Local author Mick Davis has released a new book marking 50 years since the Save Trinity Campaign, which helped preserve Frome’s historic 17th-century Trinity area from demolition.
The 17th-century Trinity area of Frome is a unique national heritage site. The surviving streets represent a largely intact area of very early speculative housing – certainly the most extensive in Britain. It was developed on greenfield land to meet the demand for new housing as workers migrated into Frome to serve its burgeoning cloth industry.
Mick said, “This historic urban extension, known as New Town, was fully built 300 years ago. In Georgian times it was a thriving community in its own right, housing most of the town’s working population of artisans and tradespeople in its sturdy terraces of local limestone. In 1838, Holy Trinity Church was built by public subscription, creating a new identity at the height of the Victorian era and lending the neighbourhood the name it still holds today.
“The early 20th century brought social and economic decline and, in the 1950s, the whole area was condemned under post-war legislation and slated for ‘slum clearance’. The 1960s saw the demolition of nearly half the area, and in April 1974 the Compulsory Purchase Order for the demolition of most of the remaining streets in Trinity was confirmed. This gave fresh impetus to a growing conservation movement, with Frome Civic Society at its heart, culminating in the Save Trinity campaign of 1975.
“The fight to spare what remained from the bulldozers and to rehabilitate the old dwellings instead was a remarkable display of ‘people power’, which resulted in the authorities rapidly withdrawing their plans for redevelopment. The battle continued for two years until, in 1977, an independent report convinced the council to reverse the clearance project and begin a process of repair and modernisation that respected the historic origins of the area.”
The book, which Mick has written in conjunction with the Frome Society for Local Study, has just been published as part of the celebration of the people’s victory over the planners 50 years ago.
The 94-page book is available from the museum on 01373 454611 or from Hunting Raven Books, 10 Cheap Street, priced at £10. There is also an exhibition with maps and photographs from the time at the museum – entry is free.
