Castle Combe is a village and
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...
within the
Cotswolds
The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale.
The area is defined by the bedrock of Ju ...
Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of th ...
in Wiltshire, England. The village is around north-west of
Chippenham
Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement is ...
. A castle once stood in the area, but was demolished centuries ago.
The village is in two parts: one is in the narrow valley of
By Brook
By or BY may refer to:
Places
* By, Doubs, France, a commune
* By, Norway, a village
Codes
* Belarus ISO country code
** .by, country-code top-level domain for Belarus
* Burundi FIPS Pub 10-4 and obsolete NATO digram country code
* TUI Ai ...
, while Upper Castle Combe is on higher land to the east, on the B4039 road connecting Chippenham and
Chipping Sodbury
Chipping Sodbury is a market town and former civil parish, now in the parish of Sodbury, in the unitary authority area of South Gloucestershire, in the ceremonial county of Gloucestershire, England. It was founded in the 12th century by William ...
. No new houses have been built in the historic area since about 1600. South of the upper village is the
Castle Combe motor racing circuit.
History
A
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 ...
once stood about three miles from the village, indicating Roman occupation of the area. The site has been excavated on at least three occasions, the first by Scrope in 1852 and the most recent in 2010. Some reports refer to the site as the
North Wraxall
North Wraxall is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is about west of Chippenham, just north of the A420 road between Chippenham and Bristol.
The parish includes the village of Ford and the hamlets of Upper Wraxall, M ...
or the Truckle Hill villa. Evidence of a bath house and corn drying ovens were found, the latter from the 4th century. The villa itself apparently contained 16 rooms, and there were additional buildings and a cemetery. Neolithic flint tools and Iron Age brooches were also discovered not far from the villa, in 1985.
The settlement was listed in 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 ...
of 1086, with 33 households; the Lord was Humphrey de l'Isle.
The village takes its name from the
12th-century castle which stood about to the north. The site where the castle once stood now only contains the old earthworks and masonry, which are estimated to date from the 12th century. It is believed that the castle was constructed as the seat of the Barony of Combe under
Reginald de Dunstanville either during the reign of
Henry I or his
son. Reginald was thought to support
Empress Matilda
Empress Matilda ( 7 February 110210 September 1167), also known as the Empress Maude, was one of the claimants to the English throne during the civil war known as the Anarchy. The daughter of King Henry I of England, she moved to Germany as ...
during the
Anarchy
Anarchy is a society without a government. It may also refer to a society or group of people that entirely rejects a set hierarchy. ''Anarchy'' was first used in English in 1539, meaning "an absence of government". Pierre-Joseph Proudhon adopte ...
, and the castle was constructed during the wave of castle buildings of the Anarchy period.
The 14th-century
market cross
A market cross, or in Scots, a mercat cross, is a structure used to mark a market square in market towns, where historically the right to hold a regular market or fair was granted by the monarch, a bishop or a baron.
History
Market crosses ...
, erected when the privilege to hold a
weekly market in Castle Combe was granted, stands where the three principal streets of the lower village converge. The Market Cross, a Scheduled Monument, reflects "the significance of the cloth industry in this area".
Next to the cross is one of Castle Combe's two
village pump
A well is an excavation or structure created in the ground by digging, driving, or drilling to access liquid resources, usually water. The oldest and most common kind of well is a water well, to access groundwater in underground aquifers. Th ...
s. Small stone steps near the cross were for horse riders to mount and dismount, and close by are the remains of the
buttercross, built in the late 19th century from old masonry. This structure, "also known as Weavers’ Steps and ‘the stone’", is another Scheduled Monument.
During the 14th century, the seat of the Barony was transferred to the Manor House within Castle Combe village and a deer park was created next to the castle.
The market town prospered during the 15th century when it belonged to Millicent, the wife of Sir Stephen Le Scrope and then of
Sir John Fastolf (1380–1459), a
Norfolk
Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...
knight who was the effective lord of the manor for fifty years. By 1340, the village had a fulling mill, confirming the importance of wool by that time. Scrope promoted the woollen industry, supplying his own troops and others for
Henry V's war in France. The parish was in the ancient
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
of Chippenham.
By the 17th century,
John Aubrey
John Aubrey (12 March 1626 – 7 June 1697) was an English antiquarian, antiquary, Natural philosophy, natural philosopher and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of the ''Brief Lives'', his collection of short biographical pieces. ...
stated that a market was held on the site of the old castle.
At some time in the late 1700s, the level of the
Bybrook River
The Bybrook, also known as the By Brook, is a small river in England. It is a tributary of the Bristol Avon and is some long. Its sources are the Burton Brook and the Broadmead Brook, which rise in South Gloucestershire at Tormarton and Cold A ...
fell, so it could no longer be used to power mills. The cloth industry began leaving the area during that century; "industrial prosperity was over and the population decreased".
Notable houses include the Dower House, from the late 17th century is now Grade II listed.
The village was owned by the Scrope family for over five centuries, until 1866 when it was sold to the Gorst family and Edward Chaddock Lowndes (who was previously also known as Gorst). The latter spent a great deal of money on improving the manor house and the estate.
A
National School was built in 1826, on a site between the upper and lower villages. The school was taken over by the county council in 1909, and educated children of all ages until 1956 when older pupils were transferred to secondary schools in Chippenham. It closed in 1998 on the opening of a new primary school at
Yatton Keynell
Yatton Keynell (pronounced "kennel") is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is on the B4039 road near Castle Combe, about northwest of Chippenham, and about the same distance to the east of the county border with So ...
.
During the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the
RAF Castle Combe airfield was built east of the village, with runways, hangars and a control tower. Between 1946 and 1948 the airfield buildings were used as temporary housing for former military from Poland. The property was sold in 1948, and was later modified for motor racing; the tower is still used during races at
Castle Combe Circuit
Castle Combe Circuit is a motor racing circuit in Wiltshire, England, approximately from Bristol. The circuit is based on the perimeter track of a former World War II airfield, and was opened for racing in 1950.
History
The Castle Combe a ...
. Also during the war, the Manor was used as a hospital;
some time after the war, the manor was converted to a hotel and continues in this use.
For decades the village had a number of gristmills and sawmills but all went out of business;
Nettleton Mill
Nettleton Mill is a mill house in Wiltshire, England, on the banks of the Bybrook River, to the southeast of Nettleton. Part of the Castle Combe estate, it was built in 1774 as a farmhouse; this date is inscribed on the outer building. The ol ...
closed before 1916 and Gatcombe Mill closed circa 1925; both are Grade II listed. The Long Dean Mill shut down in 1956; the Lower mill is now Grade II listed; Colham Mill was demolished in 1962. The last remaining stone tower of the castle stood for centuries, but it too was demolished, in 1950.
Listed buildings
Castle Combe parish has 107
listed building
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 I ...
s; nearly all are in the Grade II category.
Religious sites
Parish church
The
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...
of St Andrew 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 Ire ...
building. Part of the chancel is 13th-century; in 1850–51 nearly all of the building, except the 15th-century tower, was taken down and reconstructed to the same plan.
Congregational Church
The first chapel was built in 1757 and extended with a schoolroom in 1846. The current church, opened in 1914, is in the upper part of the village on what is now the B4039 road. The building is a former
malt house and is attached to an 18th-century house which became the
manse
A manse () is a clergy house inhabited by, or formerly inhabited by, a minister, usually used in the context of Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist and other Christian traditions.
Ultimately derived from the Latin ''mansus'', "dwelling", from ''m ...
. The church continues in use.
Today
The
motor racing
Motorsport, motorsports or motor sport is a global term used to encompass the group of competitive sporting events which primarily involve the use of motorized vehicles. The terminology can also be used to describe forms of competition of tw ...
venue, Castle Combe Circuit, is located on the site of the former
RAF Castle Combe airfield near the village.
The village has twice held the Combe Sunday event, a music festival which attracted 4,000 visitors to the village in 2006.
Castle Combe is represented in Parliament by
James Gray
James, Jim, or Jimmy Gray may refer to:
Politicians
* James Gray (Australian politician) (1820–1889), member of the Tasmanian House of Assembly
* James Gray (British politician) (born 1954), British politician
* James Gray (mayor) (1862–1916 ...
, and in
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority of Borough of Swindon, Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authorit ...
by
Jane Scott, both
Conservatives
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...
.
In popular culture
The village was a location for the 1967 film musical ''
Doctor Dolittle''. Its frequently rainy summer climate frustrated production, as did attempted sabotage – including by British Army officer (and future explorer) Sir
Ranulph Fiennes - because of residents' irritation at the producers' modifications of the area for shooting. Other productions include "
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
''The Murder of Roger Ackroyd'' is a work of detective fiction by British writer Agatha Christie, first published in June 1926 in the United Kingdom by William Collins, Sons and in the United States by Dodd, Mead and Company. It is the third no ...
", an episode of ''
Agatha Christie's Poirot
''Poirot'' (also known as ''Agatha Christie's Poirot'') is a British mystery drama television programme that aired on ITV from 8 January 1989 to 13 November 2013. David Suchet starred as the eponymous detective, Agatha Christie's fictional H ...
'', and the films ''
Stardust
Stardust may refer to:
* A type of cosmic dust, composed of particles in space
Entertainment Songs
* “Stardust” (1927 song), by Hoagy Carmichael
* “Stardust” (David Essex song), 1974
* “Stardust” (Lena Meyer-Landrut song), 2012
* ...
'' and ''
The Wolfman
In folklore, a werewolf (), or occasionally lycanthrope (; ; uk, Вовкулака, Vovkulaka), is an individual that can shapeshift into a wolf (or, especially in modern film, a therianthropic hybrid wolf-like creature), either purposely o ...
''. Throughout September 2010, the village was a filming location for
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg (; born December 18, 1946) is an American director, writer, and producer. A major figure of the New Hollywood era and pioneer of the modern blockbuster, he is the most commercially successful director of all time. Spi ...
's production of ''
War Horse''.
Raymond Austin set the action of his book ''Find me a Spy, Catch me a Traitor'' in the village and at the Manor. The house of Alice Cartalet in the manga and anime series ''
Kiniro Mosaic'' was based on Fosse Farmhouse, a guesthouse near Castle Combe.
The village was a
filming location
A filming location is a place where some or all of a film or television series is produced, in addition to or instead of using sets constructed on a movie studio backlot or soundstage. In filmmaking, a location is any place where a film crew ...
for the fantasy adventure movie ''
Mariah Mundi and the Midas Box'' in 2012, and later for a series of ''
Downton Abbey
''Downton Abbey'' is a British historical drama television series set in the early 20th century, created and co-written by Julian Fellowes. The series first aired in the United Kingdom on ITV on 26 September 2010 and in the United States on ...
''.
Tourist services
Castle Combe has a car park at the top of the hill, and toilet facilities over the bridge at the bottom of the village. There was a small museum but it closed in 2012.
The Manor House was built in the 17th century and rebuilt in the 19th.
It has 48 rooms and of gardens. During
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, the New Zealand Forestry Officers had the Manor House as their headquarters. In 1947, the owner of the Castle Combe estate sold the houses of the estate and the Manor House became a country club. After 18 months the club left the premises, and the house was shortly thereafter sold to Bobbie Allen, an amateur hotelier, and her husband. Mrs Allen wrote a book of her experiences, ''From Claridge's to Castle Combe''. The manor house and estate were sold in 1947.
The property was owned by the Allen family for some time and they sold the Manor House to Mr and Mrs Oliver Clegg who (some time after 1976) sold it to the corporation which now owns the property. By the time it was listed as a
Grade II
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 Ire ...
property in 1960, it was already operating as a hotel.
The 5-star
Manor House Hotel is in the west end of the village and features 21 rooms including a suite and 29 cottages. In addition to the golf course (which opened in 1992), the grounds include "a glorious Italianate garden" and
heRiver Bybrook.
References
External links
Castle Combe parish councilCastle Combe at VisitWiltshireCastle Combe village websiteBed and Breakfast accommodationCastle Combe history
{{authority control
Villages in Wiltshire
Civil parishes in Wiltshire