Great Somerford
| Great Somerford | |
| Wiltshire | |
|---|---|
 The Volunteer Inn, Great Somerford | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST964827 |
| Location: | 51°32’35"N, 2°3’14"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 737 (2011) |
| Post town: | Chippenham |
| Postcode: | SN15 |
| Dialling code: | 01249 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Wiltshire |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
North Wiltshire |
| Website: | GreatSomerford.info |
Great Somerford is a village within the Dauntsey Vale of Wiltshire. It stands near the south bank of the River Avon, and the Brinkworth Brook joins the Avon in the north-west corner of the parish.
The village about three miles south-east of Malmesbury and twelve miles west of Swindon.
The parish church is St Peter and St Paul. The pub is the Volunteer Inn, a building from the early 19th century.[1]
The hamlet of Startley and the location of Seagry Heath are within the bounds of the parish.[2][3]
History
Eight estates were recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book at the Somerfords, with altogether 80 households.[4] The mound of a motte castle, 130 feet in diameter and probably from the 12th century, stands immediately east of the church.[5] South of the mound is the Mount House, a 16th-century manor house, refronted in the 19th and now Grade II* listed.[6]
In 1377 there were 92 poll-tax payers at Great Somerford and 10 at Startley.[7] The population of the parish grew from 358 at the 1801 census to 481 in 1821, then remained in the range 500-556 until 1911, falling to 421 in 1921. Housebuilding in the 1960s and 1980s brought numbers above 700.
Allotment gardens
Great Somerford has Britain's first allotments. Enclosure of common land, facilitated by the Inclosure Act 1773, greatly reduced the amount of land available for personal cultivation by the poor. Stephen Demainbray, rector 1799–1854 and a Chaplain to King George III, asked the King to spare part of his parish from the enclosures of 1809. A field of about six acres in the south of the village on Dauntsey Road became the Free Gardens, in exchange for pieces of common land elsewhere; there was a second site of about 2 acres at Seagry Heath. Plots were allotted to villages for one-year terms.[7][8]
The Free Gardens continue in use; the Seagry Heath site reverted to private ownership.[9] The 200th anniversary in 2009 was marked by an edition of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Gardeners' Question Time.[10]
Railway
The Malmesbury Branch Line was opened across the parish in 1877, leaving the Great Western Main Line at Dauntsey and crossing the Avon just north of Great Somerford village. A station, at first named Somerford, was just east of the river crossing.[7]
The name of the station was changed to Great Somerford in 1903 when the GWR opened a more direct route to South Wales, passing half a mile to the north near Little Somerford, where a new station was built. In 1922 the goods yard at Great Somerford was closed and the station was downgraded to Great Somerford Halt. In 1933, Little Somerford station was linked to the Malmesbury branch and became the junction station. The line south to Dauntsey, along with the halt, was closed in July of that year.[11]
Churches
Parish church
There was a church at Great Somerford in the late 12th century.[7] The present parish church of St Peter and St Paul is built of rubble stone and is from the 14th and 15th centuries, with restoration in 1865 by J.H. Hakewill. Decoration of the chancel roof in 1901 to designs of F.C. Eden was described by Pevsner as "extremely prettily painted with stylized flowers".[12] The south porch was rebuilt in 1905 using old materials.[13][14]
The tower carries six bells: one of c. 1480 and another of 1634.[15] The ashlar gate piers, with stone urns, at the entrance to the churchyard are 18th century.[16]
The church is Grade I listed.[13]
Today the parish forms part of the Woodbridge Group of six churches.[17]
Methodists
Primitive Methodists were meeting at Startley by 1843, and in 1850–51 an average congregation of 90 attended Sunday services. A chapel was built in 1854, just south of the junction with Heath Lane, and was extended in 1860. The chapel closed in 1985 and is now a private house; the small cemetery on the opposite side of the road remains.[18][19]
At Great Somerford, Methodists bought the red brick village reading room in 1882 for use as a chapel. (The reading room had been built in 1872 at the expense of Wiltshire MP Walter Powell and was sold following his death.)[20] In 2016 the building was still in use as a Methodist church within the North Wiltshire circuit, holding fortnightly services which alternate with the church at Cleverton.[21][22]
About the village
In 1963, a river level measuring station was built, consisting of one of the earliest compound crump weirs in Britain.[23] The typical river level range is between 6 inches and 2 feet, but the highest level recorded was 8 feet.[24] During the widespread flooding in 2007, the river level reached 7 feet on 21 July, whilst flooding in July 1968 drowned the entire structure.
There are three remaining Second World War pillboxes in the village. The first faces the river and the disused railway. The second is on the edge of a medium-sized field next to the Avon. The third pillbox is along the Dauntsey Road.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Great Somerford) |
- Information on Great Somerford from GENUKI
- Old photographs at Francis Frith
- A Vision of Britain Through Time
- Shearer, Jill: 'The Poor Man's Best Friend: The Story of the Great Somerford Allotments, 1809-2009' (BPR Publishers, 2009) ISBN 978-0-9561806-0-5
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1022512: The Volunteer Inn (Grade II listing)
- ↑ "Wiltshire Community History: Great Somerford". Wiltshire Council. http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom.php?id=108. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ↑ "Wiltshire Community History: Map of Great Somerford". Wiltshire Council. http://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/gallery/map/great_somer_004.jpg. Retrieved 27 February 2014.
- ↑ and Little Somerford Great Somerford in the Domesday Book
- ↑ National Heritage List 1013224: Motte castle west of Great Somerford Church
- ↑ National Heritage List 1022515: The Mount House (Grade II* listing)
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 A History of the County of Wiltshire - Volume 14 pp 194-204: Parishes: Great Somerford (Victoria County History)
- ↑ Savill, Richard (10 March 2009). "England's oldest allotments celebrate 200 years". The Daily Telegraph. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/4967971/Englands-oldest-allotments-celebrate-200-years.html. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
- ↑ "Some notes on Great Somerford boundaries and Conservation Areas". North Wiltshire District Council. 31 October 2005. pp. 2–3. http://cms.wiltshire.gov.uk/Data/Public%20Spaces%20and%20Local%20Plans%20Panel%20%28NWDC%29/20060228/Agenda/Appendix%204%20to%20Report%207.pdf. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
- ↑ Ware, Joe (19 March 2009). "Radio 4 Gardeners' Question Time at Malmesbury School". http://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/4217369.Show_marks_200_years_of_allotments/. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
- ↑ Oakley, Mike (2004). Wiltshire Railway Stations. Wimborne: The Dovecote Press. pp. 61–62. ISBN 1904349331.
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Wiltshire, 1963; 1975 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09659-0page 260
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 National Heritage List 1022516: Church of St Peter and Paul (Grade I listing)
- ↑ Wiltshire Community History: Church of St Peter and St Paul, Great Somerford
- ↑ "Great Somerford". http://dove.cccbr.org.uk/detail.php?DoveID=GREAT+SOME. Retrieved 20 December 2016.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1022517: Gate piers at entry to churchyard (Grade II listing)
- ↑ St Peter & St Paul, Great Somerford: Woodbridge Group of Churches
- ↑ "Primitive Methodist Chapel, Startley, Great Somerford". Wiltshire Council. https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getchurch.php?id=1158. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ↑ "Startley Primitive Methodist chapel". http://www.myprimitivemethodists.org.uk/page/startley_primitive_methodist_chapel. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ↑ "Walter Powell MP Balloonist". David Forward. http://davidforward.com/contents/local-history/walter-powell/.
- ↑ "Primitive Methodist Chapel, Great Somerford". Wiltshire Council. https://history.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getchurch.php?id=1157. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ↑ "Trinity (Cleverton & Great Somerford)". http://www.northwiltsmethodistcircuit.org.uk/churches/trinity-cleverton-amp-great-somerford. Retrieved 21 December 2016.
- ↑ "53008 – Avon at Great Somerford". http://nrfa.ceh.ac.uk/data/station/info/53008. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
- ↑ "Great Somerford". http://www.gaugemap.co.uk/#!Detail/492/500. Retrieved 24 December 2016.
