Brixton Deverill is a small 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 authorit ...

about south of

Warminster Warminster () is an ancient market town with a nearby garrison, and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in south west Wiltshire, England, on the western edge of Salisbury Plain. The parish had a population of about 17,000 in 2011. The 11th-c ...

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 parish is in the Deverill Valley which carries the upper waters of the

River Wylye The River Wylye ( ) is a chalk stream in the south of England, with clear water flowing over gravel. It is popular with anglers for fly fishing. A half-mile stretch of the river and three lakes in Warminster are a local nature reserve. Cour ...

. The six villages of the valley –

Kingston Deverill Kingston Deverill is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. Its nearest towns are Mere, about to the southwest, and Warminster, about to the northeast. The parish and its demographic figures include the village of Monkton Deverill ...

, Monkton Deverill, Brixton, Hill Deverill,

Longbridge Deverill Longbridge Deverill is a village and civil parish about south of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. It is on the A350 primary route which connects the M4 motorway and west Wiltshire with Poole, Dorset. The parish is in the Deverill valley which ...

and Crockerton – are known as the Deverills.

History

In 1086,

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 manus ...

recorded a settlement called ''Devrel'' with 25 households, a church and a mill, on land held by the

Abbey of Bec-Hellouin Bec Abbey, formally the Abbey of Our Lady of Bec (french: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec), is a Benedictine monastic foundation in the Eure ''département'', in the Bec valley midway between the cities of Rouen and Bernay. It is located in Le Bec Hel ...

, Normandy. The lord in 1068 had been the Saxon Brictric, resulting in the 'Brixton' prefix to the placename. The abbey lost control of the estate during the wars with France, and in the 1440 Brixton was granted to

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

, who held it until 1941. The population of the parish peaked in the 1860s and 1870s, standing at 227 at the 1871 census, then fell sharply to 69 in 1901. The next century saw only a small increase, reaching 83 in 2011.

Local government

Brixton Deverill parish includes the small isolated settlement of Lower Pertwood. It elects members to a parish council called Upper Deverills, shared with the neighbouring parish of Kingston Deverill. The two parishes fall within the area of the

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and the ...

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.

Church

The Anglican Church of St Michael the Archangel dates from the 13th century and has a 15th-century tower; restoration was carried out in 1730 and 1862. The font from St Giles, Imber, was relocated here following the evacuation of that village in 1943. In 1968 the church was designated as Grade II* listed.

Roman villa

In April 2016 it was announced that the remains of a large

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

had been discovered in the village in February 2015. After excavations by archaeologists from

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

and

The Salisbury Museum The Salisbury Museum (previously The Salisbury and South Wiltshire Museum) is a museum in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England. It houses one of the best collections relating to Stonehenge and local archaeology. The museum is housed in The King's H ...

, a mosaic floor was uncovered of a large Roman property. The mosaic formed part of a 3-storey grand villa. The site is now known as the Deverill Villa. A Roman stone coffin, suitable for a child, which was being used as a plant pot, was also found.

References

External links

* Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire {{Wiltshire-geo-stub