Difference between revisions of "Great Somerford"

Latest revision as of 22:43, 4 March 2021

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

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