Leverton is a small hamlet in

West Berkshire West Berkshire is a unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Berkshire, England. It is 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 Newbur ...

, England, close to the border with

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

and around north-west of

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The population of the parish at the 2021 census was 5,869. The Kennet and Avon Can ...

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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 as lands owned by the

Abingdon Abbey Abingdon Abbey (formally Abbey of Saint Mary) was a Order of St. Benedict, Benedictine monastery in Abingdon-on-Thames in the modern county of Oxfordshire in the United Kingdom. Situated near to the River Thames, it was founded in 675 AD and was ...

, 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 ...

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 Chilton Lodge is an English country house. It is a historic Grade II* listed building. The house is located northwest of Leverton, Berkshire, Leverton in the parish of Hungerford, in the West Berkshire district, in the ceremonial county of Berkshi ...

estate. By the

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

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 fo ...

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

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 th ...

, 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, experimental 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 ...

, 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 Stocks are feet and hand restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law de ...

, although the originals were removed to the

Ashmolean Museum The Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology () on Beaumont Street in Oxford, England, is Britain's first public museum. Its first building was erected in 1678–1683 to house the cabinet of curiosities that Elias Ashmole gave to the University ...

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

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