Southwick is a semi-rural 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 ...
southwest of the
county town of
Trowbridge
Trowbridge ( ) is the county town of Wiltshire, England, on the River Biss in the west of the county. It is near the border with Somerset and lies southeast of Bath, 31 miles (49 km) southwest of Swindon and 20 miles (32 km) southeas ...
,
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 separated from the southwest fringe of Trowbridge only by the Southwick Country Park, which consists of of open fields. The majority of the village lies south of the
A361, which runs through the village, linking Trowbridge with
Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...
.
The parish includes the hamlets of Hoggington and Hoopers Pool.
Geography
The
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
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, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
border lies approximately one mile southwest of Southwick village. Nearby villages are
Rode, about to the southwest, and
North Bradley
North Bradley is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, between Trowbridge and Westbury. The village is about south of Trowbridge town centre. The parish includes most of the village of Yarnbrook, and the hamlets of Brokerswood, Cu ...
, one mile to the east.
A tributary of the
River Biss, the Lambrok Stream, which is fed from streams in the south and west of the parish, flows to the southeast of the village and then turns to form part of the parish's northeastern boundary with Trowbridge.
History
Southwick, together with North Bradley, was part of
Steeple Ashton manor in
Anglo-Saxon times.
The area was part of the extensive
Selwood Forest
The ancient Selwood Forest ran approximately between Gillingham in Dorset and Chippenham in Wiltshire. It is described by the historian Barbara Yorke as a "formidable natural obstacle" in the Anglo-Saxon period, which was a significant boundar ...
until 1300.
Early landowners included
Humphrey Stafford (died 1413)
Sir Humphrey Stafford,( 1341 – 31 October 1413), of Southwick, Wiltshire; Hooke, Dorset; and Bramshall, Staffordshire, was a member of the fifteenth-century English gentry. He held royal offices firstly in the county of his birth, and ...
.
Settlement at Southwick began in the early Middle Ages and grew with the woollen cloth industry, weavers working at home for Trowbridge clothiers; the population peaked in the early 19th century.
A
National School, with teacher's house, was built on the Frome Road in 1867 on land provided by
Richard Penruddocke Long
Richard Penruddocke Long JP, DL (19 December 1825 – 16 February 1875) was an English landowner and Conservative Party politician. He was a founding member of the amateur cricket club I Zingari. Long was appointed High Sheriff of Montgomerysh ...
of
Rood Ashton House
Rood Ashton House was a country house in Wiltshire, England, standing in parkland northeast of the village of West Ashton, near Trowbridge. Built in 1808 for Richard Godolphin Long, it was later the home of the 1st Viscount Long (1854–1924).
...
. In Flemish bond brick with limestone dressings, the gothic-style building has a clock tower with a short octagonal stone spire. After enlargement in 1898 the school could accommodate 200. Children of all ages attended until 1931, when those aged 11 and over transferred to secondary schools in Trowbridge. In 1975 the Victorian school was replaced by a new building in the east of the village.
Until 1866, Southwick was part of
North Bradley
North Bradley is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, between Trowbridge and Westbury. The village is about south of Trowbridge town centre. The parish includes most of the village of Yarnbrook, and the hamlets of Brokerswood, Cu ...
parish.
In 1937 some 220 acres in the west of the parish, adjacent to the Somerset village of
Rode and containing the small settlement of Rode Hill, was transferred to Rode parish.
Religious sites
Baptists
Southwick was one of the earliest and largest
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...
centres in Wiltshire, beginning in the mid-17th century. A chapel linked to the Conigre church at Trowbridge stood near Bradley Common throughout the 18th century, and in 1709 another was built on the south side of Wynsome Street, which soon had a congregation of 300. A revival here led to the building of a replacement chapel in 1815, in red brick with stone dressings, under a slate roof. The two tiers of windows light the main hall and the gallery, and there is a sunken baptistery. An attached Sunday school, which at one time had 120 pupils, was rebuilt in the 1870s.
The chapel continues in use. Nearby to the northwest, where the road crosses the Lambrok Stream, is an open-air baptistery, rebuilt in stone in 1937 and described by Historic England as "a rare surviving example", although Pevsner states the stonework to be of "suburban character".
A breakaway group from the chapel congregation formed a society of
strict Baptist
Reformed Baptists (sometimes known as Particular Baptists or Calvinistic Baptists) are Baptists that hold to a Calvinist soteriology (salvation). The first Calvinist Baptist church was formed in the 1630s. The 1689 Baptist Confession of Faith w ...
s and opened Providence Chapel, built in limestone ashlar, on Frome Road in 1861. The chapel closed in the late 20th century and is now a private house.
Church of England
![The Church of St Thomas, Southwick - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/The_Church_of_St_Thomas%2C_Southwick_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1286307.jpg)
Parishioners attended the parish church of St Nicholas at
North Bradley
North Bradley is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, between Trowbridge and Westbury. The village is about south of Trowbridge town centre. The parish includes most of the village of Yarnbrook, and the hamlets of Brokerswood, Cu ...
until an iron mission church was built in 1881; it was destroyed by fire in 1897. The
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
of St Thomas was built in 1899–1904 to designs of
C.E. Ponting, in
Gothic style
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 ...
using rock-faced limestone. The two-stage tower is surmounted by a shingled
flèche
Flèche or Fleche may refer to:
*Flèche (architecture), a type of church spire
*Flèche (cycling), a team cycling competition
*Flèche (fencing)
The flèche is an aggressive offensive fencing technique used with foil and épée.
Background
...
. Inside is a wooden chancel screen in
Arts and Crafts style, and an immersion tank for baptism, in keeping with Southwick's Baptist tradition.
Notable buildings
Southwick Court
Southwick Court is a Grade II* listed moated medieval manor house at the centre of a system of fields and water meadows that lie between the town of Trowbridge and the village of Southwick in Wiltshire, England. It has remained a private ...
Farmhouse, northwest of the village, is an L-shaped moated stone house from the 16th and 17th centuries,
[Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 474] owned by the
Longs of Whaddon from the late 17th century until the late 19th. It was probably a replacement for an earlier house owned by the Grenville family from the 13th century, the
Stafford family in the 14th century, and the Willoughby family of
Brook Hall in the 15th.
In the Middle Ages there was a family chapel nearby, dedicated to St John the Baptist; this fell into disuse sometime after 1544 and the building was demolished in 1839.
In 1968 the house was recorded as Grade II*
listed
Listed may refer to:
* Listed, Bornholm, a fishing village on the Danish island of Bornholm
* Listed (MMM program), a television show on MuchMoreMusic
* Endangered species in biology
* Listed building, in architecture, designation of a historicall ...
, as were the attached gatehouse and the 18th-century bridge.
Brook House, southeast of the village, is a 17th-century farmhouse beside an early 16th-century stone-built range.
[ The Poplars was built in about 1650 and re-faced with brick in about 1700.][ Manor Farmhouse, west of the village, was built in 1673.][
]
Governance
The civil parish elects a parish council. It is in the area of 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.
An electoral ward in the same name exists. The ward starts in the west at Southwick and then stretches east to West Ashton. The total ward population taken from the 2011 census was 4,444.
Amenities
The village has a small primary school which is next to a large playing field. Southwick & North Bradley Scout Group have had their headquarters at the old school since 1978.
There are two main residential areas in the northeast of the village, opposite the Southwick Allotments and the 'Farmhouse Inn' pub. The estates are linked, and named Chantry Gardens and Fleur De Lys Drive. In 2011, a small cluster of houses was built north of Fleur De Lys Drive, linked to Fleur De Lys Drive via a short path; this development was named Greenleaze Close. The second large group of housing is located to the south and west of the playing field, and has short roads branching off Blind Lane and Wesley Lane (a road winding from Wynsome Street, between the A361 and North Bradley). These roads are named Southfield, Wesley Close and Orchard Drive. Housing was also developed off Church Street in the mid-2000s, designated The Mowlems and Swan Court.
References
Sources
*
Further reading
* Doel was pastor at the Baptist Chapel from 1879.
External links
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Villages in Wiltshire
Civil parishes in Wiltshire