Great Shefford (or West Shefford) is an English 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 ...

on the

River Lambourn The River Lambourn is a chalk stream in the English county of Berkshire. It rises in the Berkshire Downs near its namesake village of Lambourn and is a tributary of the River Kennet, which is itself a tributary of the River Thames. The river ...

in the

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a local government district in Berkshire, England, administered from Newbury by West Berkshire Council. History The district of Newbury was formed on 1 April 1974, as a merger of the borough of Newbury, Bradfield Rural Distric ...

district of

Berkshire Berkshire ( ; in the 17th century sometimes spelt phonetically as Barkeshire; abbreviated Berks.) is a historic county in South East England. One of the home counties, Berkshire was recognised by Queen Elizabeth II as the Royal County of Berk ...

. The present civil parish includes the historical parish of Little or East Shefford, a small, reduced community downstream. It also covers the village of

Shefford Woodlands Shefford Woodlands is a village in West Berkshire, England, about northeast of the market town of Hungerford. The village is in the Civil parishes in England, civil parish of Great Shefford, about southeast of Great Shefford village. Shefford W ...

, about south-west of Great Shefford, near Junction 14 on the

M4 motorway The M4, originally the London-South Wales Motorway, is a motorway in the United Kingdom running from west London to southwest Wales. The English section to the Severn Bridge was constructed between 1961 and 1971; the Welsh element was largely ...

Toponymy

The

toponym Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage and types. Toponym is the general term for a proper name of ...

of the Sheffords derives from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for sheep ford.

Amenities

Great Shefford village has a

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

that belongs to Chaddleworth St. Andrew's and Shefford

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...

Federated Primary Schools. It also has a pub-restaurant, The Great Shefford, a shop and a petrol station.

Churches

St Mary

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 Mary is one of two existing

round-tower church Round-tower churches are a type of church found mainly in England, mostly in East Anglia; of about 185 surviving examples in the country, 124 are in Norfolk, 38 in Suffolk, six in Essex, three in Sussex and two each in Cambridgeshire and Berkshi ...

es in Berkshire. The other is St Gregory's parish church at nearby Welford. Unlike the three round-towered churches in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

, where the towers are plain flint cylinders with few openings, the Great Shefford one consists of sections with ample fenestration, more like the

East Anglian East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy, kingdom of the Kingdom of East Anglia, East Angles, ...

type. The base of the tower, at least, seems to date from the 13th century. It joins the west wall of 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 ...

in a way that suggests it was built at the same time as the nave, which shows early

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

features. St Mary's belongs to the West Downland

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

group of eight neighbouring churches. Services are held at St Mary's on the first, second and third Sunday of the month.A Church Near You. Retrieved 5 December 2018.
/ref> A group service is held at St Stephen's on the fourth Sunday of the month. St Mary's is a Grade II*

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 Irel ...

St Stephen

The church of

Saint Stephen Stephen ( grc-gre, Στέφανος ''Stéphanos'', meaning "wreath, crown" and by extension "reward, honor, renown, fame", often given as a title rather than as a name; c. 5 – c. 34 AD) is traditionally venerated as the protomartyr or first ...

is a former

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's b ...

chapel A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common ty ...

, taken over as part of

Saint Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

in 1911. The church is a Grade II listed building.

St Thomas

St Thomas' Church, East Shefford St Thomas' Church is a redundant Church of England parish church at East Shefford in the English county of Berkshire. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is under the care of ...

is a

redundant church A redundant church, now referred to as a "closed church", is a church building that is no longer used for Christian worship. The term most frequently refers to former Anglican churches in the United Kingdom, but may also be used for disused churc ...

, but listed as a

Grade I 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 ...

historic building. It contains monuments to the widespread

Fettiplace Fettiplace is an English family name, allegedly of Norman descent, originating with a landed gentry family chiefly of Berkshire and Oxfordshire, from which came a baronetical line, extinct. English family The first recorded member of the Fett ...

family.

Notable people

Richard Brydges Richard Brydges (1500–1558) was an English politician. Sir Richard Brydges was the Member of Parliament for Berkshire from 1539 to 1540 and, at other times, for Ludgershall. The Brydges family leased and then owned the manor of Ludgershall ...

(1500–1558), politician, owned and lived at Great Shefford Manor. *

Clive Bell Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East ...

(1881–1964), art critic, was born in East Shefford. *

Harold Balfour, 1st Baron Balfour of Inchrye Harold Harington Balfour, 1st Baron Balfour of Inchrye, (1 November 1897 – 21 September 1988), was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom, and a flying ace of the First World War. As Under-Secretary of State for Air in 1944 he ...

(1897–1988),

Conservative 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 ...

MP and

Privy Councillor A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...

, died in Great Shefford. * Brian Cheesman (born 1929), international cricketer, was born in

Transport

Reading Buses Reading Buses is a bus operator serving the towns of Reading, Bracknell, Newbury, Slough, Windsor, Maidenhead, Wokingham and the surrounding areas in the counties of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire, England, as well as parts of Greater L ...

route 4 ( Newbury–

Lambourn Lambourn is a village and civil parish in Berkshire, England. It lies just north of the M4 Motorway between Swindon and Newbury, and borders Wiltshire to the west and Oxfordshire to the north. After Newmarket it is the largest centre of ra ...

) serves Great Shefford. From 1898 until 1960 the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

included Great Shefford railway station on the

Lambourn Valley Railway The Lambourn Valley Railway (LVR) was a branch railway line running from the town of Newbury, Berkshire north-west to the village of Lambourn. It was opened in 1898. Fulfilling a local need, it was in financial difficulties throughout its ind ...

. The nearest station today is Newbury, 10.5 miles/16 km away. The north-south A338 between

Wantage Wantage () is a historic market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. Although within the boundaries of the historic county of Berkshire, it has been administered as part of the Vale of White Horse district of Oxfordshire since 1974. T ...

and

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, northeast of Salisbury and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town alongside the ...

runs through the village and connects to Junction 14 on the

Demography

The 2011 Census recorded a

population of 937,Population sit
Retrieved 11 July 2018.
/ref> and 880 are listed on the Millennium Stone opposite the

petrol station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Gasoline ...

. The population had grown by about 5 per cent since the 2011 census.

References

Sources

* *

External links

Great Shefford and Shefford WoodlandsSt Mary's and St Stephen's Churches Website
{{authority control Villages in Berkshire West Berkshire District Civil parishes in Berkshire