Chilton Foliat 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 authority ...

on the

River Kennet 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 � ...

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 England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. The parish is in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is on the county boundary with

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 ...

and is about northwest of the

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 ...

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 or city. In Britain, small rural ...

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 ...

. The village is on the B4192 Hungerford-

Swindon Swindon () is a town and unitary authority with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in Wiltshire, England. As of the 2021 Census, the population of Swindon was 201,669, making it the largest town in the county. The Swindon un ...

road, which was the

A419 The A419 road is a primary route between Chiseldon near Swindon at junction 15 of the M4 with the A346 road, and Whitminster in Gloucestershire, England near the M5 motorway. The A419 is managed and maintained by a private company, Road Manag ...

until 1977, when it was redesignated after the opening of 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 ...

. The parish includes the hamlets of Straight Soley and Crooked Soley.

History

The ancient parish of Chilton Foliat straddled the Wiltshire/Berkshire border. In 1895 the Berkshire portion, including the village of Leverton and the Chilton Lodge estate, was transferred to Hungerford civil parish.

Chilton Aircraft Chilton Aircraft Ltd was a British aircraft design and manufacturing company of the late 1930s and 1940s. Foundation The company was founded in early 1937 by two former de Havilland Technical School students and Old Etonians, the Hon. Andrew ...

, a small manufacturer in the 1930s and 1940s, had its factory within the Chilton Lodge estate. From the estate of Lady Ward at Chilton Foilat, in 1942 U.S Army paratroopers trained with their British counterparts and deployed to combat in North Africa.

Religious sites

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 ...

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 ...

dates from c. 1300.

Restoration Restoration is the act of restoring something to its original state and may refer to: * Conservation and restoration of cultural heritage ** Audio restoration ** Film restoration ** Image restoration ** Textile restoration * Restoration ecology ...

by Benjamin Ferrey in 1845 included the addition of a south aisle. The church was designated as

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 ...

in 1966. The churchyard has an early 19th-century mausoleum to the Pearse family, designed by William Pilkington and described by Pevsner as "heaviest Grecian". The church was the location of the 2008 memorial service for Gerald Ward, godfather to

Prince Harry Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, (Henry Charles Albert David; born 15 September 1984) is a member of the British royal family. He is the younger son of Charles III and his first wife Diana, Princess of Wales. He is fifth in the line of succ ...

; the service was attended by the Prince with the

Prince of Wales Prince of Wales ( cy, Tywysog Cymru, ; la, Princeps Cambriae/Walliae) is a title traditionally given to the heir apparent to the English and later British throne. Prior to the conquest by Edward I in the 13th century, it was used by the rulers ...

and the

Duchess of Cornwall Duchess of Cornwall is a courtesy title held by the wife of the eldest son and heir of the British monarch. The current title-holder is Catherine, wife of William, Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall. Duchesses of Cornwall Until her husband' ...

. A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1796, enlarged in 1932 and closed in 1988. The building is now a private house.

Notable buildings

Houses in the village include Vine Cottage, from the late 17th century. The Old Rectory, close to the church, is from the mid 18th century. Bridge House carries a date of 1766 but incorporates earlier work. The gateway leading to Chilton Lodge, and part of its parkland, are within the parish. The house itself, built in 1800 and Grade II* listed, is now in West Berkshire. It replaced an earlier house on the Wiltshire side of the county boundary, which was demolished. Chilton Park Farm, a house in neo-Georgian style, was built on that site in 1940; nearby is an early 18th-century barn. The Chilton estate is owned by Sarah Scrope, heiress to Sir John and Lady Ward.

Littlecote House Littlecote House is a large Elizabethan country house and estate in the civil parishes of Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat, in the English county of Wiltshire, about northeast of the Berkshire town of Hungerford. The estate includes 34 hectares of hi ...

, a Grade I listed country house completed in 1592, now a hotel and leisure centre, is upstream on the other site of the Kennet in

Ramsbury Ramsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. The village is in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire boundary. The nearest towns are Hungerford about east and Marlborough about west. The much larger town of Swindon ...

parish. Part of its estate is in Chilton Foliat parish.

Notable residents

Littlecote House was the seat of Sir Ernest Salter Wills, 3rd Baronet of Hazelwood, a member of the

Wills tobacco W.D. & H.O. Wills was a British tobacco manufacturing company formed in Bristol, England. It was the first British company to mass-produce cigarettes, and one of the founding companies of Imperial Tobacco along with John Player & Sons. The c ...

family dynasty.

Auberon Waugh Auberon Alexander Waugh (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron". After a traditional classical education at Downside ...

lived at the Old Rectory from 1964 to 1971.

Max Hastings Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard' ...

, journalist, historian and author, lives here.

Amenities

The village has a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

, the ''Wheatsheaf'' (in an early 19th-century thatched house) and a village hall (dating from 1895). A

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 ...

primary school serves Chilton Foliat and nearby villages. A National School opened in 1835, and in 1847 moved to the north side of the main street. In 1970 the school moved to a new building at Stag Hill. Much of the Kennet floodplain within the parish has been designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), owing to the presence of the rare

Desmoulin's whorl snail Desmoulin's whorl snail (''Vertigo moulinsiana'') is a species of minute air-breathing land snail, a terrestrial pulmonate gastropod mollusc or micromollusc in the family Vertiginidae, the whorl snails. This species was named in honor of the ea ...

. An area of

watermeadow A water-meadow (also water meadow or watermeadow) is an area of grassland subject to controlled irrigation to increase agricultural productivity. Water-meadows were mainly used in Europe from the 16th to the early 20th centuries. Working water-m ...

southwest of the village, Chilton Foliat Meadows, is also an SSSI for its diverse flora and variety of birds.

Television appearances

The 1987

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

programme ''

The Victorian Kitchen Garden ''The Victorian Kitchen Garden'' is a 13-part British television series produced in 1987 by Keith Sheather for BBC2, based on an idea by Jennifer Davies, who later became associate producer. It recreated a kitchen garden of the Victorian era ...

'', featuring head gardener

Harry Dodson Harry James Dodson (11 September 1919 – 25 July 2005) was an English gardener who became a celebrity as a result of the BBC television documentary series ''The Victorian Kitchen Garden'', which featured his professional expertise and his remi ...

(1919–2005), was filmed at Chilton Lodge which lies between Chilton Foliat and the Berkshire hamlet of Leverton. Chilton Foliat is referred to in the 2001

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

series '' Band of Brothers'' as the location where Captain

Herbert Sobel Herbert Maxwell Sobel Sr. (26 January 1912 – 30 September 1987) was an American commissioned officer with Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, in the 101st Airborne Division during World War II. Sobel was portraye ...

was sent to train non-combat military support personnel who needed paratrooper training.

References

Sources

External links

Chilton Foliat at Wiltshire Community HistoryChilton Foliat website
{{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire