This parish history by John Chandler is taken from his books ‘Marlborough and Eastern Wiltshire’ (Hobnob Press, 2001, £20.00, ISBN 0 946418 07 1) and ‘Devizes and Central Wiltshire’ (Hobnob Press, 2003, £20.00, ISBN 0 946418 16 0). The books are the first two of a projected series of seven, under the series title 'Wiltshire: a History of its Landscape and People', which together will offer short histories of every parish in Wiltshire, including the areas now within Swindon Borough. The text included here is the author's copyright and should not be further reproduced for publication without his consent. There may be minor textual variants between the text posted here and the published version.
Dr Chandler will be happy to supply hardback copies of either Marlborough and Eastern Wiltshire, which includes histories of 34 parishes in eastern Wiltshire (from Tidworth in the south to Aldbourne in the north and Avebury in the west), with illustrations and maps, or Devizes and Central Wiltshire, which includes histories of 42 parishes in central Wiltshire, with illustrations and maps, for £20 each post free. He can be contacted: by email: John Chandler ; by phone: 01747-830015; or by post: c/o Hobnob Press, PO Box 1838, East Knoyle, Salisbury SP3 6FA.
A parish of modest proportions defined by streams and ancient roads, Beechingstoke sits on the floor of Pewsey Vale, with no finger of land projecting up on to the downs. Instead it boasts in its centre a very modest hill, a chalk outlier rising no more than 15m above the streams, which is known as Stoke Elm from the tree which (alas no more) crowned its summit. The chalky soil made arable cultivation feasible, so that the three small settlements, which lay by the streams at the parish edges, shared a common field which covered and embraced their hill.
Until recent changes Beechingstoke retained the boundaries described in a charter of 941. These followed minor headwaters of the Avon, described as ‘Ring-bourne’ and ‘Stoke-brook’, which flowed in barely perceptible valleys, ‘Rush-slade’ and ‘Mere- (or boundary) dene’, and which ‘ways’ crossed at ‘Stone-ford’ and ‘Weevil’s-ford’. All these places can be identified today, although the modern parish has lost land in the north to Woodborough (the new boundary follows the railway), and in the south-west to Marden. The latter change has removed from Beechingstoke its important archaeological sites, the enormous henge monument known as Marden Henge, and the destroyed Hatfield Barrow.
Three hamlets appear to have existed in the medieval period, occupying sites close to the east, south and north-west boundaries. Beechingstoke itself (like Erlestoke in this volume) was often simply known as Stoke. Colt Hoare spelled it Beauchamp Stoke, but the true derivation is less classy, the name probably one of reproach, meaning ‘the bitches’ enclosure’. It hugs the north-western boundary stream (‘Stoke-brook’), and consists of no more than a small church and churchyard in a cul-de-sac dominated by a large rectory (which cost the enormous sum of £2,000 to build in 1830), and a few houses, including a thatched manor house, clustered around a road junction which may have been a small triangular green.
The eastern corner of the parish contained a settlement called Bottle, described as botan waelle (‘Bota’s spring’) in 892, and commemorated now in the names Bottle Farm and Bottlesford. Precisely where this settlement lay is not clear. A Victorian rector of Beechingstoke knew a tradition that a church had existed in a field in the area, and a priest’s dwelling is mentioned near present-day Broad Street in the charter of 941. Perhaps the linear village of Broad Street, first mentioned by name in the eighteenth century but probably much older, superseded the earlier ‘Bottle’. It lies along part of the Great Ridgeway (hence its name) and shared in the economic revival of the area in the nineteenth century. This began with the opening in 1810 of the Kennet and Avon Canal and its wharf at Honeystreet, and was continued by the Kennett and Amesbury turnpike of 1840, and the construction of the Devizes railway with a station (called Woodborough Station) in the parish in 1862. The turnpike trust improved not only the north–south route towards Upavon, but also the minor road which crosses the parish from south of the railway bridge at Beechingstoke Farm (known as Bottle Farm in the nineteenth century), through Marden Henge and across the stream (where a new bridge was constructed) to Marden itself. Woodborough Station closed in 1966, although the sidings and access roads remain and may be seen from the road bridge; the railway line remains open, and high speed trains thunder along the embankment past Beechingstoke village.
A third medieval settlement, with the enticing name of Puckshipton (‘the goblin’s cattle shed’) lay in the south of the parish. Aerial photography suggests that a village site may lie east of the present Puckshipton House, and therefore close to Wifelesford (‘weevils’-ford’), the point at which the Great Ridgeway crossed the River Avon. Any houses which remained in the village were probably swept away around 1700, when a large house was built by the tenant, Charles Raymond. Raymond may also have been responsible for alterations to the parish church in 1693, perhaps in order to obtain lead from the church roof to assist in building his mansion. He seems to have converted the droveway which led from Puckshipton to Beechingstoke into an avenue lined with a double row of elms. A map of 1726 shows a large house within formal gardens, from which tree-lined avenues radiate, with a smaller house at its shoulder. It is the smaller house, the old farm house which was later rebuilt, that survives – the mansion had gone by 1790.
NOTES (location: SU0859; area: 361ha; population (2001) 157)
General: VCH 10, 14-17; WANHS Library, notes by Richard Nicholson.
Turnpike: WSRO A1/370/195; 1726 map: WSRO X3/46H.
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