East Tytherton is a hamlet in the civil parish of

Bremhill Bremhill is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is about northwest of Calne and east of Chippenham. The name originates from '' 'Bramble hill'.'' Geography Bremhill civil parish is a rural area which stretches nort ...

in the ceremonial county of

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. Its nearest town is

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

, which lies approximately south-west from the hamlet.

Geography

East Tytherton is located on a minor road in a valley some northeast of Chippenham and a similar distance northwest of

Calne Calne () is a town and civil parish in Wiltshire, southwestern England,OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). at the northwestern extremity of the North Wessex Downs h ...

in the civil parish of

. It has a rectangular

village green A village green is a commons, common open area within a village or other settlement. Historically, a village green was common pasture, grassland with a pond for watering cattle and other stock, often at the edge of a rural settlement, used for ...

around which the grey stone manor and the other residences are clustered. One timber-framed house has painted brick walls and a corrugated iron roof.

History

A house at East Tytherton was bought by preacher

John Cennick John Cennick (12 December 1718 – 4 July 1755) was an English Methodist and Moravian evangelist and hymnwriter. He was born in Reading, Berkshire, England to an Anglican family and raised in the Church of England. According to Moravian Bisho ...

in 1742 and a Moravian community was founded in 1745; a chapel, manse and church cottage were built for the community. Pevsner describes the Moravian settlement and "..the School House, dated 1785.." built behind the existing chapel buildings as The Single Sisters' Choir House. Early residents included Leonora Carr and 4 other ex-slaves from Antigua who lived at the Single Sisters' House in the early 19th century. Leonora is buried in the graveyard behind the house. The Sisters' Choir House was subsequently converted into a boarding school, primarily for the children of Moravian missionaries. One pupil was Thermutis Coleman whose son (Rev. Robert Francis Kilvert) wrote the descriptions of local life which were later published and broadcast on BBC Radio as "Kilvert's Diaries". The Sisters' Choir House has been a private residence (Kellaways House) since WW2. The manse and chapel were rebuilt between 1792 and 1793, and a schoolroom was added in 1793–4. The chapel,

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 '' ...

and former schoolroom are red brick buildings with

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

dressings and stone slate roofs, and are

Grade II* 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 ...

. The chapel is a single-storey structure with a pair of two-storey houses attached at either end. The manse has a timber

bell-cot A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

at the east end. As of 2016, the church is still in use. The Moravian school was built to house fifty pupils but at one time there were seventy. The school closed in 1931. Nearby, a British school opened in 1871 and became a County school in the 20th century, later named Maud Heath School. Pupil numbers declined from the 1950s and the school closed at the end of 2005. In 2016 the building was an activity centre for

Girl Guides Girl Guides (known as Girl Scouts in the United States and some other countries) is a worldwide movement, originally and largely still designed for girls and women only. The movement began in 1909 when girls requested to join the then-grassroot ...

References

{{authority control Villages in Wiltshire