Marston Maisey

Marston Maisey is the most northerly parish in Wiltshire. It lies on the border with Gloucestershire, 11km south-east of Cirencester and 12km north of Swindon. The parish has one major settlement, the village of Marston Meysey. Historically Marston Meysey was a chapelry of nearby Meysey Hampton (Gloucestershire), despite the fact that it was wholly inside Wiltshire, and was not made a civil parish in its own right until the nineteenth century. Interestingly, Marston Maisey is the only parish in Wiltshire to have never been part of Salisbury diocese.

The settlement was known as Merston (or Merstone) in 1199, Northmerston in 1281, Marshtone Meysi in 1302, and Marston Measey in 1773. In the nineteenth century Nightingale suggested that the parish and settlement name was derived from “the familiar mere stones, or stones by which, on our open downs, one plot of land is separated from another”. However, it is more likely that the name derives from the Old English word for a settlement near a marsh, alongside the family name of the manor’s owner, in this case the de Meysi family who held the manor in the thirteenth century.

The ‘north’ of Northmerston is likely to come from an attempt to distinguish the parish from South Marston, near Swindon.

Marston Maisey is a small parish, roughly triangular in shape and tapering from a wide southern base to a narrow neck in the north. In 1990 the area of the parish was 1,316 acres (533 hectares), a reduction from 1,344 acres (540 hectares) after the northern tip of the parish, a 7 hectare triangle of land, was given to Meysey Hampton. The majority of the parish is bounded by streams and rivers. The western and south-eastern boundaries follow streams flowing to the Thames, which marks most of the southern boundary (and the boundary may follow an old course of the river for the remainder of its length). The north-eastern boundary may follow prehistoric banks and ditches, whilst the northern edge of the parish is marked by the Fairford to Cirencester road, now the A417.

Geographically the parish is much the same as wider Wiltshire. The majority of the parish is situated on river deposits, predominantly alluvium and gravel, though there is a small area of limestone in the north and outcrops of clay in the centre. The parish is largely flat, particularly in the south, which lies at around 80m and does not rise to 90m until just north of RAF Fairford. The lowest point of the parish is to the south-east, at 75m, whilst the highest is in the extreme north-east where the land rises to 102m.

There are two low rises, Marsh Hill and Marston Hill, to the centre of the parish but otherwise there are no hills in the area.

As of 2017 there is very little woodland in the parish, and that which exists is situated in the north. Marston Maisey has historically had very low amounts of woodland, and the majority of this belonged to the lord of the manor. However by 1654 the balance had swung towards his tenants and the lord was required to notify them before he cut down any trees, whilst they had various rights to the trees of the parish including the right to trees which had blown down and the right to cut willow on their holdings. By 1839 there were 28 acres of woodland, which was distributed amongst numerous small plantations, however by the 1870s there were less than 10 acres remaining.

There are no railways serving the parish, and the nearest station is Swindon, to the south. There are no canals currently running through Marston Maisey; however the now defunct Thames and Severn Canal previously crossed the parish. The canal was opened in 1789 and crossed the southern end of the parish, near the Thames, and a wharf, goods yard and small cottage were built nearby. In common with canals across the country, usage of the Thames and Severn declined as rail transport increased and the canal carried little traffic by the 1860s before finally closing in 1927; by the early 1980s most of the canal had been filled in.

There is no civilian air travel in the parish, however a large military airfield, RAF Fairford, extends into Marston Maisey. The airfield was constructed late in the Second World War in the neighbouring parish of Kempsford (Gloucestershire), and its runway was extended into Marston Maisey c.1950, dividing the northern and southern ends of the parish.

As such the primary means of transport in Marston Maisey is by road. The Cirencester to Fairford road, now the A417, passed through the parish at one point, however it now forms the northern boundary of the parish. This road was mapped in 1675 from London to St Davids, via Gloucester; it was turnpiked in 1727 and disturnpiked in 1879. Only one other road crossed the parish east-west before 1950, running from Kempsford to Cricklade across the south of the parish, with lanes leading to Castle Eaton. The other minor road currently crossing the parish runs north to south, from the Kempsford-Cricklade road to Marston Meysey. Prior to 1950 this road forked north of the village, northwest to Meysey Hampton and northeast to Fairford, however the extension of R.A.F. Fairford resulted in the northeast fork being removed. In its place there is now a third east to west road to the north of the airfield; this is accessed from the Meysey Hampton lane.

There is some minor evidence of prehistoric, Roman and Saxon settlement in the parish.

There are several ring ditches, possibly Bronze Age barrows, field boundaries and pottery sherds in the south, southeast and north of the parish, which suggests possible prehistoric settlement in the area. There are also several indications of Middle Iron Age settlements in the parish, the first lying either side of a former stream in the south. A second Iron Age settlement was located on the current boundary with Kempsford in the far north of the parish, and a third has tentatively been identified in the area of the current village. There is little evidence for Roman settlement in the parish aside from a Roman trackway between Roundhouse Farm and the Thames. In terms of Saxon activity there is equally little evidence of settlement – a possible early Saxon hut was excavated in 1993 in the north of the parish, however aside from this the evidence is minimal.

Marston Maisey is not mentioned in Domesday or the Geld Rolls, however it is likely that the area was included in the holdings of the Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger of Montgomery. After 1086 it is likely to have descended with the Earl’s tenants to the de Meysey family, who held it by at least 1212. It descended with the de Meysey family until 1302 when it was granted to Hugh Despenser. After Despenser’s execution the estate was confiscated by the crown, with whom it remained until 1564.

In that year Elizabeth I granted the manor to the Bishop of Salisbury and it remained with the Bishop until it was confiscated by Parliament during the Civil war. The manor was sold to Robert Jenner in 1648 and passed in the Jenner family until the Restoration, when it reverted to the Bishops of Salisbury and from there to the Ecclesiastical Commoners in 1856. Over the following half century the Commissioners sold off almost all these lands, though a small part was retained until the 1920s.

At this point the manor split into numerous smaller holdings, of which the largest were the Manor Farm and Marston Hill estates. The 355 acres of Manor Farm was sold to John Archer in 1856, descending with the Archers until it was sold to John Richards in 1925. The manor farmhouse was sold off in the late twentieth century, and the lands were purchased by Robert Spackman. Marston Hill estate began to take shape in the 1870s, and by 1878 the Reverend Dr Frederick Bulley had bought the Broadmore Hill farm, and several nearby parcels of land, to create a 250 acre estate. The estate passed to his son before being sold to Major Robert and Lady Mabel Hamilton-Stubber in 1921, and was then purchased by the Spackman family before 1960. The two manors remained in the Spackman family and formed part of a more than 1000 acre estate based in nearby Kempsford.

There are relatively few settlements within the parish.

The main settlement is at the village of Marston Meysey, which the Victoria County History for Wiltshire suggests has “the appearance of a planned medieval settlement”, spread along its central street which runs from north to south. In the fourteenth century the settlement consisted of around 20 farmsteads, consisting of both free and customary tenants, though this decreased to 13 farmsteads by the nineteenth century. The village appears to have undergone several phases of expansion and construction: many of the buildings date from an intensive rebuilding process in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; a second phase in the eighteenth century expanded the village further; and in the late nineteenth century a new vicarage and village school were added, to match the Post Office and public house erected earlier in the century. There was some limited housebuilding in the early twentieth century, however the pace of this increased markedly towards the end of the century in an effort to match demand from commuters.

Aside from the main village, there are few minor settlements in the parish. Cox’s Farm, to the southeast, was built sometime in the sixteenth century, whilst the farmstead of Marsh Hill was constructed in the eighteenth century but demolished in the 1950s to make way for the extension of RAF Fairford.

Broadmore farmstead, originating in at least the eighteenth century, was demolished in circa 1885 to make way for Marston Hill House and replaced by a series of estate cottages over the following half century.

The parish, particularly the area in and around Marston Meysey, contains a large number of listed buildings including Marston Hill house (which in the 1950s was used as a school for the children of U.S. servicemen stationed at R.A.F. Fairford, Marston Meysey Manor House, Cox’s Farmhouse, the church and the former village school. The latter two buildings are of note as they were designed in the 1780s by the Gothic Revivalist architect James Brooks, “one of the most inventive architects then working”, according to the Victoria County History. Also of interest are the buildings associated with the Thames and Severn Canal. Marston Meysey Bridge, dating from the late eighteenth century, combined a bridge over the canal with a lock and living spaces. The nearby Round House is a circular building, now a private dwelling, was originally a cottage built for the canal lengsthmen who were responsible for maintaining the canal; the building in Marston Maisey is one of five such structures built along the Thames and Severn Canal, and the only example in Wiltshire.

The parish population experienced the ebbs and flows typical of its rural location.

The population in 1801 was 185 and remained largely stable for nearly thirty years until a sharp increase to 240 in 1831 before reaching an all-time peak of 245 in 1841. Its population was then roughly stable for the next decade, with a figure of 237 in 1841 (this figure included seven gypsies living in tents). After a further decline to 179 by 1871 the population was stable for nearly forty years, hovering between 180 and 190 residents. The number of people in the parish rose briefly to 232 in 1931 before, in keeping with the decline in the availability of agricultural work, gradually falling to its lowest point of 166 in 1971. After this the trend appears to have largely reversed, with the population increasing to 209 by 1991, and 207 in 2011. This is likely the result of Marston Meysey’s transition into a commuter village, which saw the renovation of old homes and the construction of new houses, bringing new residents to the village and parish.

Notable residents of the parish include Robert Jenner (1584-1681). Jenner was a wealthy and influential London goldsmith who was elected MP for Cricklade in 1628, again in 1640 for what would become known as the Long Parliament. He also acted as the Prime Warden of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in 1642 and 1646, became lord of the manor of Marston Meysey in 1648. During the civil war he was an active Parliamentarian.

The Jenner family remained prominent in the parish for many years despite the loss of their lordship of the manor after the Restoration. Nightingale suggests that the Jenner family were also related to Edward Jenner, who developed the concept of vaccination.

Like much of rural Wiltshire, the parish economy primarily revolved around farming. Prior to the enclosure of common land the arable areas of the parish were divided amongst three large fields, each subdivided into narrow strips of land farmed by an individual or a family as tenant farmers. These tenants in turn owed rent to the lord of the manor, who owned the land. In 1669, these three arable areas consisted of around 850 acres of land under cultivation. Much of the pastoral land in the parish was concentrated to the south, though before enclosure it was customary to pasture sheep in the common fields after the harvest. This common land was enclosed in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century, when the smaller tenant holdings were united into several larger land holdings under a single, rather than common, owner. In Marston Maisey the process of enclosure appears to have been largely complete by 1839, and by the 1870s approximately 500 acres of parish land was laid to pasture.

Some of this pasture was located in the meadows in the south east of the Parish, near the Thames; one such meadow was Hill Mead, the common rights to which survived until the late nineteenth century.

Hill mead was a ‘Lammas meadow’, meaning that the right to graze animals on the meadow began after the Lammas festival, a harvest festival derived from the Anglo-Saxon period, in early August. After the hay harvest, commoners were allowed to graze their animals on the meadow, though the nature of this grazing was strictly controlled. In the early 1800s one cow or horse in every four could graze the meadow between 12 August and 12 November, after which one sheep in four could feed on the meadow until 5 March. Hill Mead often proved a source of trouble for the parish, and from the late seventeenth century there are records of cattle “without the town mark” being grazed in the meadow; the animals were taken to the village pound, along with others discovered grazing the parish lanes without a keeper. Hill Mead seems to have been one of the last areas of the parish to have been enclosed, surviving as common pasture until 1864.

The Medieval and Early Modern tenants farmers of Marston Maisey followed the pattern set by the wider county and country in that the majority were so-called ‘customary tenants’ or ‘copyholders’, a smaller number were cottagers and relatively few were free tenants. Free tenants paid their rent to the lord of the manor in cash, whereas customary tenants and cottagers paid their rent in kind – usually in the form of heavy labour.

In addition to farming their own plots, which were generally larger than those of the cottagers, customary tenants were expected to work every other day in the fields belonging to the local lord. Cottagers were not only expected to work the lord’s fields with the customary tenants but also to make hay for the lord, in addition to farming their own land.

 In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there were two or three households of free tenants in the parish, and around thirty households of customary tenants (or serfs) who were required to work the lord’s land and who were restricted in their freedoms. Two thirds of the serfs had modest farms of their own, whilst one third were cottagers whose survival depended on their labouring for others. Beginning around the time of the Black Death the number of serfs in Wiltshire, and the country as a whole, declined as the social changes brought about by the reduced population took hold. By the seventeenth century the overall prosperity of the parish had seemingly increased, as evidenced by the rebuilding of many farmsteads in stone during this period.  At Manor farm in 1669 there were 3 freeholders, who worked approximately 113 acres between them, 12 copyholders with around 500 acres, and 4 cottagers with 50 acres. After enclosure Marston Maisey remained a community of farmers, though of course the nature of the farms themselves had changed.

By 1840 there were 13 tenants with farms bigger than 20 acres; these were based on the old copyhold farms and were generally made up of several of the smaller plots that had previously been worked by individual families. In late years these small farms would in turn become grouped together into much larger farm workings.

In the early twenty-first century the parish economy remains biased towards farming, however in 2006 a gravel works opened in the south of the parish and by 2009 encompassed most of the former meadow areas to the south-west of the parish.

              In addition to farming, the parish hosted a diverse range of services to cater for the needs of the local population. There are no existing records of a mill or blacksmith within the parish, however the parish was otherwise well provided for from at least the late nineteenth century. The local carpenter was James Bainge from c.1867-1889, and William Rickets from 1889 to the early 1890s; the village also had a shoemaker (Matthew Mitchell c.1885-1889, John smith 1889-c.1895), a wheelwright (Jesse Waite c.1889 to c.1911) and a thatcher (Walter Cox from c.1915 to c.1923).

The parish also hosted some more esoteric trades: Walter James Watts was listed in Kelly’s Directory as “upholsterer and carriage trimmer, late upholsterer to the Great Western Railway” from 1895 to 1931.

              The parish and village were also home to the more traditional elements of rural village life. There was a combined greengrocer and baker in the early 1890s, listed in Kelly’s Directory as being run first by Charles A’Court in 1889 and then by Frederick William Smith in 1895. At some point between 1895 and 1898 the baker and greengrocer appear to have been separated, with a Mrs Eliza A’Court listed as running the village grocer in 1898 and 1903, after which the grocer disappeared from Kelly’s Directory – it is possible its services were subsumed by the village shop, of which more below. The baker was run by Henry Pappell in 1898 before being taken over by John William Akers sometime between 1898 and 1903. Akers continued working at the bakers until at least 1920, after which the business is not listed in Kelly’s, though the family appears to have maintained a presence in the area for some time.

Akers apparently had 11 children; one of his daughters seems to have taught at the village school for a time, whilst one of his sons rented Blackburr Farm from the County Council and did the village milk round until around 1973.

The village also possessed a shop from at least 1885: there are three persons listed as ‘shopkeeper’ in the 1885 edition of Kelly’s Directory (George Hewer, Eliza Ricketts and Mary Thomas), but only one thereafter. From 1898 the shopkeepers were George Everett (c.1898-c.1907), Henry Trinder (c.1911-c.1931) and Susan Trinder (c.1939). Miss Kitty Trinder also served as the village postmistress until her death in 1984, after which the combined shop and post office closed. It is not clear exactly when the post office and shop were merged however the first recorded postmistress, Mrs Ellen Watts (who ran the post office from c.1903 to c.1927) does not appear in connection with the shop, and so it is possible that the merger took place between 1927 and 1939. Prior to 1898 the village lacked a dedicated post office, having only a wall letter box from at least 1867 to c.1895.

A number of carriers passed through the village, providing transport links to nearby towns and villages. The vast majority of these links appear to have run between Kempsford and Cirencester, passing through Marston Meysey in the process, though a link to Swindon was created in c.1939.

These were regular but infrequent routes: the earliest mention of the link to Cirencester dates to 1867, and from then until c.1939 the journeys were only made twice per week, on Mondays and Fridays, with the service returning the same day. It was not until 1939 that the carriers ran at the weekend and this was only on the Swindon route, which provided a Saturday service.

Other miscellaneous services included a village hall and a police station. The former was opened on the site of the school after the school’s closure in 1924 and was still active in the early twenty-first century, and is now owned by the village residents after a successful fundraising campaign allowed them to purchase it in 2005. The latter appears to have only been active for a short period in the early twentieth century as it is only listed in Kelly’s Directory for 1915 and 1920. On both occasions the constable was listed as Sidney E. Hatchman.

The parish also possessed two public houses from the early nineteenth to the mid twentieth centuries. To the south of the parish the Spotted Cow lies at the southern end of Marston Meysey village and has stood there since at least 1940, whilst to the north the Three Magpies was built alongside the Cirencester Road (now the A417) in 1830.

Both pubs had a succession of landlords throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and both eventually came under the ownership of Simonds Brewery, although at what date this occurred in uncertain, though the Spotted Cow became a Free House soon after 1954. As of 2017 the pub is still standing and is now called the Old Spotted Cow. The Three Magpies was at one point the most northerly pub in Wiltshire, and was apparently a very popular location until around the time of the Second World War. After the war, however, the pub was delicensed and sold by 1947 at the latest. From 1953 it was owned by a Mr William Edgar Swan and was used as a farmhouse, and in 1996 it was still in use as a farmhouse by Swan’s daughter Alma Swan.

There is relatively little surviving evidence relating to the schools of Marston Maisey. There was a school in the parish from around 1725, when John Kircheval (d. 1725) left £60 to apprentice poor children or send them to school; a school was endowed using some of the money and the parish vestry paid a master or mistress 1s 6d per week to teach the poorer children. This school building was seemingly still standing in 1871 when it had room for 17 pupils, though this capacity was considered too small. In response the parish vestry commissioned a new National school, which was designed by James Brooks, who would later design the parish’s new church building.

The school was completed in 1874, and enlarged in 1901-2, after which it had room for 71 children. The attendance was much less than this, however, averaging at around 30 children and gradually falling to 19 in 1924, at which point the school was closed.

There was little in the way of military activity in the parish during either the First or the Second World War, though a number of men from the parish served in both conflicts, of whom nine were killed. During the First World War William Bulpit (who had been a gardener at Marston Hill House), John Hapgood, Alfred Charles Matthews, Alfred William Matthews, Harold John Sparrow and George William Palmer were killed on active service. During the Second World War John Franklin, Alfred Joseph Howse and William Charles Stovell lost their lives. Franklin lived at Bleeke House, the former Rectory and now a listed building. Howse served in the Gloucester Regiment and was killed in Burma in 1942 – one of his brothers was also badly wounded during the war, whilst his father Joseph Howse was apparently taken prisoner of war during World War One. Stovell was a Royal Marine and was killed at Arnhem in 1944, aged just 19. Like Howse, Stovell’s wider family also served in the conflict and his father Charlie Stovell, of the Royal navy, was injured so severely as to be left permanently disabled.

There were several charities which provided support to the poor of the parish.

Richard Samways, John Beale and John Kircheval, all rectors of Meysey Hampton, between them left £70 to be invested for the poor of the parish – Kircheval left £60 to apprentice poor children or to send them to school. A fourth bequest, from William Jenner of Meysey Hampton in 1776, left £25 for Marston Meysey’s poor and the interest from this sum paid for bread to be distributed on old Christmas Day to those amongst the poor who did not receive parish alms. These four donations had been amalgamated by 1798, and the money held by the rector of Meysey Hampton and the churchwardens of Marston Meysey. By 1834 the sums from Kircheval and Jenner had been invested in four small cottages which were then let out for an income of £6 18s.

A second charitable fund began with the donations of John Beeke (d. 1744), John Jenner (d. 1756), Mary King (d. 1772), and Elizabeth Jenner (d. 1780) who between them bequeathed £25 to the poor of the parish. This was supplemented by a bequest of £5 from Henry Lane (d. 1822) and £20 from William Jenner (d. 1826). By the early 1820s the entirety of this money was administered by the churchwardens, who set up three apprenticeships (costing £44). By 1834 the interest paid for £4 of bread to be distributed to the poor in winter. This fund was then supplemented in 1844 by a bequest of £100 from Elizabeth Lewis.

This money was transferred by the vicar to the Official Trustees of Charitable Funds in 1861, and in 1877 the cottages of the Samways charity were also transferred.

By 1907 two of the cottages had been knocked together to form a single property, whilst the remaining funds provided £277 in annuities. The first fund, by then known as the Eleemosynary Charity of Samway and Others, paid for the upkeep of the cottages, with any interest reinvested, whilst the Elizabeth Lewis charity was used to distribute dividends to the needy. The Lewis charity was enhanced in 1919 by money from Horace Sketchley, a vicar. The cottages were sold off at some point between 1936 and 1945, whilst the Lewis and Samways charities were administered as a single entity from 1948. Both were defunct by 2000.

Aside from these charities the parish also provided more formal poor relief, which was administered by a vestry composed of the leading residents of the parish. This group spent £49 on the poor in 1775-6 and £66 between 1783 and 1785. The poor rate was set at 1s 9d in 1802-3, a relatively low sum. During this same period the parish spent £71 on the relief of 34 people, of whom 4 were children.  The amount spent on poor relief in the early nineteenth century was generally between £150 and £200 per year, however the parish spent £270 in 1818-19 and £260 in 1832, though the reasons for these unusually high figures are unclear.

In 1835 the parish joined the Cirencester Poor Law Union before being transferred to the Cricklade and Wootton Bassett Poor Law Union in 1881. This move does not appear to have gone smoothly for the parish, as in 1884 the vestry debated returning to the Cirencester union owing to the fact that Wiltshire’s poor rate was much higher than the parish’s rateable value.