Lockeridge

Lockeridge
240px Lockeridge Dene, a conservation area in the village
Lockeridge  Lockeridge shown within Wiltshire
Population	291 (in 1991)
OS grid reference	SU148678
– London	74 miles (119 km) E
Civil parish	West Overton
Unitary authority	Wiltshire
Ceremonial county	Wiltshire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Marlborough
Postcode district	SN8
Dialling code	01672
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
UK Parliament	Devizes
Website	Parish
List of places UK England Wiltshire

Lockeridge (pop. approximately 290) is a village in Wiltshire, England. It lies at the edge of the West Woods in the Kennet Valley, 2.9 miles (4.7 km) west of Marlborough, 3.1 miles (5.0 km) east of Avebury and 10.5 miles (16.9 km) south of Swindon. It is 0.6 miles (0.97 km) south of the A4 road which was historically the main route from London to the west of England.

Lockeridge Dene is a hamlet immediately southwest of the village.

Lockeridge and its surroundings have provided evidence of Stone and Bronze Age activity in the area. Field enclosures close to the village indicate Roman occupation, whilst the village itself appears in the Domesday Book of 1086.

Lockeridge today forms an agricultural and commuter community with no local industry. The community is served by a village pub, the Who'd a Thought It, but has no other services.

History

Further information: History of Wiltshire

The area has extensive evidence of Neolithic settlement and a Bronze Age burial site was discovered behind the school in the 19th century. Field enclosures on White Hill (a ridge above the village) provide evidence of Roman occupation probably linked to the nearby fortress town of Cunetio. One possible derivation of the name is from the Old English composite word loc(a)-hrycg meaning "a ridge marked by enclosure(s)".

At the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, Lockeridge was owned by Durand of Gloucester and is described as follows: Durand himself holds LOCKERIDGE. Almær held it TRE, and it paid geld for 2 hides. There is land for 1 plough. Of this 1 hide is in demesne. There is 1 villan and 2 bordars with 1 slave, and 1-acre (4,000 m²) of meadow, and 12 acres (49,000 m²) of pasture and 6 acres (24,000 m²) of woodland. It was worth 40s ; now 30s. These two late Anglo-Saxon estates are held to be linked to the cluster of houses at Lockeridge Dene at the southern end of the village, and the Eighteenth Century Lockeridge House at the northern end. Lockeridge House is adjacent to Piper's Lane, remnant of a Roman Road.

Building took place between the two Saxon settlements in the 12th century on the order of the Knights Templar who acquired one of the estates between 1141 and 1143. In 1155-6 it acquired land in Rockley to build a Preceptory. Lockeridge is therefore something rare in Britain, namely a planned Templar village. The collapse of the nearby settlement of Shaw as a result of the Plague may have triggered growth as Lockeridge was situated at an intersection of a major east-west route (now the A4) and a crossing of the Pewsey Downs. The Templar link explains the absence (rare in Wiltshire villages) of a church.

Lockeridge House was built c.1740 and is Grade II* listed.

The settlement expanded from a hamlet to a village in the 1870s when Sir Henry Meux sited his estate office (Gypsy Furlong) and the estate yard (Yardacre) in the village. Houses, a school and a pub were built at the same time.

In consequence of this history there are three main architectural styles in the village.

• Sarsen stone, generally painted or left rough-hewn, and thatched with wheat or wheat-reed mix.
• Victorian estate architecture built of dressed stones or Wiltshire redbrick with sarsen banding. Many of these are the work of C.E. Ponting, architect to the Meux estate in the 1870s.
• 20th-century solid brick council housing and in-fill in a variety of styles, in the main street and on Back Lane and Rhyls Lane.

Governance

Lockeridge forms part of the civil parish of West Overton, which elects a joint parish council with the adjacent parish of Fyfield; the council is named Fyfield and West Overton. It falls within the area of the Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which is responsible for all significant local government functions.

Landmarks

Lockeridge Dene

Lockeridge Dene at the south end of the village is a National Trust site and is a conservation area. Sarsen stones are scattered over the area and this is one of the sites from which the stones at Avebury were mined.

The village is adjacent to the nearby West Woods. In the spring these are carpeted with bluebells and provide a tourist attraction with the woods being opened to vehicles on two weekends.

Walks from the village lead through the West Woods onto the Pewsey Downs and the Wansdyke, an early medieval earthwork that ran from near Andover to the Bristol Channel and became the border between the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Mercia and Wessex.

Transport

The village is served by an "on demand" bus service.

Education

Kennet Valley Lower School

The Kennet Valley Church of England Primary School was consolidated from two locations in July 2011. A single-site school for 4 to 11 year olds was created by extending the 1872 school building designed by Charles Ponting. For secondary education most children go on to St John's, Marlborough.

Sports

The Kennet Valley Cricket Club plays in the village comprising residents of Lockeridge along with those of West Overton, East Kennett and Fyfield. It also hosts an annual New Years Day football and Rugby match between the west and east of the Kennet Valley for the Baliszewski Cup (named after the founder of the tradition, Edward Baliszewski, who died in 2008). Played by all ages, to ad hoc rules including two simultaneous football matches played with two balls on the same pitch; men may only play with one ball, women and children with either.

External links

• Map 'Explorer 157', published by the Ordnance Survey, ISBN 0-319-21782-5, revised 1997.
• Fowler, P & Blackwell I (1998) "The Land of Lettice Sweetapple" pp 88–90