Easterton

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Easterton
shire_district= Kennet
shire_county = Wiltshire
region= South West England
population=583 (2001 census)
os_grid_reference=
longitude= -1.9723033905029296
latitude= 51.29321683942714
dial_code=
postcode_district =
postcode_area=
post_town=
constituency_westminster=

Easterton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, in the United Kingdom. The parish also includes the smaller settlement of Eastcott.

Geography

Easterton lies at the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, an area of about 300 square miles of undulating, chalk plateau grassland used by the military for practicing operations. Red flags are flown at various locations around the edge of Salisbury Plain when it is not safe to enter the plain because of army maneouvres. One such red warning flag is clearly visible from the village of Easterton.

Easterton’s territory is a carbon copy of Market Lavington, with gault and greensand north-west of the road, and lower, middle and upper chalk zones ascending the slope south-eastwards on to the high plain. Across the parish run the same lines of communication, The Ridgeway along the scarp, the railway north of the greensand ridge, and the turnpike road in between. This forms the village street, where it is bordered on the west side by a small brook. The brook, despite its insignificance, is regarded reverentially by the villagers, who have bridges across it to their cottages, and who have portrayed it on their village signs as a major river. The street is in something of a hollow, so that gardens on the east side rise very steeply and have been terraced up the slope. Paths and lanes lead off the street to ‘the Clays’ [http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/83672] on the east and ‘the Sands’ on the west. The main streets in the village are: Oak Lane, Haywards Place, the High Street, White Street, the Clay, Kings Road, and Vicarage Lane.

History

The name Easterton means 'the more easterly farm' in Old English. The modern parish was originally part of Market Lavington and would have been named from a farm that was to the east of the main settlement. In 1348 the name is recorded as "Easton juxta Stepellavynton". Steeple Lavington was the early name for Market Lavington and the easterly farm was next to it.

Easterton lies between the two parishes of Urchfont and Market Lavington. Despite a surprising number of good timber-framed houses the village lacks cohesion, and appears to consist of little more than three concentrations of buildings: around Easterton Manor House and the Royal Oak [http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/125014] (locally known simply as the Oak and said to be haunted by a miserable old ghost called the body warmer); near the church, and at Eastcott strung along a secondary road (B3098) and interspersed with modern housing. Unfortunately, some older houses have been lost as a result of brutal road widening after World War Two and subsequently.

Easterton is not an ancient parish, and its present boundaries were only established in 1934; it is made up of the tithing of Easterton (comprising two manors), formerly part of Market Lavington, and the tithing of Eastcott, which was formerly in Urchfont. A map of 1773 suggests that there were then more buildings at Eastcott and between Eastcott and Easterton than at present, and therefore that the settlements have declined; the survival of timber-framed houses in disjointed groups in an area where from the 18th century brick buildings have predominated is consistent with such a decline. The origin of the name Eastcott, ‘the eastern cottage(s),’ which lay at the extreme western edge of Urchfont parish, cannot be easily explained.

Market gardening and fruit growing by smallholders on the fertile soils of the greensand became important as the traditional sheep and corn husbandry on the chalk (‘the Clays’) declined following enclosures before 1800. Samuel Moore’s jam factory was a legacy of the fruit fields. It began in a small way in the early-twentieth century after an earlier venture had closed, and became a major employer in the area, with 100 staff in 1972. An extension was opened in 1985, but the whole enterprise closed during the 1990s, and visitors to the village are no longer greeted by the all-pervading aroma of warm strawberry jam. There used to be two small convenience stores, MacBeth's and Sainsbury's, but these have now closed down. The nearest primary school, which technically lies in the neighbouring village of Market Lavington, is St. Barnabas, after the village church [http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/87933] .

The rich soils were doubtless exploited many centuries before the surviving evidence of settlement, but Easterton, unusually among plain-edge villages, can at least boast the presence of a Roman villa estate, known from stray archaeological finds in the area of Kestrels in Oak Lane, west of the village. This may be connected with a mid 4th century coin hoard, originally discovered in an urn during the Victorian period and dispersed, although some coins passed to Devizes Museum. Another possible Roman site, deduced from place-name evidence, may lie at Wickham Green on the boundary with Urchfont some 2km north of Kestrels.

Easterton was created an ecclesiastical parish in 1874, and its small brick-built church was opened shortly afterwards. Other Victorian arrivals in the village were a Methodist chapel, built in 1868 and converted to a private house in 1985; and a school – this was opened in 1867, replaced in 1875, closed in 1971 and demolished in 1973.

Apart from the attractive houses which remain, two vanished buildings are worth mentioning. Eastcott had a chapel-of-ease from before 1309 until the Dissolution in 1548; its exact site is unknown, but a field north of the road was known as Chapel Field in the 19th century. Wroughton’s Folly was a mansion built near Crookwood, close to the Urchfont and Potterne boundaries, and was known variously as Folly House, Castle House and Maggot Castle (here, as elsewhere, the unflattering name is probably a corruption of ‘Margaret’). It was built and enlarged by two members of the Wroughton family, Francis and Seymour, between about 1730 and 1780. After Seymour’s high-speed accidental death in 1789 the house was left unoccupied and became a ruin. Its foundations, visible in the nineteenth century, have now entirely disappeared – only Seymour’s ghost remains (according to local legend) recreating along his vanished driveway the furious carriage ride which proved his downfall.

External links

* [http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom.php?id=87 Wiltshire County Council thumbnail history]

Population

These are the census results for Easterton and Wiltshire:

Travel Information

Local government

Easterton is a civil parish with an elected parish council. It falls within the areas of Kennet District Council and Wiltshire County Council. All three councils are responsible for different aspects of local government.

Location

Position: gbmapping|SU021550

Nearby towns and cities: Devizes, Salisbury, Bath, Swindon

Nearby villages: Market Lavington, Urchfont

ee also

*List of places in Wiltshire
*List of civil parishes in England

ources

* [http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/community/getcom2.php?id=87 Wiltshire County Council Website page on Easterton] , retrieved 11:15 Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
* [http://www.kennet.gov.uk/leg_dem/web_comm_minutes.nsf/9055528f2a958b9d8025687f00608fad/53aab13fd5b9f8bd802567310033da52?OpenDocument Kennet District Council Website page on Easterton parish] , retrieved 11:15 Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)