Hill Road is in Laverstock, which is village to the east of Salisbury, Wiltshire.
I think it is named because it leads to Burroughs Hill. Burroughs Hill is named after the Burroughs family who built Burroughs House there.
The Burroughs made their money through silverware and banking in the 18th and 19th centuries.
St Andrews - some of the Burroughs family are buried here
James Burrough was appointed Deputy Recorder of Salisbury in 1794, and was made a judge in 1816. He was seen as a particularly harsh judge1
James Burrough and William Cobbett
William Cobbett wrote in ‘Rural Rides’, just after his famous passage on ‘Old Sarum’2 :
From the Accursed Hill I went to Laverstoke where “Jemmy Burrough” (as they call him here), the judge, lives. I have not heard much about “Jemmy” since he tried and condemned the two young men who had wounded the game-keepers at Ashton Smith and Lord Palmerston. His lordship (Palmerston) is, I see, making a tolerable figure in the newspapers as a share-man !3
The reference Cobbett makes here is to a trial in Winchester
“HAMPSHIRE. The Lent Assizes for this county concluded on Saturday morning.
The Criminal Calendar contained 58 prisoners for trial, 16 of whom have been sentenced to suffer death, but two only of that number (_poachers_) were left by the Judges for execution, viz.: James Turner, aged 28, for aiding and assisting in killing Robert Baker, gamekeeper to Thomas Asheton Smith, Esq., in the parish of South Tidworth, and Charles Smith, aged 27, for having wilfully and maliciously shot at Robert Snellgrove, assistant gamekeeper to Lord Palmerston, at Broadlands, in the parish of Romsey, with intent to do him grievous bodily harm.
The Judge (Burrough) observed, it became necessary to these cases, that the extreme sentence of the law should be inflicted, to deter others, as resistance to gamekeepers was now arrived at an alarming height and many lives had been lost.”
The first thing to observe here is, that there were sixteen persons sentenced to suffer death; and that the only persons actually put to death, were those who had been endeavouring to get at the hares, pheasants or partridges of Thomas Asheton Smith, and of our Secretary at War, Lord Palmerston.
Whether the Judge Burrough (who was long Chairman of the Quarter Sessions in Hampshire), uttered the words ascribed to him, or not, I cannot say; but the words have gone forth in print, and the impression they are calculated to make is this: that it was necessary to put these two men to death, in order to deter others from resisting gamekeepers.
The putting of these men to death has excited a very deep feeling throughout the County of Hants; a feeling very honourable to the people of that county, and very natural to the breast of every human being. 4
Footnotes
- Grist, Ken, ‘Larks on Cockey Down : a history of Laverstock’, Published ELSP with Cross Keys Press, 2000, ISBN/RCN 1903341612 [↩]
- See Old Sarum [↩]
- Vision of Britain | William Cobbett | Aug. 28th to 30th, 1826: Down the valley of the Avon in Wiltshire [↩]
- Gamekeeper to Thomas Asheton Smith [↩]
