Axford is a small village 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 in 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 ...

. It lies on the north bank of 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 � ...

, about south-west of Ramsbury village and the same distance east of

Marlborough Marlborough may refer to: Places United Kingdom * Marlborough, Wiltshire, England ** Marlborough College, public school * Marlborough School, Woodstock in Oxfordshire, England * The Marlborough Science Academy in Hertfordshire, England Austral ...

History

Axford was one of seven

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

settlements along the Kennet Valley in modern-day Wiltshire in the 5th and 6th centuries. During the 15th and 16th centuries, Axford manor was centred on Priory Farm a short distance from the village itself. The majority of housing was built to the south of the main road through the village; the area to the north was developed during the late 18th and early 19th century. St Michael's church was built in 1856 to designs of William White, as a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, 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 ea ...

to Holy Cross at Ramsbury. A military camp was sited near Axford during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

Notable buildings

Axford has a Grade I listed building, Axford Farmhouse, which has medieval origins. Riverside House, Grade II* listed, has a 16th-century wing, partly timber framed; the house was enlarged in the 17th century.

Local government

Axford is in

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 ...

; the parish council styles itself as Ramsbury & Axford Parish Council. The second tier of local government is

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 ...

. The two councils are responsible for different aspects of local government.

Amenities

Axford is close to the

A4 road This is a list of roads designated A4. A4 is the name of several roads: * A004 road (Argentina), a road connecting Buenos Aires-La Plata highway with the Juan María Gutiérrez circle * A4 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Vienna and Nickels ...

. Bus services are provided by the Swindon's Bus Company route 48 between

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 ...

and

. The village pub, the Red Lion, closed in 2019.

References

External links