Swainswick

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Swainswick
population =
os_grid_reference = ST756681
latitude= 51.4122
longitude= -2.3514
unitary_england= Bath and North East Somerset
lieutenancy_england = Somerset
region= South West England
post_town = Bath
postcode_district = BA1
postcode_area=BA
dial_code =
constituency_westminster = Wansdyke to be North East Somerset from next general election.

Swainswick is a small village and civil parish, three miles north east of Bath, on the A46 in the Bath and North East Somerset unitary authority, Somerset, England.

Bladud or Blaiddyd was a mythical king of the Britons, for whose existence there is little historical evidence, but legend holds that he returned to Britain from Athens with leprosy, and was imprisoned as a result, but escaped and went far off to go into hiding. He found employment as a swineherd at Swainswick, and noticed that his pigs would go into an alder-moor in cold weather and return covered in black mud. He found that the mud was warm, and that they did it to enjoy the heat. He also noticed that the pigs which did this did not suffer from skin diseases as others did, and on trying the mud bath himself found that he was cured of his leprosy.

The Domesday Book of 1086 records that Swainswick was held by Nigel de Gournay, who would have won his lands in Englishcombe, Twerton, Swainswick and Barrow Gurney by fighting for William I of England. His original home must have been Gournay, which was half-way between Dieppe and Paris.

Thomas de Gournay was involved with the murder of Edward II at Berkeley Castle in 1327. [Manco, J. (1995) "The Parish of Englishcombe: A History", pp. 2, 4.]

The church, which dates from the 12th century is dedicated to St. Mary. It has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building. [cite web | title=St Marys church | work=Images of England | url=http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/search/details.aspx?id=408072 | accessdate=2007-12-02] The church contains mounuments to the parents of William Prynne, the Puritan parliamentarian, who was born in the village in 1600. There is a ledger slab of John Wood the Elder, architect of Georgian Bath, and probably in the same tomb are buried John Wood the Younger and his wife. [cite web |url=http://www.swainswickchurch.org.uk/history.html |title=History |accessdate=2007-12-02 |format= |work=Swainswick Church ]

The convert|3|mi|km|0|lk=on £45 million A46 dual-carriageway Batheaston/Swainswick Bypass opened in summer 1996.

Notable residents

* Jonathan Dimbleby and his wife, the writer Bel Mooney.

References

External links

* [http://www.somerset.gov.uk/archives/Maps/OS61htm/0814.htm Map of Swainswick c1884]