Buttermere 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

on the eastern boundary of

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England, about south of

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The population of the parish at the 2021 census was 5,869. The Kennet and Avon Can ...

and southeast of

Marlborough Marlborough or the Marlborough may refer to: Places Australia * Marlborough, Queensland * Principality of Marlborough, a short-lived micronation in 1993 * Marlborough Highway, Tasmania; Malborough was an historic name for the place at the sou ...

. The village stands above the steep escarpment of Ham Hill, and at above sea level it is the highest village in Wiltshire and probably the highest in

Wessex The Kingdom of the West Saxons, also known as the Kingdom of Wessex, was an Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom in the south of Great Britain, from around 519 until Alfred the Great declared himself as King of the Anglo-Saxons in 886. The Anglo-Sa ...

. The parish includes the hamlet of Henley, southwest of Buttermere village and next to the county border with

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

, and the western flanks of

Inkpen Hill Inkpen Hill is a summit in Berkshire, England, with a maximum elevation of . The hill is about southwest of Newbury on the Hampshire/Berkshire border and is part of the north-facing scarp of the North Hampshire Downs, a chalk ridge within the ...

Toponymy

A settlement at Buttermere is recorded in the 930s as ''Butermere'', and as ''Butremare'' in

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. The name is thought to derive from and is generally agreed to mean "lake with good pasture".

History

The manor of Buttermere was recorded in the 9th century, and from the 11th was held by St Swithun's priory, Winchester. Henley's land was probably added to the parish in the 11th century, when it was also held by St Swithun's. The parish was part of Savernake forest until 1330. The population of the parish was steady at around 130 for the whole of the 19th century but declined in the 20th, reaching 39 in 1971. A small school was built near the rectory in 1872, and closed in 1944 when there were only nine pupils.

Parish church

The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), 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 com ...

of St James is one of the smallest in Wiltshire. There was a church here in the 13th century, and a watercolour by John Buckler in 1806 shows a simple building with a wooden west turret. In 1855-6 the church was rebuilt on the same footprint, using salvaged materials, with a small central spire. The church is in the parish of

Ham Ham is pork from a leg cut that has been preserved by wet or dry curing, with or without smoking."Bacon: Bacon and Ham Curing" in '' Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 2, p. 39. As a processed meat, the term '' ...

and Buttermere, which is part of the Savernake team ministry.

Local government

Buttermere civil parish is governed by a

parish meeting A parish meeting is a meeting all the electors in a civil parish in England are entitled to attend. In some cases, where a parish or group of parishes has fewer than 200 electors, the parish meeting can take on the role of a parish council, with ...

, a form of governance applied to parishes with a small population. It is in the area of

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire (district), Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters a ...

unitary authority A unitary authority is a type of local government, local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are ...

, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire