Discovering and sharing Wiltshire’s local history

Dear supporter

I do hope you have had a good summer, despite the strange world of social distancing in which we have all been living. It has been a most peculiar summer for the Wiltshire VCH, without any of the events that we normally arrange – the garden party, talks, walks around old Wiltshire towns – and sadly without meeting our supporters at these events. 

Having no events means that we haven’t been able to sell tickets and so have had no income from them. But VCH research continues to cost money (typically, a contract for a researcher to prepare the history of a rural parish will cost around £8,000), our reserves are modest and unless we can raise more funds our work will inevitably be severely disrupted.

I am writing to urge you to help our work if you possibly can. In a normal summer we have an income of around £6,000 through the kind support of our friends and others, and we are hoping by this appeal to bring our income back to something approaching that level. It is an ambitious target but we do hope that our supporters, who have been so generous in the past, will again help us at this difficult time.

Research on our volume on the Mere area (volume 19) as well as that on the Chippenham area (volume 20) is now well advanced. For the Chippenham area, we now have just two more research contracts to award. And we have now issued the first contract for research for our next volume, which will be on the Alderbury area (volume 21), and work on this is underway. 

We are very keen to keep this momentum up, and our researchers have been making good progress this year despite the limitations of lock-down, but unless we can gain more income soon we shall have to face the difficult prospect of bringing our work to a halt and leaving our researchers without employment from us.

After these three volumes there will be four more areas of Wiltshire not yet covered, where research can’t start until sufficient funds have been raised. You can be assured that your donations will be put to good use. 

WIth thanks and best wishes

David Moss

Chairman

There are three ways in which you can contribute to our Autumn 2020 appeal: 

Online 

You may find that the simplest way to donate is via this website. You can reach our Charities Aid Foundation donate page by clicking here.

BACS

Alternatively you can donate by BACS transfer to our CAF Bank. Our account number is 0003 3115 and the sort code is 40-52-40. 

Cheque

We are still happy to receive cheques, made out to Wiltshire Victoria County History Trust and posted to our Treasurer, Tean Dallaway, at Chippenham Museum, 10 Market Place, Chippenham, Wiltshire, SN15 3HF.

Other ways to get involved

If you are interested in the local history of Wiltshire and the work we are doing, you could also help our project by volunteering or becoming a friend.