of Lynch Hill.

In 1784 the illustrious Henry Vagg owned 26 acres which, by 1824 when he died, had increased to 73 acres and 16 houses. Henry's son and heir, John Masters Vagg, was renting seven acres at that time. There is quite a mystery concerning John Masters Vagg; in 1830 he gave the sizable sum of £50 towards the rebuilding of Midsomer Norton Parish Church. At 4 o'clock on Tuesday 15th May 1832 at the Greyhound Inn, Midsomer Norton, all his inherited land (73 1/2 acres) and houses (15) except for his Norton Down House were sold by auction, since called 'The Great Vagg Sale'. He then apparently vanished off the face of the earth and despite all the combined researches of the Vagg descendants, his disappearance remains unsolved. I should mention here that there were at least six different Henry Vaggs in Chilcompton dating back to the 1600s alone. There were quite a few Williams also.

In 1849 another William was renting a butcher's shop next door (north) to the old shop (which is now a craft shop) at The Street/Parsonage Lane junction, while it could have been that same William who was owning The Retreat in The Street and the Easter cottage behind it. At the same time James Vagg who had married Ann Penny, and James (junior) with his wife Matilda (nee Salmon James of Blacker's Hill) were both butchers living in the two houses opposite the Infants School which had their entrances in The Pitching. In 1866 a James Vagg was a butcher and innkeeper at the Britannia Inn; there was also a James Vagg living at Three Tuns, Coal Lane, in 1912. The Vaggs apparently owned Crock's Bottom Farm or land thereabouts at one time. There was a John Vagg attending Stratton-on-the-Fosse Primary School in 1872.

The mention of the Vagg butchers has reminded me that I am still using a very old hand-operated grindstone which the Vaggs very probably handed down to the Gaits, who in turn passed it on to the Pearces, from whence my father acquired it.

Some of the Chilcompton Vaggs left in the middle 1800s in migration to Australia, New Zealand and to Canada. George Vagg, son of John Vagg, a labourer, married Mary Nicolas of Chilcompton on the 8th June 1843, but George became a convict and arrived in Port Freemantle, West Australia, aboard the sailing ship 'Pinjarra' in 1851. Robert Vagg, the son of James the butcher, having married Martha Gait in Chilcompton Parish Church on the 16th March 1857, arrived with his bride in Melbourne on the sailing ship 'Essex' on the 1st July the same year. They settled near Gisborne, about 73 miles from Melbourne, where they founded the large clan which is in existence today.

Many of the Vaggs in New Zealand are descendants of John and Sarah Vagg; John was born in Chilcompton in 1817 and died in 1897. The last of the Chilcompton Vaggs was another John, a bachelor, who farmed Rookery Farm from 1914 until he died in 1924. During his last years at the farm he was looked after by his widowed cousin, Mary James of Blacker's Hill. John did not own Rookery Farm, but he did own Bowden House on Bowden Hill.

As might have been expected of the Vagg migrants, who had been mostly butchers and farmers back home, sheep farming became their main vocation, and the Vaggs in Australia now own over one million acres of land which includes a sheep station called Chilcompton. The Vaggs also had a hand in the first refrigerated shipment of lambs sent from New Zealand in 1882; the voyage of the 'Dunedin', a steam and sail ship, lasted from February to May and was reckoned to be a triumphant success. Besides this, many of the bales of wool unloaded at Bristol docks over the years carried the name Vagg.

On Sunday 15th March 1956 over 300 Vaggs attended a reunion which was held near Melbourne. During the first and second World Wars many Vaggs returned to fight for their old country and the 'Vagg Odyssey' book is dedicated to Rex Vagg, the only son of Mervyn the author, who was killed while flying on active duty in February 1945.

This chapter would not be complete without a further mention of the mercurial but clever Henry, gent., farmer extraordinary, of Norton Down House in the Parish of Chilcompton. On the 12th April 1785 the Royal Bath and West Society recommended that some gratuity be given to Henry Vagg's ploughman for his skill in the use of the Norfolk plough, which had two wheels and one handle, and was drawn by two horses abreast, guided by the ploughman without a driver.

In February 1787 Henry published an advertisement stating that he had discovered a cheap, easy and effectual method of securing a crop of turnips, and he offered to disclose the same by the 10th June if the sum of £2,000 should be by that time subscribed. Subscriptions not being forthcoming, he decided to keep his secret until the next season when he advertised again and offered to submit his method to trial by sending a full account of the process on or before the 1st June 1788, so that everyone might have an opportunity of giving it a fair trial in the ensuing summer, and promising that if by the 29th September it was not the general opinion of the subscribers that Vagg's method was a success, the money should be returned by the person under taking to receive the subscriptions.

Accordingly, in the latter end of May following, although the subscriptions were still very short of £2,000, Henry sent each of his subscribers a printed letter containing a description of his secret process, which recommended rolling the young turnip plants with a barley-roller in the dark.

By the 29th September 1788, Henry Vagg, having received no letters of objections, was paid the full total of subscriptions by his receivers. On the 8th December 1787 the Bath & West Society recommended that a prize be presented to Henry Vagg for his very fine 12 acre crop ot cabbages which was to be used for feeding his cattle. Henry's factual account of how he grew the crop was described in a letter from him to the Society and I thought it might be of interest to our modern farming community if I printed the gist of it.

I (Henry) have weighed the produce of one perch of cabbages from each field, there being some considerable difference in the appearance of the two fields. The perch from that field which appeared lightest weighed five hundred and one quarter, and sixty times that weight, I believe, makes fortytwo tons per acre. The perch from the other field weighed eight hundred and a half which is sixty-eight tons per acre. The former, when they have attained their full growth, may be nearly equal to the latter, and this difference I account for from the former having been sown in the beginning of March and therefore had not so good a chance for growth as the latter, which were sown in the autumn and planted out in May. The spring sown ones were not planted out till near Midsummer and then in so dry a time that they were almost scorched up. Therefore I shall in future join in opinion with my neighbour, Mr Billingsley, and always sow for autumn plants. The best time to sow the seed is about the middle of August and then transplant them into some warm garden, or other place, where they may be sheltered from very severe frost.

Next, Henry continues, I will describe the quality of the arable land in this parish, and it is of a light, shelly, stone-brash nature, a soil in some people's opinion unfavourable to cabbage. They will tell you it ought to be a stiff clay or heavy loam, but my success, however, proves that more is to be expected from manure and management than the disputers about soils seem aware of.

The value of our arable land per acre, says Henry, is about 30 shillings on the average which is in my opinion too high a price to allow a summer fallow. If the land was half that price I should endeavour to raise turnips, cabbages etc. as a fallow crop, and such a crop is worth more or less according to the price of hay, and this is certainly worth considering both by the farmer and the community at large, and far more eligible in most situations than letting the land lie for a bare fallow. Also, after the cabbage is fed off (which I always endeavour to do, and sow the land to wheat by Old Candlemas, 2nd February), I find, after more than ten years' experience, an additional advantage in the goodness of the following crop. Such wheat, to me, is always superior to that which I sow at or before Michaelmas (29th September). The sort of wheat I generally sow after such green crops is the 'white eared', so called at Warminster and Devizes, and in the west called 'brasil'.

The manure I used was a compost of lime, weeds, earth which lay under the hedges around the fields, and a layer of dung, all mixed and turned together. I spread about 25 cart-loads on each acre, with the usual ploughing given to a common summer tallow. This is not to be reckoned with expenses attending a cabbage crop, for allowing such a crop to exhaust the manure in some degree by its growth, an ample restoration will be made by its refuse ploughed back in and by the stirring and cleaning of the ground.

I will try to give you, as nearly as I can, a full account of the expenses ot the crop of cabbages per acre:

	£	s	d
The seed sufficient tor an acre is 1/4lb at 3s.			9
Sowing and transporting		5	0
Ridging up two furrows, and leaving two, with the Norfolk plough		2	6
Two men and two boys for drawing and setting the plants		3	4
Earthing up on the two furrows left (done when the plants are well rooted)		2	6
Hoeing and earthing up the said plants (the plants ought to stand a yard apart every way)		2	6
The carrying of the cabbages off the land to the cattle, as they are wanted, will, I suppose, on such a scale of feeding as mine, require a man, 2 horses and a cart, half a day, which per week for one acre is about		17	6
Total expense per acre	1	14	1

P.S. The aforesaid man on my farm carries the cabbage to 45 oxen, and upwards of 60 sheep, then throws them out of the cart without cutting them. My 12 acres of cabbage will feed the above number of stock for three months.

In reply the Society thanked Henry for his enlightening comments and invited him to join its Committee of Agriculture and Planting (which he did on the llth December 1787*), but the Society recommended that Henry should cut his cabbages before they were fed to the stock; also that he used a method other than strewing them on the ground in the interest of cleanliness. The Society also enquired as to the quantity of hay the cattle ate while feeding on the cabbage.

As might have been expected from a champion cabbage cultivater. Henry, in 1791 at his Norton Down Farm, grew a monster cabbage. It was so large that it prompted him to wager one fat ox against six sheep that it weighed heavier than the youthful Lady Morgan and her fiance. The young couple agreed to settle this amazing bet by sitting in the huge scales together and it was asserted that the cabbage outweighed them by 5lb 4oz. (Old-timers since have said that those old-fashioned scales could be rigged by a man hidden underneath).

In concluding this chapter I would like to state that this was an extremely interesting one to research and those people who can trace their ancestors back to the Vaggs of Chilcompton can be justly proud of them and their achievements. * Henry Vagg was a member of the Bath and West Society from at least 1787 to 1791 and an 'Honorary and Corresponding Member' from 1792 to 1797. He also served on the Society's Committee on Agriculture and Planting from 1787 to 1791.

Extract from 'Meandering through Chilcompton. By David Strawbridge.'