Everleigh, pronounced and also sometimes spelt Everley, is a village and
civil parish in east
Wiltshire, England, about southeast of the town of
Pewsey, towards the northeast of
Salisbury Plain
Salisbury Plain is a chalk plateau in the south western part of central southern England covering . It is part of a system of chalk downlands throughout eastern and southern England formed by the rocks of the Chalk Group and largely lies wi ...
.
The village is also known as East Everleigh, to distinguish it from the hamlet of Lower Everleigh which lies about further west on the
A342 road that connects
Andover and
Devizes. The village is surrounded by land known as Everleigh Drop Zone, owned by the
Ministry of Defence
{{unsourced, date=February 2021
A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in states ...
that is used for military training as part of the
Salisbury Plain Training Area.
History
The partly-forested area was known for recreational
hunting
Hunting is the human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, or killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to harvest food (i.e. meat) and useful animal products (fur/hide (skin), hide, ...
. By the 13th century there was a deer park and a rabbit warren, and later activities included
hare coursing,
falconry
Falconry is the hunting of wild animals in their natural state and habitat by means of a trained bird of prey. Small animals are hunted; squirrels and rabbits often fall prey to these birds. Two traditional terms are used to describe a person ...
and racehorse training. East Everleigh developed at a crossroads where the old Marlborough-Salisbury road (now only a track in the south of the parish) met the Devizes-Andover road (now the A342). In the 18th and 19th centuries, several inns provided refreshment and lodging.
The Everleigh estate was bought by
Sir John Astley in 1765, and inherited in 1771 by his cousin Francis Dugdale Astley; it continued as the seat of the
Astley baronets until the middle of the next century. Sir Francis made changes to the village layout around 1811, removing buildings which stood close to the manor house and diverting the road away from it. Those demolished included the old church (rebuilt by Sir Francis further west) and the ''Rose and Crown'' inn.
Manor house
James VI and I and
Anne of Denmark came from
Wilton House to Everleigh on 31 August 1603 to visit Mr Sadler, a son of
Queen Elizabeth's falconer Ralph Sadler.
The present Everleigh Manor was built in the 18th century, possibly on the site of the earlier house, and extended with east and west wings later in the century. In 1882 the central block was virtually reconstructed following a fire. It is a two-storey
country house
An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a town house. This allowed them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these peopl ...
in brick and stone, originally five bays, extended to nine.
The Manor House was once a holding area for the prisoners during the Bloody Assizes with trials held by Judge Jeffreys in 1685. It was connected to a public house nearby, known as "The Crown", by a tunnel where prisoners would be led to and from the court house and manor. The tunnel is now blocked up on either end of both the manor and public house, but the tunnel still exists to this day.
The manor house was bought by the National Deposit
Friendly Society in 1921, for use as a
convalescent home
A sanatorium (from Latin '' sānāre'' 'to heal, make healthy'), also sanitarium or sanitorium, are antiquated names for specialised hospitals, for the treatment of specific diseases, related ailments and convalescence. Sanatoriums are often ...
. The house was requisitioned in 1939 and, with new buildings added in its grounds, became a military hospital used by the US Army; there was also a vaccine laboratory. In 1951 the west wing was named the
David Bruce Laboratory, and by this time the site was used by the
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...
; the house and grounds were bought by the
War Office in 1954. The
Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 map of 1958 shows many small buildings in the grounds to the northwest of the manor house.
The Army left the site c. 1990 and the house returned to use as a private residence.
As of 2016, the west wing is operated as a hotel.
Parish church
Everleigh had a parish church by 1228, when it was granted to the
Benedictine Wherwell Abbey
Wherwell Abbey was an abbey of Benedictine nuns in Wherwell, Hampshire, England.
Foundation
The nunnery was founded about 986 by Ælfthryth, the widow of King Edgar. She retired there to live a life of penance for her part in the murders ...
in
Hampshire.
However, the mediaeval parish church was demolished in 1814 when the present
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
Saint Peter was consecrated on a site about northwest of it.
The present church was designed by the architect John Morlidge
in a
Georgian Gothic Revival
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...
style.
[Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 242] It includes the original
Norman 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 ...
from the old church.
[
The Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre holds the parish registers for 1598 to 1971 (baptisms), 1598-1974 (marriages), and 1598-1984 (burials). The population in 1831 was 352, but by 1951 it had fallen to 264.
Rev. Prof. ]John Wallis
John Wallis (; la, Wallisius; ) was an English clergyman and mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of infinitesimal calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal ...
(1675-1738), who was rector of Everleigh from 1716, was at the same time Laudian Professor of Arabic at the University of Oxford.
Local government
Everleigh is a civil parish with an elected parish council. The village is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.
Recreation
The Orange Way
The Orange Way, so called because it follows the march in 1688 of Prince William of Orange and his army from Brixham to London, is a unofficial long-distance walk in England that passes through Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Buckingham ...
long-distance footpath passes through Everleigh village in a southwest–northeast direction.
References
External links
*
{{authority control
Civil parishes in Wiltshire
Military parachuting training
Military parachuting in the United Kingdom
Villages in Wiltshire