Enford 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 ...

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, in 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 lies southeast of

Devizes Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman architecture, Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century ...

and north of

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

. The parish includes nine small settlements along both banks of the headwaters of the River Avon. Besides Enford, these are Compton, Coombe, East Chisenbury, Fifield, Littlecott, Longstreet, New Town and West Chisenbury. The name is derived 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 ...

''Enedford'' meaning 'duck ford'.

History

The parish carries much evidence of prehistoric activity, including

bowl barrow A bowl barrow is a type of burial mound or tumulus. A barrow is a mound of earth used to cover a tomb. The bowl barrow gets its name from its resemblance to an upturned bowl. Related terms include ''cairn circle'', ''cairn ring'', ''howe'', ''ker ...

s. Lidbury Camp, on Littlecott Down, was occupied in the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

and in the

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

period, and further evidence of Romano-British occupation has been found around Compton. A site on the west bank of the Avon near Compton is possibly that of a

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

. The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded 34 households at Enford and a smaller settlement at Compton. Medieval strip lynchets are visible north of East Chisenbury. Enford manor was held by St Swithun's priory, Winchester until the

Dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

. Later owners included

Thomas Culpeper Thomas Culpeper ( – 10 December 1541) was an English courtier and close friend of Henry VIII, and related to two of his queens, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard. He is known to have had many private meetings with Catherine after her mar ...

(executed in 1541 for alleged adultery with

Catherine Howard Catherine Howard ( – 13 February 1542), also spelled Katheryn Howard, was Queen of England from 1540 until 1542 as the fifth wife of Henry VIII. She was the daughter of Lord Edmund Howard and Joyce Culpeper, a cousin to Anne Boleyn (the s ...

), and Sir Edmund Antrobus who in 1899 sold the manor to the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

. The parish population in 1676 has been calculated as 616. At the first census in 1841 there were 814; the population peaked at 911 in 1851 and then steadily declined to around 700 in the mid 20th century. Chisenbury Priory is a

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 ...

, approached by a tree-lined drive from the road between Littecott and East Chisenbury. The house was built in the later 17th century, with a brick front added in the 18th; it is Grade II* listed. A school was provided at Enford c. 1845 by Sir Edmund Antrobus, and supported partly by Sir Edmund and partly by a fund organised by John Prince, former vicar. By 1871 it had become a National School with some 61 pupils, increasing to 124 in 1906. The school moved to new buildings at Longstreet in 1966, next to the newly built village hall; it closed in 1989. The parish gained a small area in 1885: West Chisenbury, formerly a detached part of Netheravon parish.

Archaeology

The East Chisenbury

midden A midden (also kitchen midden or shell heap) is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, mollusc shells, potsherds, lithics (especially debitage), and other artifacts and ecofact ...

is a notable example of a large dump of

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...

material, dating to the 1st millennium BC. Now within a military training area, the midden mound contains discrete layers of flint, charcoal, bones, pottery and excrement. It survives to a height of and is wide despite 2,500 years of weathering. The accumulation is believed by some archaeologists to have a ritual basis, with organised deposition of produce and waste being suggested as an explanation for its size and longevity. All Cannings Cross, to the north, is a similar site.

Religious sites

Parish church

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 ...

, All Saints', was described by Pevsner as "Quite a large and a very interesting church. ... The chancel is astonishing." The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded a priest at Enford. There may have been a church here at that time, as 12th-century arches are cut into earlier walls. The chancel arch is late 12th or early 13th, while the chancel is 13th except for its south wall. A small octagonal building on the north side, built as a chapel but now the

sacristy A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records. The sacristy is usually located ...

, is from a similar date. The north aisle is 14th century; in the 15th the south aisle and the tower were rebuilt. There was a spire, which fell in 1817, requiring repairs to the church in 1825–30.

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 C.E. Ponting took place in 1892–3. In the churchyard is the lower part of a medieval stone cross. The six bells in the tower include three from the 17th century. 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 1964. Today it is part of the Avon River Team parishes.

Methodist chapel

A chapel was built at East Chisenbury c. 1845 by either

Primitive Methodists The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primiti ...

or Independent Methodists. A new chapel was built by the former in 1896 and continued in use well into the 20th century; the building was sold in 1990.

Local government

Enford is a

in 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 aspects of

local government Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...

. It also has an elected parish council, with mostly consultative functions.

Amenities

There is a modern village hall at Longstreet. The parish has two

pub 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 ...

s: the ''Swan Inn'' at Enford (17th/18th century) and the ''Red Lion'' at East Chisenbury.

References

External links

Enford Newsletter

Enford
at Wiltshire Community History {{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire