Sandy Lane is a small village in Wiltshire, England, about south-east of

Chippenham Chippenham is a market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village ...

and south-west of Calne.OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). It lies on the A342 Chippenham- Devizes road, just north of its junction with the A3102 to Calne.

Description

At the 2011 census, its main postcode had a population of 32 people in 17 households. Sandy Lane is on the southwestern edge of the parkland around Bowood House, a country mansion which is operated as a hotel and golf resort. Nearby villages are Derry Hill (north) and Bromham (south). The village lies to the north of the Roman road from Bath to London. The small Roman town of Verlucio was to the south-east, and the site of a Roman villa was discovered at Nuthills Farm in 1924. For some time the village was on a route from London (via Beckhampton) to

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

(via Lacock). The name 'Sandy Lane' is first recorded in 1675; in the next century there were around 20 houses and cottages. The village is largely in the civil parish of

Calne Without Calne Without is a civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is a rural parish surrounding the town of Calne, extending west to the Avon and south to the Roman road from London to Bath. Settlements in the parish are the village of Derry Hill; the sm ...

; the boundary with Bromham parish runs immediately to its west. Wiltshire Council is the unitary authority which is responsible for all significant local government functions. In 1975 the whole village was made a

Conservation Area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

, which was slightly enlarged in 1994.

Notable buildings

Sandy Lane has several well-preserved thatched cottages. The church of St Mary & St Nicholas is also thatched. Julian Orbach, updating Pevsner's work, describes Sandy Lane as "a most picturesque Bowood estate village, of thatched cottages in the distinctive local ironstone". Wans House, in its own grounds in the angle between Back Lane and the Devizes road, is an 1820 remodelling of an earlier house. It has a two-storey 19th-century verandah with iron balconies. The public house, the ''George Inn'', is a two-storey 18th-century building re-fronted in the 19th century. For a time in the 18th century there were two other roadside inns, the White Hart and the Black Horse.

Church and chapel

Sandy Lane was anciently within the large parish of St Mary, Calne. When a chapelry district was created in 1841 for the newly built Christ Church at Derry Hill, Sandy Lane was included there. Then in 1864, the area of

Chittoe Bromham is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England.OS Explorer Map 156, Chippenham and Bradford-on-Avon Scale: 1:25 000.Publisher: Ordnance Survey A2 edition (2007). The village is northwest of Devizes and the same distance east of Me ...

parish (where St Mary's church had been built in 1845) was enlarged to include Sandy Lane. A small wooden

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 ...

dedicated to St Nicholas was erected at Back Lane in 1892. Described by Pevsner as "endearing", it is a standard design from a Worcester company. When Chittoe church was declared redundant in 1980, its parish and benefice were combined with Bromham, and in the next year Sandy Lane church was rededicated to St Mary and St Nicholas. Today Bromham parish is part of the Bromham, Chittoe and Sandy Lane benefice, which also covers St Matthew's Church at Rowde.

Baptists Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

built Providence Chapel on the village street in 1817, in ironstone with ashlar dressings. Orbach describes its arched mullion-and-transom windows as "oddly Elizabethan". Regular services continued until c.1956 but by 1986 the building had become a private house.

Gallery

File:The George Inn, Sandy Lane - geograph.org.uk - 191599.jpg, The George Inn File:North on the A342 at Sandy Lane - geograph.org.uk - 1185443.jpg, Looking north on the

A342 The A342 is an A road in England that runs from Pewsham near Chippenham, Wiltshire to Andover, Hampshire. Route The road begins at the A4 junction just outside the small village of Pewsham, to the east of Chippenham. It heads south past ...

File:South on the A342 ... - geograph.org.uk - 1185436.jpg, Looking south on the A342

References

{{authority control Calne Without Villages in Wiltshire