Barford St.Martin is a small, picturesque village in South Wiltshire located 2 miles from Wilton, the ancient capital of Wessex and some 13 miles from Shaftesbury. It is located on the junction of the A30 and the B3089. It is within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The river Nadder runs through the village and Barford is known as one of the Nadder valley villages. Its history can be traced back to the 11th Century and there was reference to Barford in the Domesday Book compiled in 1085/1086.
Barford's 500 inhabitants include nearly 100 from the mobile homes at Heath Farm. Those not retired find work in Wilton and Salisbury; but few now remain agriculturally based. Key to the life of the village is the Church of England St Martin's First School with some 40 pupils. Barford St. Martin's coaching house ‑ the Barford Inn, provides a welcome heart to the village and acts as its main employer, together with the Tinkerbell shop and filling station and the Black and White shop at East End Farm. The village still owns a Tudor river mill and rectory, a post office, a Victorian Methodist chapel and a police house; but all have reverted to domestic use today.
HISTORY
Churchwardens
Mr Stephen Brown 01722 744620
Mrs Pam Clement 01722 741422
Please see the Rota page for details of services.
BURCOMBE
Prehistoric barrows, earthworks, tracks and field systems, surround Burcombe, evidence of settlement in the area for thousands of years before the present village existed. There is a Romano-British farm on the downs to the west of the Punchbowl, and it must always have been a prosperous farming area.
The written history of the village begins in 937, when Brydancumb is mentioned in a Saxon charter. It means 'Bryda's valley', and the same man probably gave his name to Bridmore in Berwick St John. In Domesday Book, 1086, the village is called Bredecumbe.
Most of the church is medieval but it includes the remains of an Anglo-Saxon chancel, with long-and-short work at the east end. The north aisle was added in 1858.
In the nearby fields on both sides of the road are the house-platforms of the deserted medieval village of North Burcombe. This parish paid its tithes to St John's Hospital, Wilton, and the church was considered to be a chapel of the Hospital. The surviving village of South Burcombe paid tithes to the Rector of Wilton.
The question of boundaries is complicated: part of Ditchampton, where St John's Hospital lies, is a suburb of Wilton, but was always considered to belong to the ecclesiastical parish of South Burcombe. In 1885 it was included for civil purposes in the borough of Wilton. Then in 1894 it was made into a separate civil parish of Burcombe Within (i.e. physically part of Wilton), while the rest of Burcombe formed the new civil parish of Burcombe Without. Meanwhile the ecclesiastical parish of Burcombe continued as before.
St John's Hospital is an ancient charitable foundation first mentioned in 1195. It was not dissolved at the Reformation because it was considered to be charitable not 'superstitious'. In 1535 there was a master, a chaplain, and four poor brethren or sisters. The present almshouses date from the 1851 rebuilding, and the chapel was restored in 1868.
Burcombe church has a fine silver chalice and paten, made in 1629. The chalice is inscribed "Donum Dei et Deo reditum capellae de Burcombe per Jo. Bowles" (The gift of God and given back to God for the chapel at Burcombe by John Bowles). The parish registers only go back to 1682 so John Bowles cannot be identified there. However, the heralds' visitation of Wiltshire in 1623 gives a pedigree of the family. It shows that in the late 15th century a John Bowles of Bristol married Alice, one of the two daughters and co-heiresses of the Daunger family of Maiden Bradley. Their great-grandson Rowland Bowles of Burcombe died in 1623, leaving a son John who gave the plate to the church.
The 1704 terrier (or land survey) of the parish says "There is no house belonging to this vicarage, nor the least ground to build a house on". This explains why, at the time of the 1783 visitation queries, the Rector of Wishford was looking after the parish. He took a service every other Sunday at one o'clock, with Holy Communion at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun only. The building of the nineteenth‑century vicarage on land given by the Earl of Pembroke enabled the church to be better served.
Penelope Rundle, Archivist, Wiltshire County Council Record Office, Trowbridge
Barford Parish Council Web Site