Staverton 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 authorit ...

in the west of the English county of

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 ...

, about north of the centre 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 ...

and east of

Bradford on Avon Bradford-on-Avon (sometimes Bradford on Avon or Bradford upon Avon) is a town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England, near the border with Somerset, which had a population of 9,402 at the 2011 census. The town's canal, historic buildings, ...

History

Staverton developed near a crossing point of the Bristol Avon, on a road between Trowbridge and

Holt Holt or holte may refer to: Natural world *Holt (den), an otter den * Holt, an area of woodland Places Australia * Holt, Australian Capital Territory * Division of Holt, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives in Vic ...

. The road bridge may date from the 15th century and was rebuilt in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The Avon forms the entire north and west boundary of the parish, while its tributary the Biss is the boundary in the southwest. The

Kennet and Avon Canal The Kennet and Avon Canal is a waterway in southern England with an overall length of , made up of two lengths of navigable river linked by a canal. The name is used to refer to the entire length of the navigation rather than solely to the cen ...

, built in 1804, is the boundary to the south and southeast. The early settlement was around a

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production ...

and on the nearby higher ground near the church. The ''Old Bear Inn'' is from the early 19th century, and there are two rows of three-storey weavers' cottages from the 18th or 19th. An

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

map of 1958 shows only the school and roadside dwellings south of the village, between the railway and the canal. Later in the 20th century much housing was built here, followed by a

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...

for canal users, with waterside houses and apartments. These developments made the built-up area contiguous with

Hilperton Hilperton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. The village is separated by a few fields (the Hilperton Gap) from the northeastern edge of the town of Trowbridge and is approximately from Trowbridge town centre. South of Hilpe ...

, on the other side of the canal. The population of the parish increased from 453 at the 2001 census to 1,868 in 2011.

Railway

The

Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway The Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway (WS&WR) was an early railway company in south-western England. It obtained Parliamentary powers in 1845 to build a railway from near Chippenham in Wiltshire, southward to Salisbury and Weymouth in Dors ...

was opened through the parish on 2 September 1848, linking the

Great Western Main Line The Great Western Main Line (GWML) is a main line railway in England that runs westwards from London Paddington to . It connects to other main lines such as those from Reading to Penzance and Swindon to Swansea. Opened in 1841, it was the o ...

at Thingley Junction with

and Westbury, and forming a route from London to southwest England. Near where the road passed over the line south of the village, a small station called Staverton Halt was opened on 15 October 1905, largely to serve workers at Staverton Mill. At the time this was a factory producing condensed milk for the Anglo-Swiss Condensed Milk Co. and a private siding to serve it was constructed in 1931, tankers being brought from Westbury after detachment from one of the

Penzance Penzance ( ; kw, Pennsans) is a town, civil parish and port in the Penwith district of Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is the most westerly major town in Cornwall and is about west-southwest of Plymouth and west-southwest of London. Situ ...

to London milk trains. A victim of the

Beeching cuts The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the M ...

, the halt closed on 16 April 1966 along with the three other stations between

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town in northwest Wiltshire, England. It lies northeast of Bath, west of London, and is near the Cotswolds Area of Natural Beauty. The town was established on a crossing of the River Avon and some form of settlement i ...

and Trowbridge then still extant. Scheduled passenger services continued to use the line intermittently until 1978, after which time the line remained open to freight traffic and as a diversionary route. Regular passenger services were restored to the line in 1985.

Religious sites

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ease is deliberately bu ...

at Staverton was recorded in the 14th century, belonging to the church of St James at Trowbridge. The chapel dedicated to St Paul was rebuilt and enlarged on the same site in 1826 and became a church in 1839 when Staverton became a separate ecclesiastical parish. The porch was added in 1861. Changes in 1954 brought St Mary's church at Hilperton Marsh into the parish, and the name of the parish became Staverton with Hilperton Marsh. St Paul's closed in 2011 due to dwindling numbers and was offered for sale. St Mary's continues as the parish church, now part of the Canalside Benefice. A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1824 and closed in 1985.

Local government

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. Staverton was a tithing of the ancient parish of Trowbridge, and became a separate civil parish in 1894.

Amenities

Staverton Church of England Primary School was opened in 1996, replacing an 1880 National School building which is now used by an independent school called Emmaus School. Staverton School can accommodate 310 pupils aged between 4 and 11. Facilities include two hard surfaced play areas, a nature area, school library, ICT suite and a shared school field with a pavilion and tennis courts. The village has a pub, the ''Old Bear Inn''.

Widbrook Wood Widbrook Wood is a small forest to the north of Trowbridge and to the south-east of Bradford on Avon, in Wiltshire, England, growing in the valley of the Bristol Avon. It is made up of a mixture of deciduous and evergreen trees and several types ...

is just outside the parish, on the other side of the Biss.

Staverton Mill

There has been a mill on the River Avon at Staverton since at least the 11th century, when it was mentioned 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 manusc ...

. Over the centuries the mill has been used for corn and for

fulling Fulling, also known as felting, tucking or walking ( Scots: ''waukin'', hence often spelled waulking in Scottish English), is a step in woollen clothmaking which involves the cleansing of woven or knitted cloth (particularly wool) to eli ...

woollen cloth; later the site became a rubber factory belonging to Stephen Moulton. it is the location of a

Nestlé Nestlé S.A. (; ; ) is a Switzerland, Swiss multinational food and drink processing conglomerate corporation headquartered in Vevey, Vaud, Switzerland. It is the largest publicly held food company in the world, measured by revenue and other me ...

breakfast cereal Cereal, formally termed breakfast cereal (and further categorized as cold cereal or warm cereal), is a traditional breakfast food made from processed cereal grains. It is traditionally eaten as part of breakfast, or a snack food, primarily in We ...

factory, operated by subsidiary Cereal Partners UK (CPUK). The large, landmark chimney at the factory was removed in November 2011.

References

External links

Staverton Parish Website
{{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire