Brinkworth is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in northern

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. The village lies between Royal Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury, about north of the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

and west of

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

. The west end of Brinkworth village is Causeway End. The

of Brinkworth includes the hamlets of Braydon Side, Callow Hill, The Common, and the

tithing A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or s ...

of Grittenham, a rural community to the south of the village of Brinkworth. Much of Brinkworth village is a linear settlement along the east-west B4042, extending for some . The village is sometimes described as the longest in England although others such as

Meopham Meopham is a large linear village and civil parish in the Borough of Gravesham in Kent, England, lying to the south of Gravesend. The parish covers , and comprises two villages and two smaller settlements; it has a population of 6,427 increasi ...

, Kent make the same claim.

History

Brinkworth Manor was given to

Malmesbury Abbey Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution ...

by the nobleman Leofsige, sometime before the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

survey. The abbey held the land until the Dissolution of the Monasteries, at which time it was granted to William Stumpe. It then passed into the family of the Earl of Berkshire and Suffolk, until it was sold privately between 1858 and 1960. It is likely that the other estate of Brinkworth mentioned in the Domesday, that held by Tochi, survived through the ensuing centuries as separate, smaller estates within the northern section of the parish (probably including Clitchbury Farm, Waldron's Farm and Whitehouse Farm). Grittenham is mentioned separately in the survey and was held at the time by Malmesbury Abbey. Following the dissolution it was granted to John Aycliffe, from whom it descended to the Lords Holland, who sold it privately at the end of the nineteenth century.

Geography

The village stands on a ridge overlooking the

Dauntsey Vale The Dauntsey Vale is a geographical feature in the north of the English county of Wiltshire. It is characterised by a wide, flat, clay floodplain of the upper reaches of the Bristol Avon river, which divides the Cotswolds to the west from the cha ...

to the south. Two tributaries of the

Bristol Avon The River Avon is a river in the south west of England. To distinguish it from a number of other rivers of the same name, it is often called the Bristol Avon. The name 'Avon' is a cognate of the Welsh word , meaning 'river'. The Avon r ...

flow east–west across the parish: the

Woodbridge Brook The Woodbridge Brook is a tributary of the Bristol Avon. It rises near Lydiard Millicent in Wiltshire in the west of England and flows in a generally westerly direction, joining the Avon below Malmesbury. The brook has a mean flow of and the wa ...

passes to the north of the village, while the Brinkworth Brook passes to the south and then forms the southwestern boundary of the parish. Towards the eastern boundary of the parish the Brinkworth Brook is joined by a small brook which drains the Royal Wootton Basset area.

Religious sites

Parish church

St Michael's and All Angels church, Brinkworth - geograph

The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...

of St Michael and All Angels is a

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

building. A church was recorded in 1151 and was linked with

until 1539. The present church dates from the 14th and 15th centuries, and was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

by C. E. Ponting in 1902–3. St Michael's is one of six churches in the Woodbridge Group. Notable rectors include Tobias Crisp, incumbent from 1627 to 1642.

Other churches

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primiti ...

chapel was built in 1828 in the Barnes Green area of Brinkworth, next to the main road through the village;

Richard Jukes Rev. Richard Jukes (1804–1867) was a popular Primitive Methodist minister and hymn writer. This article provides a brief biography, and a summary of his work as a popular minister and hymn writer during the first half-century of Primitive Metho ...

was the first minister. This was replaced by a larger building in 1860. The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre has records up to 1995; by 2009 the building was a private house. Vine House at Grittenham was used as a Moravian meeting house in the later 18th century and early 19th. Also at Grittenham, a small Primitive Methodist chapel was built in 1894; it was closed c. 1975.

Canal and railways

The

Wilts and Berks Canal The Wilts & Berks Canal is a canal in the historic counties of Wiltshire and Berkshire, England, linking the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. The North Wilts Canal merged with it to become a b ...

, opened in this area in 1801, completed in 1810 and abandoned in 1914, passed through the far south of the parish on its route to Swindon. Tockenham Reservoir, on both sides of the boundary with Lyneham parish, supplied the canal with water. A flight of seven locks lifted the canal over rising ground; restoration of four of these was started in 2005. The

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the or ...

Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

's route from London to Bath and Bristol, was built just to the north of the canal and opened in 1841. In 1903 the more direct route to South Wales was completed with the opening of the Badminton line, diverging from the older line at Wootton Bassett and passing close to the south of Brinkworth village. Both lines are still in use.

Brinkworth railway station

Brinkworth station, on the southern outskirts of the village near the road to

Dauntsey Dauntsey is a small village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, England. It gives its name to the Dauntsey Vale in which it lies and takes its name from Saxon for Dantes- eig, or Dante's island. It is set on slightly higher ground in t ...

and Grittenham, was opened at the same time as the Badminton Line in 1903. There were two platforms with buildings of brick and stone, a footbridge, goods yard and cattle pens, and a station master's house next to the road. Traffic (both goods and passengers) was always light and the station closed in 1961. The station was demolished but the house remains as a private residence.

Local government

The civil parish elects a parish council. It is in the area of Wiltshire Council

unitary authority A unitary authority is a local authority responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are usually performed by a higher level of sub-national government or the national governmen ...

, which is responsible for all significant local government functions. An

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

of the same name exists. From Brinkworth the ward stretches west to

Great Somerford Great Somerford is a village and civil parish within Dauntsey Vale, Wiltshire, England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon, Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). near the south bank of the river Avon. ...

and northwest to Crudwell. The ward's population at the 2011 census was 4,483.

Notable people

Landscape artist Thomas Hearne moved to Brinkworth aged five. His biographer, Simon Fenwick, suggests that nearby

proved an inspiration to Hearne's later interest in Gothic architecture.Simon Fenwick, 'Hearne, Thomas (1744–1817)',

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography The ''Dictionary of National Biography'' (''DNB'') is a standard work of reference on notable figures from British history, published since 1885. The updated ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (''ODNB'') was published on 23 September ...

, Oxford University Press, 2004 The writer and philosopher Roger Scruton lived at Sunday Hill Farm.

Schools

Brinkworth has a primary school, named Brinkworth Earl Danby's CE VC Primary School after it amalgamated in 1992 with the school at

, to the southwest. The building opened as a National School in 1868 which became Brinkworth County School in the 20th century; the original building is still in use, with classrooms in an adjacent building which was opened in 1993. There was also a school attached to Brinkworth Methodist chapel, which was in use in 1859. A small school, Lady Holland's, opened at Grittenham in 1864. This school closed in 1927 owing to falling pupil numbers.

Amenities

The village has a village hall and a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, the ''Three Crowns''.

References

Bibliography

*''The Court Records of Brinkworth and Charlton, 1544–1648'', ed. Douglas Crowley (

Wiltshire Record Society The Wiltshire Record Society is a text publication society in Wiltshire, England, which edits and publishes historic documents concerned with the history of Wiltshire. History In 1937, Ralph Pugh was the chief mover in a proposal to found the rec ...

Vol. 61, 2009)

External links

Brinkworth Parish Council

Brinkworth community website

Brinkworth Earl Danby's CE Primary School
{{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire