Seend
Seend | |
---|---|
![]() Manor House, Seend | |
Location within Wiltshire | |
Population | 1,132 (in 2011)[1] |
OS grid reference | ST945611 |
Unitary authority | |
Ceremonial county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Melksham |
Postcode district | SN12 |
Dialling code | 01380 |
Police | Wiltshire |
Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
Ambulance | South Western |
UK Parliament | |
Website | Parish Council |
Seend is a village and
Seend village is on a hilltop more than 90 metres (300 ft) above sea level. The hill is bordered to the west and south by Semington Brook, a tributary of the
Toponym
The village name has had earlier forms, notably in the 17th century: Seene (1602—1635), Scene (1650), Seend Vulgo (1670) and Seen (1675).[citation needed] The name is from Old English "sende" meaning a sandy place.[2]
Manor
The
In 1331, Seend manor was granted to Edward de Bohun,
In 1421, Seend Manor was granted to
Sir Richard died in 1683, and his widow Elizabeth married Edward Hearst.[3] They mortgaged Seend in 1690.[3] After their deaths, Seend passed to Elizabeth and Sir Richard's daughter Mary, who was married to a Robert Dormer.[3] Robert and Mary left Seend to their daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Fortescue Aland,[3] who in 1746 was created Baron Fortescue of Credan in the Peerage of Ireland.[3] The last known record of the manor dates from 1723.[3]
Parish church
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c7/Holy_Cross_Church%2C_Seend_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1114521.jpg/220px-Holy_Cross_Church%2C_Seend_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1114521.jpg)
Seend was a
The Church of England parish church of the Holy Cross is built of rubble stone faced with ashlar. The oldest work is the lower parts of the low west tower, which predates the late-15th-century[3] Perpendicular Gothic nave and its high clerestory.[5] The Perpendicular Gothic north aisle – described as "showy" by Orbach[6] – is also late 15th century,[5] paid for by the clothier John Stokes (died 1498).[7] There are memorial brasses to Stokes and his wife in the north aisle.[7] Over the chancel arch are traces of either a carved rood[7] or a wall painting of the Crucifixion.[5]
Holy Cross has a west gallery that was built early in the 18th century. It bears two dates: 1706 and 1726.[5] The chancel was rebuilt in 1876 to designs by the architect A. J. Style.[5] He also designed the ornate Gothic reredos and pulpit, in stone and marble; the pulpit was carved by Nathaniel Hitch.[8] The 1884 east window is by Clayton and Bell.[6] Restoration in 1889 included rebuilding the west half of the south aisle.[9] There is an octagonal stone font from the 15th century, and another, oval, from the 18th century.[6]
By 1553 the tower had three bells; it now has a ring of six.[3] Four of the bells, including the treble, were cast in 1636 by Roger I Purdue[10] of Bristol. The fifth bell was cast in 1793[10] by Robert and James Wells of Aldbourne.[11] In 1880 Mears and Stainbank[10] of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry[11] cast the present tenor bell and recast one of Purdue's 1636 bells.[3] In 1912 W. & J. Taylor[10] of Loughborough[11] recast Purdue's treble bell.[3]
Monuments in the church include a fine marble figure of a woman by an urn, made by John Ford of Bath, to Rev George Husey (died 1741);
The parish was united with Bulkington in 1971, and Poulshot was added in 1995.[14] Today the parish is part of the Wellsprings benefice, which also covers the parishes of Bulkington, Potterne, Poulshot, and Worton & Marston.[15][16]
Chapels
There were both
In 1749
There was also a Primitive Methodist chapel at Seend Cleeve, which was closed in 1979.[20]
Secular buildings
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/Weavers_Cottages%2C_Seend_%28geograph_5861892%29.jpg/220px-Weavers_Cottages%2C_Seend_%28geograph_5861892%29.jpg)
Seend
Seend House, west of the parish church and also Grade II* listed, was built in the early 19th century.[23] It is an ashlar-faced building of three storeys and six bays, with a porch of paired Tuscan columns. Two lodges are each fronted with four Tuscan columns.[7]
Hill Farm house in the High Street dates from the 15th century[3] and has partly original timber framing[7] including a cruck.[3] It has brick nogging[7] and a stone slate roof. Also on the High Street, Dial House has its origins in the 15th century with its ashlar chimney breast, but the rest is 18th-century red-brick facings.[24] Moiety Manor is a 16th-century timber-framed and painted-brick farmhouse in Spout Lane.[25]
Seend Green House, near the east end of the village, was in existence before the end of the 17th century.[3] It is a plain, ashlar-faced building of three storeys and seven bays.[7] Its porch at the side with pairs of Tuscan columns was added slightly later.[7]
Economic history
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Lower_Lock_Gate_at_Seend_Lock_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3333530.jpg/220px-Lower_Lock_Gate_at_Seend_Lock_-_geograph.org.uk_-_3333530.jpg)
In 1666 the antiquarian John Aubrey observed an iron ore field at Seend and in 1684 he noted that Seend had a chalybeate well that attracted "much company".[7] The ore field was evidently the source of the iron oxide in the chalybeate waters. A chalybeate spring at Seend was discovered or rediscovered in 1813.[3] In 1815 a saline spring was discovered and a spa company was founded, which built a pump room and houses for visitors.[3] The Spa prospered until 1822.[3]
The Kennet and Avon Canal was built between 1794 and 1810. It passes about 0.4 miles (640 m) north of Seend village and even closer to Seend Cleeve.
The
The opening of the railway encouraged quarrying of the iron ore field, which began in the middle of the 19th century and continued intermittently for the next century or so. 77,984
School
Seend Church School was built by Thomas Bruges in 1832 and opened the following year.[3] In 1859 a report criticised the schoolmaster and schoolmistress as uncertificated and the building as damp and unsatisfactory.[3] In 1869 a Government grant paid for a new school building and by 1872 the school was receiving regular Government funding.[3] Attendance grew from 77 in 1872 to 132 in 1893 and 108 children and 56 infants in 1910.[3] Thereafter attendance declined to 68 children and 32 infants in 1938.[3] There were 114 children of all ages in 1950.[3] It is now Seend Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School.[27]
Amenities
The parish has three
Notable people
Mary Webb (1697–1768) was born at Seend; her mother Elizabeth Somner was a daughter of John Somner (or Sumner), who owned Seend Green House (now Seend Park) from the 1660s.[3] After marrying Edward Seymour in 1716 or 1717, she became in 1750 Mary Seymour, Duchess of Somerset. She had the house largely rebuilt in 1760.[28]
Cleeve House was bought in 1883 by William Heward Bell.[29] His children with his wife Hannah included Cory (1875–1961), army officer in the Second Boer War and First World War, elected twice as MP for Devizes, and High Sheriff in 1932; and Clive (1881–1964), the art critic and writer, who married the artist Vanessa Stephen, sister of the author Virginia Woolf.
Antiques dealer and TV presenter Paul Martin and family moved to Seend in 2007.[30]
In media
The church parish (comprising Seend,
References
- ^ "Wiltshire Community History – Census". Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 19 January 2016.
- ^ "Key to English Place-names".
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak al am an ao ap aq ar as at au av Pugh & Crittall 1953, pp. 91–121
- ^ "No. 23973". The London Gazette. 6 May 1873. pp. 2242–2245.
- ^ a b c d e Pevsner & Cherry 1975, p. 464
- ^ OCLC 1201298091.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Pevsner & Cherry 1975, p. 465
- ^ "Holy Cross Church, Seend". Wiltshire Museum. 2019. Retrieved 14 February 2023.
- ^ a b Historic England. "Church of the Holy Cross (1243604)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ Central Council for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Central Council for Church Bell Ringers. 25 June 2010. Retrieved 28 December 2010.
- ^ Marshall, G.W. (1879). Genealogist. William Pollard & Company. p. 395. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
- ^ Historic England. "Churchyard gate piers and gates (1243605)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 17 February 2023.
- ^ "Christ Church, Bulkington". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ^ "Wellsprings Benefice". Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ^ "Church Matters". www.seend.org.uk. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ^ Historic England. "Seend Methodist Chapel (1272671)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ^ "Seend Methodist Chapel". Wiltshire United Churches. Archived from the original on 2 December 2020 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Moore, Joanne (16 March 2020). "Old chapel with no water or heating to be sold". Wiltshire Times. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ^ "Seend Cleeve Primitive Methodist chapel". My Primitive Methodists. Retrieved 13 February 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-904387-81-0. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ Historic England. "The Manor House (1243854)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ Historic England. "Seend House (1243855)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ Historic England. "Dial House (1243834)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ^ Historic England. "Moiety Manor (1272612)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- ISBN 1904349331.
- ^ Seend CE VA Primary School Archived 13 July 2012 at archive.today
- ^ Historic England. "Seend Green House (1243836)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 February 2023.
- ^ "History of Cleeve House". Cleeve House. Archived from the original on 20 January 2022 – via Internet Archive.
- ^ Hunter, Nichola (28 February 2012). "TRADING PLACES: TV presenter Paul Martin and his family exchanged a high street home for a country smallholding and the lifestyle that went with it". The Scotsman. Retrieved 9 February 2023.
Sources
- ISBN 0-14-071026-4.
- Chettle, H.F.; Powell, W.R.; Spalding, P.A.; Tillott, P.M. (1953). Pugh, R.B.; Crittall, Elizabeth (eds.). A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 7. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 91–121 – via British History Online.
External links
Media related to Seend at Wikimedia Commons
- Seend Parish Council
- "Seend". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 20 January 2016.
- Seend website