Leverton is a small hamlet in

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 Dist ...

, England, close to the border with

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 ...

and around north-west of

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 ...

History

Leverton appears in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086 as lands owned by the

Abingdon Abbey Abingdon Abbey ( '' " St Mary's Abbey " '' ) was a Benedictine monastery located in the centre of Abingdon-on-Thames beside the River Thames. The abbey was founded c.675 AD in honour of The Virgin Mary. The Domesday Book of 1086 informs ...

, with 9 households, and valued at 2

shillings The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence or ...

and ten pence. Its name was likely inspired by the woman's name ''Leofwaru's Farm'', and it would go on to become the estate village of Chilton Lodge estate. By the

middle ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

there were approximately 13

farmsteads A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is used ...

associated with the village. These were demolished over the course of the 19th century. Leverton was a hamlet under the

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 ...

Chilton Foliat Chilton Foliat is a village and civil parish on the River Kennet in Wiltshire, England. The parish is in the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. It is on the county boundary with West Berkshire and is about northwest of the ...

, an unusual parish as it was split across Wiltshire and Berkshire. Leverton, however, was situated completely on the Berkshire side of the parish, and would be transferred to Hungerford parish in 1895. A set of six thatched cottages, known as Leverton Cottages, were built some time after 1767, and over the following hundred years a further four were built in the same style to match. The village is a complete survival of an 18th/19th century estate village and comprises a

model farm A demonstration farm, or model farm, is a farm which is used primarily to research or demonstrate various agricultural techniques, with any economic gains being an added bonus. Demonstration farms are often owned and operated by educational instit ...

, Gardener's bothy, Head Gardener's cottage,

kitchen garden The traditional kitchen garden, vegetable garden, also known as a potager (from the French ) or in Scotland a kailyaird, is a space separate from the rest of the residential garden – the ornamental plants and lawn areas. It is used for grow ...

with a full set of boiler houses and potting sheds, thatched apple store and as well as the Leverton Cottages originally inhabited by estate workers. The kitchen garden was restored to production in the late 1980s by the BBC for the ''Victorian Kitchen Garden'' series and also featured in subsequent spin-offs such as ''The Victorian Kitchen'' and ''The Victorian Flower Garden''. The hamlet also retains a set of stocks, although the originals were removed to the Ashmolean Museum,

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

in the 1990s and were replaced by a (non-functioning) replica.

External links

Victoria County History (British History Online)

References

{{coord , 51.428, -1.522, type:city_region:GB, display=title Hamlets in Berkshire Hungerford