Berwick St. James

Berwick St James is a small two village parish in the south of the county, approximately 8 kilometres west-southwest of Amesbury, 13 kilometres north of Salisbury. The name Berwick refers to an outlying grange or farm, whilst St. James comes from the dedication of the parish church. In common with many other places in this area, the settlement that would later become Berwick St James was initially called Winterbourne. The earliest known reference to its present name appears circa 1190, where the village is referred to as Berewyck Sancti Jacobi. The dedication to St James, the same St James as Santiago de Compostela in Spain, likely originates from the twelfth century popularisation of the Saint by Queen Matilda, who fought and lost a civil war against her cousin King Stephen; much of the West Country sided with Matilda. The village of Asserton within the parish is likely to be named after its first recorded inhabitant, Æschere, making Asserton “Æschere’s farm”. 

The parish is long and narrow, approximately 8.5 kilometres long east to west, and 3 kilometres north to south at the centre, its widest part, before narrowing to a point at the eastern and western ends of the parish.

Prior to 1884 the parish had a detached area of 33.5 acres roughly 2.5km south of Berwick St. James church; this area was transferred to Stapleford in 1884. After this reduction, the area of the parish measured 2,497 acres (1,011 ha.). 

The River Till runs north to south through the middle of the parish, with the main settlement of Berwick St James village and the much smaller village of Asserton laying along the path of the river. The geology of the parish is similar to that of south Wiltshire as a whole, with chalk outcrops occurring across the parish, large areas of alluvium and gravel deposits following the line of the Till. The highest point of the parish, at 166m, lies on the downs at the most westerly edge of the parish, whilst the Till leaves the parish to the south at its lowest point, 64m.

The land rises more steeply to the east than the gentle ascent of the west, reaching 143m at the south-east corner. 

The parish had little in the way of woodland until the mid-nineteenth century when a programme of tree planting appears to have been started, particularly in the east of the parish, and by 1979 there were approximately 200 acres of woodland in the parish. Prior to this much of the wood for the parish appears to have been taken from the nearby Grovely Wood: in the thirteenth century the lord of Berwick St James manor took housebote (wood for building purposes) and haybote (wood used for constructing hedges and fences) from a coppice probably located in the forest, and from 1603 the men of the parish were accustomed to taking wood and ferns from the forest, although their right to do so was denied and the woodward was instructed to prevent this from happening again. 

Several important trunk roads cross or have crossed the parish in the past.

Langford Way crosses the parish between Steeple Langford and Berwick St James and is thought to have previously formed a part of the Harrow Way, an ancient track way dating from the Neolithic period thought to link Kent and Somerset, although nothing of the ancient road now survives. The Southampton to Bristol road crossed the western edge of the parish, although it began to decline in importance from the eighteenth century, and by the twentieth century was little more than a track. The Devizes to Salisbury road crosses the parish to the east, whilst a downland road from Amesbury to Mere crosses the northwest corner of the parish. These roads were turnpiked in 1761, and disturnpiked in 1870 and 1871 respectively, although both have remained important into the twenty-first century: the Devizes-Salisbury route is now the A360 whilst the Amesbury-Mere road now forms of a part of the A303 London to Exeter route, a trunk road from 1958. Berwick St James village itself sits on the Stapleford to Shrewton road, now the B3083.

The parish is not served by the railways; however the increased military activity in the area during the First World War did see a temporary military railway constructed north to south across the eastern end of the parish in 1914-1915, though this was dismantled by 1923. 

Relatively few indications of prehistoric settlement or Roman and Saxon communities have been found in the parish. The large Iron Age hill fort of Yarnbury Castle lies to the western boundary of the parish, with its extensive earthworks enclosing 28 acres of land. The first ditch and bank was constructed at Yarnbury around 300 BCE, at the same time as a wide flint road passing through the entrance and into the fort’s interior. A second outer ring of earthworks was constructed around the time of the first Roman invasion of Britain in 55 BCE. The entrance to the site lies to the east, protected by a series of outworks, whilst on the western edge of the fort there is a small angular enclosure alongside the earthworks. Within the fort itself are the remains of an earlier hill fort, now overlaid in the south-east by a series of small ridges. Approximately half a mile to the north of Yarnbury there is a barrow, where a number of Romano-British remains were found.

The settlement at Yarnbury was eventually conquered by the Romans during the second invasion of Britain, probably at some point between 69 and 79 CE. Despite this, Yarnbury appears to have been occupied continuously until the end of the Roman occupation of Britain in the early fifth century, and there is some evidence of later Roman additions to the structure of the fort. Beyond the Romano-British period, there is evidence that the site remained in use until the twentieth century including for dwellings, sheep folds and military training during the Second World War. Until the early twentieth century Yarnbury was also the location of one of Britain’s largest sheep fairs, with more than three thousand sheep spread over the downs surrounding the fort. The fairs were held at Yarnbury each October until 1916, when the land was taken over by the military and the fair moved to Wilton.  

Beyond Yarnbury, there is very little sign of prehistoric settlement in Berwick St James. The east and west downs of the parish show some signs of early ploughing and the easternmost boundary of the parish is marked by two short lengths of prehistoric ditch.

There are two Sarsen stones in the village, either side of the old Langford Way, which had been used to bridge a ditch but are now thought to be remnants of the altar stone at Stonehenge. Aside from these locations, the parish has little in the way of evidence of prehistoric activity. 

Berwick is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, however the Geld Roll indicates that Wintreburne, where Ernulf of Hesdin had a hide and two and a half virgates of land, was probably part of what is now Berwick St James. 

The manors of Berwick St James and Asserton have a long and complex history and can be traced back to the eleventh century. Berwick St James manor was held in 1086 by Nubold of Ernulf of Hesdin, and later became part of the Barony of Kempsford, passing with Kempsford to the Chaworth family some time before 1096. From the Chaworths the manor passed to the house of Lancaster after Maud Chaworth married Henry of Lancaster, with the manor passing to Lancaster at some point before her death in 1322.

As part of the Duchy of Lancaster the manor passed to the crown after the accession of John of Gaunt’s son as Henry IV. The manor was later acquired by Adam Snow (d. 1618), remaining with his descendents until 1742 when it was sold to James Harris, remaining with his son James (Earl of Malmesbury from 1800) until it was sold to Alexander Baring, Baron Ashburton, in 1815. Baring’s descendants sold the estate to E. T. Hooley in 1896, who sold the manor once more in 1898 after declaring himself bankrupt. It was purchased by Sir Christopher Furness (Baron Furness) for his brother Stephen, the first landowner to live in the village; Sir Christopher’s son sold the manor in 1915 to Mary Chubb. The land was then sold to the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries in 1919, E. K. Collins in 1921, and Frank Bucknell in 1945. Bucknell sold approximately 820 acres, around half the farm, to George Street in 1954 and the two families continued to farm the land into the 1990s. 

A small part of Berwick St James became detached from the greater manor some time before 1127 when Patrick de Chaworth granted part of the manor to his son-in-law Henry Daubeney.

The estate remained with the Daubeney family until it passed to Maurice Bonham (died 1302), remaining with the Bonhams until 1598 when it was conveyed to Sir Richard Grobham (died 1629), at which point it descended with Great Wishford manor in the Grobham and Howe families to John Howe (Lord Chedworth). The lands were sold in 1806 or 1807, after Chedworth’s death, to the Earl of Malmesbury thereby reuniting them with the remainder of Berwick St James manor. 

It seems likely that Asserton Manor was the estate, then in Little Winterbourne, held by Geoffrey of Poulton in 1203, and probably held previously by his brother William. In 1242-43 it was probably held by William Waleran, and it remained with the Walerans until 1299. It then passed to Henry Willington, then to his sister Isabel Beaumont, and from the Beaumont family to Henry Lord Daubeney in the early sixteenth century. Daubeney conveyed the manor to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, in 1547. After Somerset’s execution in 1552, the estate passed to the crown, thereafter being granted to the Bassett family in 1565, before being sold to Henry Biggs in 1773. Then known as Asserton farm, it passed to Henry’s son before being sold in 1864 to E. C. Pinckney.

Pinckney’s tenure is notable for the fact that his gamekeeper shot one of the last Great Bustards in the United Kingdom. The bird was said to weigh sixteen pounds and have a 6’8” wingspan, and its stuffed skin can now be seen in Salisbury museum; Great Bustards can now be seen again in the parish as a result of an ongoing reintroduction programme beginning in the early twenty-first century. After Pinckney’s death in 1899 Asserton was briefly united with Berwick St James manor when it was bought by Sir Christopher Furness, before being sold by Furness in 1909. By 1910 it was part of A. P. Cunliffe’s Druid’s Lodge estate based in Stapleford; in 1952 the estate passed to the Fenston Trust and in 1989 to R. A. Hurst. 

The village of Berwick St James itself consists of a single main street, the Shrewton to Stapleford Road, which is now the High Street, and a small lane, Duck Street, to the north of the village leading to Asserton cottages and from there to Asserton farm, though the path to the farm is now a byway rather than a road. The Church of St James in Berwick was certainly standing in the twelfth century, and at least the nave of the current church dates from that period.

Berwick St James village has a number of buildings dating to the seventeenth century or possibly even earlier including a dairy house and a wing of Manor Farm, however the majority of the buildings in the village date from the nineteenth or twentieth centuries, with only a handful of new buildings being constructed during the twentieth century. Asserton has decreased considerably in size since its heyday in the Middle Ages when it was a hamlet or small village on or near the site of the present Asserton House, complete with its own church; by 1655 it was recorded as being no more than a single farmstead, by which time its church had become derelict. Asserton House itself was built in the late seventeenth century, with a number of alterations taking place in the 1830s. 

The general community development of both Asserton and Berwick St James benefitted from a number of more locally involved landowners in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In the later 1800s the Pinckney built and later widened the bridge at the south end of the village, replacing the ford there that had been previously used to cross the River Till. In the early 1900s Furness provided a pavement running through the village, and would later give a rose plant to each villager.

Aside from these private developments, the infrastructure of the village was slowly improved over mid-twentieth century: the main road was resurfaced after the First World War, whilst mains electricity came to the village in 1936, sewage in 1959, and mains water in 1970.  

Berwick’s population grew steadily through to the mid-nineteenth century, after which it began to fall steeply before levelling off in the twentieth century. In 1377 Berwick had 80 poll-tax payers, whilst Asserton had 27. By the turn of the nineteenth century, Berwick St James’ population had risen to 226 and continued to rise steadily to 247 in 1841, followed by a sharp rise to a peak of 294 in 1851 before falling again. The population then continued to decline into the twentieth century with 176 residents in 1901, falling to 133 in 1921 but recovering slightly to 153 in 1991. The early twenty-first century saw a brief resurgence in the population with 185 residents in 2001, however this had fallen to 142 by the time of the 2011 census.

Whilst it is not possible to say for certain what caused the decline in the parish population it seems likely that one of the principal causes was the scarcity of agricultural employment within the parish, as the decrease in population was far too generalised and too late in time to have been associated with the enclosure movement. Other, more generalised pressures on the population would have included agricultural depression and the increasing use of steam power and machinery on local farms.  

In common with much of Wiltshire the economy of Berwick St James was heavily reliant on farming. The pattern of land use in the parish followed the broad lines of those in other parts of Wiltshire’s chalklands: meadows by the River Till, rough pasture at the eastern and western edges of the parish, with open fields between the two. The parish contained several water meadows, and there are records of a private drowning at Pymarsh in 1735.

The chief arable crops of the parish appear to have been Corn, Barley, Oats and Wheat, and the parish had its own mill since at least the mid-thirteenth century.  The primary pasture animal throughout the history of the parish has been the sheep; at full strength the tenant flock of the early fourteenth century would have numbered almost 750 animals, whilst in 1591 the manor lands were said to not be very fertile but to provide good sheep pasture.  

The early tenant farmers at Berwick St James held similar positions to those elsewhere in the Middle Ages in that there was a division between free tenants, who paid a rent in cash, and customary tenants, who worked the Lord’s land in addition to farming their own plot. In 1258 Berwick St James had only five customary tenants; by 1283 this had increased to twenty-two, the increase probably due to new land being brought into cultivation. By 1591, the number of tenants had reduced to fifteen. The amount of land held by these tenants could vary considerably within the parish – some were fortunate enough to hold a virgate (24 acres in Berwick St James, though this amount varied across both the county and the country), some held half a virgate, yet others were cottagers with just a few acres.

The 22 customary tenants of Berwick St James in 1284 held 8.5 virgates between them, in addition to other portions of land known as ‘akerland’ or acreland. The types of tasks carried out for the Lord by the customary tenants was quite diverse. In Asserton in 1309 the seven customary tenants of that manor were required to carry dunghills, harrow and plough the land, wash and shear the Lord’s sheep, harvest hay, and carry the corn of the manor to Sarum, Wilton and Amesbury to be sold at market. These smaller tenant landholders suffered considerably after the open fields and roughly 1300 acres of downland in the parish were enclosed in 1790 following the 1789 Inclosure Act. The parish freeholders received an equivalent acreage for their strips in the open fields, however many of them would not have been able to afford to pay for the necessary fences for this land, nor would they have been able to feed the animals required to fertilize their arable land without the common grazing lands to provide fodder. As a result many sold their lands, and the Land Tax records show a marked reduction in the number of small landowners in the parish: in 1781 there were sixteen residents who held enough land to be liable for the tax, but by 1805 this had fallen to only seven.

Nor was the impact of enclosure confined only to those whose main occupation was agricultural: in 1705 the shoemaker at Berwick St James had twelve acres of land and seventeen breeding ewes – the majority of the parish was, as in many places, reliant upon the land. 

Whilst much of the population may have been indirectly reliant upon the land, the parish also had a thriving service economy throughout much of its history, and by the nineteenth century was often entirely self sufficient in this regard. The parish had at least one mill from the thirteenth century onwards: there is a record of a watermill at Asserton in 1309, which may be the same mill as that of Berwick St James, the first record of which is found in 1258. The mill became a source of contention between Berwick and its upstream neighbour in 1591, when a complaint was made against the Lord of Winterbourne Stoke whose newly built mill was alleged to have reduced both the trade and flow of water to the Berwick St James mill. The lease of the mill could often prove very profitable: in 1689, the lease was worth £160.

The mill itself was replaced in the mid-nineteenth century and moved 100 metres upstream from its original site, and from 1921 it was providing electricity to Berwick House as well as pumping water for the entire village until the installation of mains water. 

In terms of amenities, the parish possessed its own blacksmith from at least 1700 when the smith, Robert Selwood, made a good living from his work: on his death it was recorded that £43 9s 9d was due to his wife from the business. The blacksmith was taken over by the Dyer family in the 1790s, and it remained with the Dyers until sometime between 1898 and 1903 when it was taken over by Albert Miles until at least 1923. The blacksmith disappeared from the Wiltshire trade directories at this point, and it is possible that it was forced to close.  

Berwick St James also has its own pub, the Boot Inn, a Grade II listed building dating to the mid-seventeenth century. From the 1740s through to the late nineteenth century, the licensee of the Boot appears to have held two positions in the village as both the innkeeper and the local boot and shoe maker, and this may be the origin of the pub’s name.

The Boot Inn remains open as of 2016, though it passed out of the hands of private landlords in 1921 when it was sold to the Wadworth brewery.  

There were at least two village shops in Berwick St James for the majority of the nineteenth century, and these often sold groceries or were linen drapers. One shop, run by the Kitley family from the 1880s until 1939, also included the village Post Office and Tom Kitley, who also served as the Parish Clerk from around the turn of the century through to the early 1930s, acted as Postmaster until the shop and Post Office separated in 1929. Letters arrived at around 8 a.m. and were despatched at around 5 p.m., travelling through Salisbury via Wilton. From 1946 the Post Office once again served as the village shop until its closure in 1998. 

Berwick St James gained an important transport link from at least the early 1930s with a ‘Motor Omnibus Service’ operated by Lemington & Devizes Motor Service running two or three times a day to Salisbury and Devizes in 1931.

By 1939 the services may have dropped to one per day; however a route to Bath had been added in addition to the Salisbury to Devizes (via Shrewton) journey. 

The village also possessed several educational facilities throughout its history until the late twentieth century. At various points during the mid-nineteenth century Berwick St James had at least a Sunday School, a Day School, and a dame school, all of which were paid for by a combination of fees and voluntary donations. The major school for the parish, Berwick St James Church of England School, was founded in 1856 by the Pinckney family on land provided by Lord Ashburton. The school became a council school in 1936 before transferring to a new building in Stapleford parish (though near to Berwick St James village). The school became Berwick St James First School in 1975, in the process losing a large number of pupils through the transfer of older children formerly at the school to middle schools in the area. This loss of pupil numbers triggered nearly twenty years of debate over the future of the school, and as the number of children at the school slowly fell the school became increasingly unsustainable and was finally closed by Wiltshire County Council in July 1992.

The school’s remaining six pupils were transferred to Wilton, Great Wishford and Steeple Langford schools. 

Despite being situated on the edge of Salisbury Plain, there appears to have been little significant military activity in the parish during either the First or the Second World War. Troops certainly passed through the village during the Great War, as the post-war resurfacing of the main road was recorded as being due to the mud and dust thrown up by the army during their manoeuvres. A military railway was also constructed across the eastern end of the parish near the beginning of the war. There is more evidence of wartime activity in the parish during the Second World War. A searchlight position was established at Asserton Farm early in the war, possibly around 1941, whilst an aerodrome was constructed at nearby Oatlands Hill in Winterbourne Stoke. Also nearby was an emergency landing ground at ‘Yarnborough’, possibly Yarnbury Hill Fort in the northwest corner of the parish.

In common with other parishes across the country, Berwick St James possessed a Defence and Invasion Committee, whose duties were to assist the military in the event of invasion or enemy raid, particularly by supplying information on enemy movements, to keep the civilian population calm, and to attend to any casualties until they could be sent to hospital. In the event of an invasion, the Committee was to establish its headquarters and a first aid post at the Boot Inn, from where they would provide casualty services, organise fire-fighting parties, and help to arrange emergency labour for the military. The local Home Guard force was stationed in Stapleford, from where it could more easily defend the main roads, however the 54-man force included 17 men from Berwick St James and was commanded by Sergeant E. K. Collins, then the owner of Berwick St James Manor. 

There was a reasonable amount of charitable activity within the parish, the first reference coming from 1784 when a clergyman named Birch gave £2 2s to the poor of the parish, though this bequest was only active for approximately thirty years; the charity gave nothing to the poor from 1817 and was declared lost in 1904. The parish also had an active benefit society during the nineteenth century.

The society was founded in 1817 with the intention of meeting weekly and to provide poor relief for any member who had paid into the society for a year. The original intent was for the society to be dissolved after ten years, however in practice it appears to have continued into at least the early twentieth century. In addition to its help for the poor, the society also funded an annual feast and a parade through the village, which continued into the early 1900s.  

In terms of formal poor relief, the number of poor in need of assistance within the parish fluctuated throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The rate of expenditure on poor relief appears to have remained relatively consistent in the later part of the eighteenth century, at £59 in 1776 and approximately £58 in 1785, before rising during the 1800s. In 1803 the rate was £260 with thirty adults and 46 children regularly receiving relief, with a further 12 individuals receiving occasional assistance; this appears to have been around the average rate for the Branch and Dole Hundred. Expenditure then fell to £179 in 1816 before rising dramatically to £330, the highest amount in the history of the parish, in 1818 and fluctuating between £116 and £312 during the 1820s.

Poor relief in the parish began to tail off into the 1830s, with only £86 spent in 1834; Berwick St James then became part of the Wilton poor-law union in 1836, and of the Salisbury district in 1974. A list of paupers in Berwick St James for the quarter ending 23 June 1838 lists 20 people were in receipt of poor relief, ranging in age from 4 to 83; only three were listed as in Wilton Workhouse, the remainder were in Berwick or one of the nearby villages.