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Question

Was there any form of conflict in the Laverstock area? I keep finding musket balls there.

Question asked on

26 January 2006

Answer

There does not seem to have been any Civil War activity specifically in the Laverstock area although both sides were at Salisbury at various times. Salisbury itself was strategically valueless and was used by both sides as a place of rest. Waller and some Parliamentarians were in the city in 1644 and later that year Royalists pursued Parliamentarians through the city after an engagement near Warminster. The Royalists attempted to fortify The Close, the only area of the city sympathetic to them and the first fighting took place on 8th December 1644. What was called the Battle of Salisbury seems to have taken place in early January 1645 when Royalist cavalry defeated a smaller cavalry force of Edmund Ludlow. The Royalists behaved atrociously while they were in Salisbury and doubtless much musket firing took place in the area. The city was retaken by the New Model Army whose regiments later mutinied there. Later the city was involved in the Royalist Penruddock uprising.

I think that it is quite likely that your musket balls are of this period but Salisbury Museum could give you an opinion if you took some there.

You may also like to read 'The Civil War in Wiltshire' by Tony MacLachan (1997), and 'An unhappy civil war: the experiences of ordinary people in Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire, 1642-1646' by John Wroughton (1999)both of which are available in Salisbury Library.

Bibliography