One noted the article on the Tisbury Focus Website, concerning the celebration at Chilmark and Fonthill Bishop Primary School on the 17th September 2010. There in was reference made to the Mill at Chicksgrove described as ‘belonging to the Parish of Chilmark.’ Local Estate Deeds , describe the Quarry Lane area as being part of the Chilmark Estate.

The WCC. Community History Web Site makes reference to Upper Chicksgrove as formerly ‘Stoford which in the fourteenth century was referred to as both ‘In Tisbury’ and ‘By Tisbury’. Prior to then it was referred to as Popham. The Civic reality was that Stoford was first called Upper Chicksgrove and Chicksgrove was first called Lower Chicksgrove in the 19th Century. It wasn’t until 1885 that Upper Chicksgrove was transferred to East Tisbury Parish. Possibly it is time that Tisbury Parish ( as ‘ET’s’ representative back on earth) emancipate Upper Chicksgrove by encouraging it to return to its ain folk. Tisbury Village’s dual Parish Council Persona and the extravagance of its expenditure has little to do with Upper Chicksgrove, other than that we, unlike West Tisbury Residents who inhabit the land immediately beyond the Oddford Brook, have to pay a proportion of the costs of running Village Centre facilities to which we have scant access. Even our last ‘Upper Chicksgrove’ Parish Councillor found the Tisbury Parish Council of such irrelevance to Upper Chicksgrove affairs, that she resigned almost immediately, as did the then young farmer before her, for reasons I asked not of. With or without Upper Chicksgrove,

PLEASE WILL THE VILLAGE OF TISBURY GET ITS ACT TOGETHER. NO VILLAGE NEEDS TWO PARISH COUNCILS, TWO PAID PARISH CLERKS, OR TWO OF ANYTHING ELSE, FOR IT IS A WASTE OF PUBLIC MONEY.

Maybe such is the price we pay for Parish Councillors, who through no fault of their own are unelected by Parishioners. Our whole voting system needs refurbishment from top to bottom. There is this Referendum on May 5th concerning AV. Whichever the merits or demerits of that, absolutely anything is better than the first past the post system.