Timeline Calne: July 1978, 'Two Pigs' Sculpture unveiled by Lady Lansdowne

1978
     The story of the pigs begins as Richard Cowdy is asked by Dr. Arnold Hare, the chairman of Calne Civic Society, to produce a sculpture to replace a tree which had been destroyed outside of The White Horse.


July 1979
The full size version of the sculpture took Richard Cowdy 8 weeks.
Michael Hadrell assisted Richard Cowdy to install the sculpture, which was cemented in place.
The cost of the sculpture, £148, to cover the metal, was covered by the Civic Society.
The sculpture was unveiled by Lady Lansdowne, with a speech by Cllr Frederick Eley, the Calne Town Mayor as the time.

 
1/10/2017-2/10/2017
     Calne pigs wrenched off their plinth overnight by use of a vehicle in 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
4/10/2017
     The owner of Ronson Reclaim, a reclamation yard in Gloucestershire, called the police to report that he had purchased the pigs before realising the statue was the one stolen from Calne.
6/10/2017
     The statue was picked up by Calne Town Council. Work on the plinth commenced soon after by Calne Council Ground Staff who upgraded the method of fixing the statue to the plinth. The base of the statue was repaired by Andy Blackford of Blackford Engineering free of charge.
10/11/2017
     The Calne Pig statue was back in place and unveiled by Tony Trotman, Mayor of Calne, at 4pm. The unveiling was completed with masses of applause and the pig was climbed upon my multitudes of childen, as he had been so many times in the past. This presentation featured a specially written piece of music performed by Calne Folk and Acoustic Group after the speech by the Mayor.

Place Names of Calne: Priestley Grove and Priestley Primary School

Both Priestley Grove and Priestley Primary School are named for Joseph Priestley who lived in Calne between June 1773 and  August 1780 when he left Calne for Birmingham. There also used to be a youth centre named for Priestley, which is now known as The Former Priestley Youth Centre as it's been for sale since around 2017.

Priestley is best known, particularly in Calne, for discovering the gas later known as oxygen, which he discovered at his laboratory at Bowood House in August 1774.

The school uses an image of a duck on its logo, which is a reference to Doctor's Pond, also named for Priestley, which is discussed in a previous post.

Priestley Primary School
The school, built c. 1968 has recently been enlarged, creating an eight classroom extension with a new main entrance, ancillary room and enlarged staff room. The building works over-ran schedule meaning delaying the start of the 2019 autumn term by a week.The school was original called Calne County Junior and Infant School.

Priestley Grove
Regarding Priestley Grove, grove means a small wood or group of trees. The 32 houses and bungalows on this road were built in 1934 by the borough[1]. While there may well have been trees at this location, considering that in the 1920s Bentley Grove was built. Grove is also one of the terms available to use for residential streets as per the Wiltshire Council policy. So, it could be the grove was simply used because it sounds nice and it ties the two  roads, that border the north and south of the sports ground, together.

 

To discover more about the place names of Calne, buy the book:

References:
[1] Calne: The town in the 20th century | British History Online. 2019. Calne: The town in the 20th century | British History Online. [ONLINE] Available at: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol17/pp44-51#anchorn39. [Accessed 14 January 2019].