Fyfield 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 authorit ...
in the English 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 ...
, in the
Kennet Valley
The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which â ...
about west of
Marlborough
Marlborough may refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Marlborough, Wiltshire, England
** Marlborough College, public school
* Marlborough School, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England
* The Marlborough Science Academy in Hertfordshire, England
Austral ...
. The village is on the
A4 road This is a list of roads designated A4.
A4 is the name of several roads:
* A004 road (Argentina), a road connecting Buenos Aires-La Plata highway with the Juan MarÃa Gutiérrez circle
* A4 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Vienna and Nickels ...
which was historically the main route from London to the west of England.
History
Fyfield Down has extensive remains from successive phases of prehistoric to post-medieval activity. A 300-acre field system extending onto Overton Down has produced Iron Age and Romano-British finds.
The downland has many
sarsen
Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire.
Geology ...
stones – pieces of dense, hard, sandy rock. In prehistoric times these were used for monuments, handaxes,
quern-stones and other implements; medieval houses in Kennet Valley villages had walls made from sarsen blocks. Around 1850, Edward Free began a stone-cutting business at Fyfield which supplied much material for buildings, pavements and kerbs. The Free family moved to Marlborough in 1890; sarsen cutting declined after 1915 and ceased in 1939.
Prior to the mid 19th century, the village was centred south of the church, in the valley northeast of Lockeridge House (c. 1740). After a fire, this area was abandoned in favour of higher ground along the Bath Road; many of the new cottages were demolished during road improvements in the 1930s, leaving the village without a heart.
From c. 1880, about 560 acres
on Fyfield Down and Overton Down, overlapping much of the present nature reserve and then owned by the
Meux family, was managed as a rabbit warren for sport shooting. Most of the land was sold in 1906 by the widow of Sir Henry Bruce Meux to racehorse trainer
Alec Taylor; in 1910 Taylor closed the warren and had some 14,000 rabbits killed, in order to use the area for exercising horses.
Governance
The parish elects a joint parish council with the adjacent parish of
West Overton
West Overton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about west of Marlborough. The river Kennet runs immediately north of the village, separating it from the A4 road. The parish includes the village of Lockeridge, a ...
; the council is named
Fyfield and West Overton. It falls within the area of the
Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council is a council for the unitary authority of Wiltshire (excluding the separate unitary authority of Swindon) in South West England, created in 2009. It is the successor authority to Wiltshire County Council (1889–2009) and 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 ...
, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.
Before the 19th century, Fyfield was a
chapelry of Overton parish, alongside the
tithings
A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or s ...
of East Overton,
Lockeridge
Lockeridge (pop. approximately 290) is a village in Wiltshire, England. It lies at the edge of the West Woods in the Kennet Valley, west of Marlborough, east of Avebury and south of Swindon. It is south of the A4 road which was historically ...
, Shaw, and West Overton. The tithings became a
poor law parish called West Overton while Fyfield relieved its own poor; this probably led the Census enumerators of 1841 to class Fyfield, with its medieval chapel, incorrectly as an ancient parish, which in turn led to its establishment as a civil parish.
Clatford Park and Overton Heath, to the south of the ancient
Wansdyke and in the far south of the modern parish, were
Extra-parochial places in the earlier 19th century. In 1896 they were merged into Fyfield parish.
Landmarks
North of the A4, the parish extends onto the
Marlborough Downs
The North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is located in the English counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire. The name ''North Wessex Downs'' is not a traditional one, the area covered being better k ...
. Here
Fyfield Down
Fyfield Down () is part of the Marlborough Downs, about north of the village of Fyfield, Wiltshire. The down is a 325.3 hectare biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, notified in 1951. The down has the best assemblage o ...
is a biological and geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, noted for its
sarsen
Sarsen stones are silicified sandstone blocks found in quantity in Southern England on Salisbury Plain and the Marlborough Downs in Wiltshire; in Kent; and in smaller quantities in Berkshire, Essex, Oxfordshire, Dorset, and Hampshire.
Geology ...
stones and prehistoric sites including
The Devil's Den
The Devil's Den or Devil's Den is a dolmen burial chamber on Fyfield Hill near Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. The chamber is part of a neolithic passage grave on Fyfield Down
Fyfield Down () is part of the Marlborough Downs, about north o ...
, the remains of a
neolithic
The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...
burial chamber
A chamber tomb is a tomb for burial used in many different cultures. In the case of individual burials, the chamber is thought to signify a higher status for the interred than a simple grave. Built from rock or sometimes wood, the chambers could ...
.
Parts of the south of the parish lie within the West Woods, which has been managed since 1931 by the Forestry Commission.
Church
The
Church of England parish church of St Nicholas is
Grade II* listed. The building has 13th-century origins and a 15th-century tower; it was
restored
''Restored'' is the fourth
studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings.
Track listing
Standard release
Enhanced edition
Deluxe gold edition
Standard ...
in 1849. Today the church is part of the Upper Kennet benefice.
Inns
Fyfield's earliest known inn was ''The Crown and Fighting Cocks''. Mark Pope Snr was the innholder at the time of drafting his last will and testament in 1776. According to his will he left the inn to his wife, Anne Pope, for the term of her life or until the day she remarried. Mark died in June 1780 and his will was proved at Marlborough on 24 July 1780. In his will Mark referred to his "ancient dwelling house or Inn known by the sign of The Crown and Fighting Cocks situated and being in Fyfield". This suggests the inn had been in business for an extended period.
Sometime during the 14 years Mark Pope's widow, Anne, was innholder, the name changed to ''The Fighting Cocks''. Anne died in 1794 and in her will she bequeathed ''The Fighting Cocks'' inn to her son, Luke Pope. It is not known how long Luke operated the inn.
''The Fighting Cocks’'' known innholders were:
* Mark Pope – from at least 1776 until 1780
* Anne Pope – from 1780 to 1794
* Luke Pope – from 1794 to ?
* Mr Free – 1860 (start and finish date unknown)
* An unnamed landlady – 1884 (start and finish date unknown)
* Thomas Maslen – 1894 (start and finish date unknown)
[''Wiltshire Independent'', 21 June 1849, page 3]
* Mr Caswell, blacksmith – 1906 (approx.) (start and finish date unknown)
* Mr E. Pile – 1936 (approx.) (start and finish date unknown)
''The Fighting Cocks'' was demolished in the 1930s to allow for road widening.
References
* Map 'Explorer 157', published by the
Ordnance Survey
Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...
, , revised 1997.
External links
*
*
{{authority control
Villages in Wiltshire
Civil parishes in Wiltshire