Has Frome always had a seedy history?

A local historian points to a time when Frome at the weekend meant one thing ... a fight.

He quoted from abook by the local policeman Police Sgt Harry Gibbs, who wrote in his memoirs, after he transferred to Frome in 1972.

"[Back then] It was not a nice town and most weekends there was trouble in the Market Square . . . When the lads came into town from Warminster . . . there were punch-ups and arrests . . . On one occasion, we had good information that a coach load of lads from Warminster were coming to Frome to sort out the Frome boys. We arranged a reception party at Wallbridge . . . and as [the coach] was stopping all sorts of weapons came out of the side windows onto the road ranging from pieces of wood to chains with handles, knuckle dusters, hammers, knifes. They all clattered onto the road! . . . I entered the coach and with suitable loud threatening demeanour, told them all that they would be taken in the coach with an escort to Frome Police Station . . . In the coach were twenty-six lads and three girls. God knows what would have happened if we had not had this tip-off. Parents and friends came from Warminster to collect them at 4am the following morning."

The book, 'The Very Eventful Life of Harry Gibbs, Police Officer retired' is not in Frome Library, but there are many books on local history, including one co-authored by that historian on Frome A-Z, which includes the time when the town had its own jail.

It was on Justice Lane and was a guard house, although as quoted in the book, it could be used for a very short amount of time, such as two boys confined there for a few minutes, back in the 1800s after stealing from their parents, while an older boy spent an hour there after being impudent to the Chief Constable of Frome. Yes there was one! If a crime was more serious those locked up would be transported over to the jail in Shepton Mallet.

Further back still and Thomas Bunn's nineteenth century diaries paint a similar picture. Frome was rough and people coming through on carriages had stones lobbed at them!

Moving a century on and Frome was still a place of regular battles with rivalry between Frome and Warminster a long standing source of market place Saturday night fights in the 1940's.

More recently still, a post on social media added : " When we first moved to Frome in '98 town was rammed on Friday and Saturday nights and you knew there'd be fights, you could feel the tension in the air. Saw mounted police on more than one occasion. "

So it seems that fighting and Frome have long been part of the fabric of the town.