Stanton Fitzwarren 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 ...

northeast 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 ...

, in

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. It is part of 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 ...

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 ...

Saint Leonard Leonard of Noblac (also Leonard of Limoges or Leonard of Noblet; also known as Lienard, Linhart, Leonhard, Léonard, Leonardo, Annard; died 559), is a Frankish saint closely associated with the town and abbey of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat, in Haut ...

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

.Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 477 The north and south doorways, the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

arch and a window in the north wall all survive from this period. The cylindrical

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

is an important Norman sculpture depicting eight virtues, eight vices, the Church, the Evil One and a six-winged seraph. The Norman building had an

apse In architecture, an apse (plural apses; from Latin 'arch, vault' from Ancient Greek 'arch'; sometimes written apsis, plural apsides) is a semicircular recess covered with a hemispherical vault or semi-dome, also known as an ''exedra''. In ...

, of which the foundations were discovered during restoration work in 1865. The chancel was rebuilt in the 14th century with a flat east wall and east window. The

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

was added in 1631. The church has been listed as grade 1 by

English heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

. St. Leonard's

restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

(1865) was completed by the Gothic Revival architect J.W. Hugall. In 1891 the

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

was lengthened westwards and the south porch was added. During one of the 19th century rebuildings a new east window was inserted in the chancel and the 14th century one was re-used as the centrepiece of a folly in the grounds of Stanton House.Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 478 St. Leonard's parish is now part of a single Church of England benefice with the parishes of

South Marston South Marston is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The village is about north-east of Swindon town centre. History The earliest documentary evidence for continuous settlement dates from the 13th centur ...

and

Stratton St Margaret Stratton St Margaret is a civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The parish covers north-eastern suburbs of Swindon including Stratton St Margaret itself along with Upper Stratton, Lower Stratton and Kingsdown. Since May 20 ...

Railway

The Swindon and Highworth Light Railway – from 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 ...

at Swindon to Highworth – was built through Stanton Fitzwarren in 1879–81, although the original company was unable to open the line and sold it to the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

(GWR) in 1882.The Highworth Branch: Swindon & Highworth Light Railway: The Swindon & Highworth Light Railway - A History
/ref> In 1883 the GWR finally opened the line to traffic, with three intermediate stations including one at Mill Lane, in the north of the village. Neither passenger nor goods traffic was high, but activity increased during both world wars. From 1916, timber was taken from Stanton Big Wood; and from the late 1930s the station provided access for the building of the aircraft factory at

(later taken over by

Vickers-Armstrongs Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, w ...

), although this traffic ceased after a spur into the factory was built in the early 1940s. The station also served army camps in the area.

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

ways withdrew passenger services in 1953, apart from workmen's trains that it continued to run until 1962. Most of the line, including the section through Stanton, was then dismantled.

Stanton House

Stanton House was built just south of the church in 1935, in traditional Cotswold style, for a New York businessman; at the same time a 19th-century cottage at the north entrance to the site was repurposed as a lodge. The house is now a hotel.

Amenities

Stanton has a village hallStanton Fitzwarren, Swindon, Wiltshire: Village Hall
/ref> and a Women's Institute.

References

Sources

* Civil parishes in Wiltshire Villages in Wiltshire Borough of Swindon {{Wiltshire-geo-stub