- Durrington, Wiltshire
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For other uses, see Durrington (disambiguation).
Coordinates: 51°12′54″N 1°46′19″W / 51.215°N 1.772°W
Durrington 
Durrington
Durrington shown within WiltshirePopulation 7,182 (Parish, including Larkhill) (2001 Census[1]) OS grid reference SU155445 Parish Durrington Unitary authority Wiltshire Ceremonial county Wiltshire Region South West Country England Sovereign state United Kingdom Post town Salisbury Postcode district SP4 Dialling code 01980 Police Wiltshire Fire Wiltshire Ambulance Great Western EU Parliament South West England UK Parliament Devizes Website Durrington, Wiltshire List of places: UK • England • Wiltshire Durrington is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It is in the east of Salisbury Plain, about 10 miles (16 km) north of Salisbury, 30 miles (48 km) south of Swindon and 2 miles (3.2 km) northeast of Stonehenge. The toponym is derived from the Old English words Deor (proper noun), ing (people/tribe) and tun (farm/settlement), meaning "the farm of Deor's people".[2]
The population figure of 7,182 recorded in the 2001 Census includes people living in both the village and Larkhill military camp, which is also in the civil parish.
Contents
Amenities
Shops
The village has three small convenience stores: a Co-operative, a Sainsbury's Local and also a Tesco that opened in 2008. It has a Filling Station with a small shop and repair yard. There is also the hardware shop Bits & Pieces, a furniture shop and several hairdressers and barber's shops. Palmer's paper shop in the middle of Durrington.
Banking
No bank branches remain in the village. The Post Office closed in 2005, but a new Post Point opened in the village hall in October 2010, however it does not including banking facilities. There are cashpoints at Sainsburys, Tesco and the petrol station.
Education
The village has three schools providing all levels of compulsory education. Durrington All Saints Infant School covers lower primary education (Reception to year 2); Durrington Church of England Junior School covers upper primary education (years 3 to 6); and Avon Valley College (formerly known as Upper Avon School), which was placed in special measures after a damning Ofsted report in 2000 [3], covers secondary education (years 7 to 11) and sixth form (years 12 to 13).
Public houses
There are two public houses: The Plough and the Stonehenge Inn, at opposite ends of the village. There were also two licensed clubs: one was a snooker club the other remaining club is the working men's club. The snooker club closed at the beginning of 2010.
Leisure
The village has a swimming pool and fitness centre, which is next to the secondary school. There is also a recreation ground with football pitch, two tennis courts, a park, BMX jumps and skateboarding facilities.
Churches
Church of England
The Church of England parish church existed by 1179, when it was confirmed to the Fontrevist Amesbury Priory.[4] The church is likely to have had a dedication but by 1763 it was unknown.[4] The building's earliest surviving features include its Norman south doorway and three-bay late 12th century arcade.[5]
The chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century and the Perpendicular gothic[5] west window of the nave was added in about 1500.[4] In 1851 the church was rebuilt to designs by the Gothic Revival architect J.W. Hugall and dedicated to All Saints.[4] Hugall retained original features including the 13th century Norman lancet windows on the south side of the chancel, and added the north aisle.[5]
Congregational
Durrington had a small Presbyterian congregation in the 1660s and 1670s.[4] No nonconformists were recorded in the parish in 1783.[4] An independent chapel had opened by 1824 and was rebuilt or altered in 1860.[4] It may have been Wesleyan Methodist in about 1880 but by 1899 it was Congregationalist.[4] In 1905 it was replaced by a new chapel in Bulford Road, which since 1965 has been a member of the Evangelical Fellowship of Congregational Churches.[4] Additionally there is a small evangelical church called 'Durrington Community Church' which meets weekly in the Village Hall. This has been running since 1991.
Roman Catholic
Our Lady Queen of Heaven Roman Catholic church was opened in 1960 and was still open in 1995.[4] It has since been closed.[6]
Transport
The A345 Salisbury to Swindon road runs along the western side of the village, and the A303 trunk road runs a mile to the south. Durrington is well served by buses, with regular services to Salisbury, Amesbury, and Pewsey. The village falls into the northern district of Wilts & Dorset, which runs route X5 through the village. The nearest rail stations are Salisbury and Grateley on the West of England Main Line and Wessex Main Line to the south, and Pewsey on the Great Western Main Line to the north.
Geography
The development of the village throughout the 20th century has been shaped by the presence of the military in the area.[7] Through this, the parish population has grown to that of a town, mainly due to the presence of the Larkhill military camp. However, the lack of a cohesive infrastructure means that this cannot be considered an urban development. Without the presence of the military it is probable that the village would have developed into a medium sized village based around the Avon valley.
The civil parish has long east-west and short north-south axes, stretching from the downs west of the River Avon to the watershed of the Avon and Till Rivers in the east. Most of it is chalk downland, but there is some alluvial gravel deposited around the river. The village was formerly in two parts based around two manors: East End and West End. The East End was in the vicinity of Bulford Road, while the West End was based at the High Street. These streets are aligned north and south and the church is set between them, in the north of the village. The East/West dichotomy was brought to an end with the construction of a large council estate centred around Coronation Road during the 1950s between the East and West Ends. Therefore, it would be better to say that the village is, nowadays, divided into a North End and South End: the North contains the old, pre-20th-century village, with expensive, mainly thatched houses, whereas the South contains the council houses (many of which are now privately owned).
History
The area had been occupied since Neolithic times[8] but not necessarily continuously. The parish contains two important Neolithic sites: Durrington Walls and Woodhenge. There is little evidence of Saxon occupation, but this may be because buildings and utensils of that time were made of wood, so little survives. The Domesday Book says that there were two estates in 1086, having land for one plough team and with 5 acres (20,000 m2) of meadow. These two estates may represent the later two manors.
West End manor was part of the King’s estate of Amesbury until 1120 but East End manor had different origins, being privately owned by Patrick de Salisbury. At this time each manor was using the open field system, but over time this system evolved into a two, and then a three, field system. The population also began increasing and in 1377 there were 139 poll tax payers making Durrington one of the most populous villages in the hundred of Amesbury.
In 1399 the West End manor was given as an endowment of the newly created Winchester College, and an excellent collection of documents on its management and usage has been preserved by the College. They have also provided the name for College Road.
In 1405 the Durrington Fire occurred, the cause of which is unknown. It is widely theorised that a lamp falling onto a bale of hay caused it to ignite, or possibly that a house fire got out of control. Whatever the cause, the fire resulted in the destruction of most of the West End because most of the houses were built in an unusually close proximity to one another. Many of the West End families were left homeless, but were generously compensated by Winchester College.[6]
The village remained a prosperous farming community although, apart from the church, there is little visual evidence before the 17th century. In 1610 East End Manor was extended with an east-west range, changing it into an L–shaped building. This new extension was used to shelter Catholic priests during the English Reformation, with a number of priest holes being found here.[9] There are 17th century houses of timber and cob, with thatched roofs, surviving in College Road, High Street and Church Street. In 1676 the population was said to be 334 people. Despite evidence of a substantial amount of building work, mainly farmhouses, in the 18th century the village did not really increase in size and remained concentrated around its two main streets.
One of the Salisbury Plain's last Great Bustards was shot in Durrington by a shepherd in 1802. He gave it to a Mr Moore, who commissioned a painting of it by a Mr Dudman.[10]
A second Durrington Fire occurred in 1921 when the thatch to the Old Rectory on Church Street caught fire, the wind took the embers over the Church tower landing on the thatched tied cottages to the south, razing most and leaving the remainder ruined. The Old Rectory was rebuilt under a tiled roof, and is now one of the villages more substantial houses. The cottages were removed and are now replaced by small number of residential mobile homes.
Judaism
John Burgess states that a small community of Jews settled in the East Side of the village shortly before the Durrington Fire and records of their descendents can be found up to the 19th Century.[6] They built a synagogue, which for a time served the needs of the whole of South Wiltshire's Jewish community. Their history in the village seems largely peaceful, however it is believed they were used as scapegoats for the 1405 fire, and the synagogue itself was burned down in anti-Jewish fervour following the revolutions of 1848 in mainland Europe. The community left Durrington shortly after, citing the villagers' "inherent anti-Semitism".
References
- ^ WiltshireCouncil: Wiltshire Community History: Durrington Census Information
- ^ http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/~aezins/kepn/detailpop.php?placeno=7457
- ^ http://archive.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/2000/11/30/230476.html
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Crowley et al., 1995, pages 93-105
- ^ a b c Pevsner & Cherry, 1975, page 228
- ^ a b c Burgess, 2001, page not cited
- ^ http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom2.php?id=84
- ^ http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom2.php?id=84
- ^ Hewlett, page 21, page not cited
- ^ Swayne, J (1855). "The Bustard". The Wiltshire Archaeolgical and Natural History Magazine II: 212. http://books.google.com/books?id=VwYVAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA212&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Sources
- Burgess, John (2001). Wiltshire and Its History. John Burgess Publications.
- Crowley, D.A., ed (1995). Victoria County History: A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 15: Amesbury hundred; Branch and Dole hundred. pp. 93–105.
- Hewlett, Maurice (1921). Wiltshire Essays. Oxford University Press.
- Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (revision) (1975) [1963]. The Buildings of England: Wiltshire. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 228–229. ISBN 0 14 0710.26 4.
External links
Categories:- Villages in Wiltshire
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