Easterton

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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.

Easterton lies at the northern edge of Salisbury Plain, an area of about 300 square miles of undulating, mostly barren chalk plateau used by the military for practicing operations. When it is not safe to enter Salisbury plain, such as when the army is doing maneuvers, red flags are flown at various locations around the edge of Salisbury Plain. One such red flag is clearly visible from the village of Easterton, during days when it is not safe to enter the plain.

The edge of Salisbury Plain, Easterton.

Entering the village coming from Market Lavington.

Easterton village hall.

1 Concise History
2 Population
3 Travel Information
4 Local government
5 Location
6 See also
7 Sources

[edit] Concise History

The name Easterton means 'the more easterly farm'. 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 and the Royal Oak (locally known simply as the Oak); 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 eighteenth 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.

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’ 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.

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 enclosure 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.

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-fourth century coin hoard, 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 dissolution in 1548; its exact site is unknown, but a field north of the road was known as Chapel Field in the nineteenth 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.

[edit] Population

These are the census results for Easterton and Wiltshire:

No.	Year	Easterton	Wiltshire
1	1801	320	185,107
2	1811	364	193,828
3	1821	377	222,157
4	1831	417	240,156
5	1841	495	258,733
6	1851	532	254,221
7	1861	481	249,311
8	1871	470	257,177
9	1881	384	258,965
10	1891	363	264,997
11	1901	370	271,394
12	1911	323	286,822
13	1921	315	292,208
14	1931	301	303,373
15	1951	427	386,692
16	1961	472	422,950
17	1971	472	486,747
18	1981	537	518,545
19	1991	591	564,471
20	2001	583	613,024

[edit] Travel Information

Pewsey Station (9.1 miles, 14.6 km, direction E)

Melksham Station (9.8 miles, 15.7 km, direction NW)

M4 Junction 17 (16.6 miles, 26.7 km, direction NW)

M4 Junction 16 (18.1 miles, 29.1 km, direction N)

Bristol International Airport (32.8 miles, 52.8 km, direction W)

Southampton Airport (35.9 miles, 57.8 km, direction SE)

London (81.1 miles, 130.5 km, direction E)

[edit] 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.