Frome in Wessex
Twinning. Frome’s Overseas Connexions
Abstract
Contents Updated: Thursday, 26 October 2006
Frome: Home and Away
Frome was still a prosperous textile town as the Industrial Revolution—which was to be its undoing—started. Even in the 1820s, when nearby Bath was the genteel centre of fashion described a decade earlier by Jane Austin in her novels, Frome was still an industrious town. William Cobbett, who took the unusual path of moving from High Tory to furious radical, becoming the champion of the poor, and who founded the parliamentary reports later called Hansard, passed through Frome shortly after his second sojourn in the United States and described it as a little Manchester.
Thereafter, decline was steady and periodically exacerbated by the normal cycles of economics. Cycles superimposed on a steady fall mean that booms are scarcely noticeable but depressions are steep indeed. For many people in Frome, like many across the water in Ireland, the answer had to be emigration. Many Frome people chose to go to Ontario, Canada, where, near London, Ontario, they founded a new town of Frome. Others went to Australia and as a memento of home called a homestead in South Australia, Frome Downs and also named a large salt lake about 300 miles north of Adelaide by the Flinders range after Frome. Mitraville was supposed to have been founded by a Frome man. The Prime Minister of New South Wales visited Frome to plant an oak tree in Victoria Park, Frome, in 1911 in celebration of the coronation of George V. Whether the eponymous hero of Edith Wharton’s 1911 novel, Ethan Frome, has any connexion with us here in the West Country, I do not know. Perhaps someone can enlighten us.
Away: Chateau-Gontier and Murrhardt
Latterly, of course, Frome has been keen to improve its links with Europe and has formed twinning arrangements with comparable towns in France and Germany. The arrangement with the French town of Chateau-Gontier has existed since 1975. Chateau-Gontier with a population of about 13000 is in Mayenne about 40 miles from Le Mans. It is a small medieval town with its medieval streets still existing just as Frome has. Initially the agreement was based on contacts at official level but now, many Frome people have become friendly with French families in Chateau Gontier and exchange visits regularly.
Frome later twinned with Murrhardt in the German principality of Baden-Wurttmberg about 20 miles from Stuttgart. The twinning therefore became a tripleting and the three towns have forged three way links. Prominent in the exchanges are local schools but bands, singers, many clubs, churches and business associations have all become involved in swaps. Symbolic of the unity of Europe is the open air theatre marked by a European Community of Stones (ECOS), twelve large standing stones, one presented by each of the European Community members. The stones were erected in 1992 and groups from the other European countries attended the opening.
Other links are with the Romanian village of Cluj and children from the Chernobyl area in the Ukraine are brought over each year to Nunney village, just three miles from Frome, for a holiday. The pupils of Frome College, a large High School, have always been adventurous. Hilary Daniel tells us in the Frome Rotary Club book, Frome: A Special Town, that besides being involved with Operation Raleigh, they have had trips to New Guinea, the Saharan Wastes and the lava flows of Iceland.
Efforts like these have meant that Frome in 1995 was the only town in Britain to receive the Council of Europe’s Diploma.
If anyone on the World Wide Web has stories or detail to add to this brief outline we should be glad to have them. E-mail us.
