Stockton

The parish of Stockton is in the Wylye valley in south Wiltshire. It is 18 km from Salisbury and 13 km from Warminster. The boundary forms a rectangular shape with the river Wylye forming the whole of its northern border. It measures 4 km from north to south and 2.5 km from east to west. In 1934 when the parish of Fisherton de la Mere ceased to exist, the village of Bapton was transferred to Stockton, thereby increasing the size of Stockton considerably from 2,122 acres to 3,296 acres. The village of Fisherton was transferred to Wylye.

The village of Stockton is in the north of the parish and its main street runs parallel to the river. The Wilts. Somerset and Weymouth railway was built by the G.W.R. just south of the village and opened between Salisbury and Warminster in 1856. Wylye and Codford were the nearest stations and both closed in 1955. The remainder of the parish is mostly open downland with Stockton Wood crossing the southern boundary.

The geology of the parish is typical of the Wylye valley, being a mixture of gravel, clay-with-flints and chalk. The pattern of land use is also typical, with pasture and arable land on the gravel, a mixture of arable and rough pasture on the chalk and Stockton Wood on the clay-with-flints. The name Stockton probably means ‘an enclosure or farm made of stocks’ (wooden posts). Bapton means ‘Babba’s farm’. This may well have been the same man who gave his name to Baverstock, which is about six miles away across the down.

There are a few barrows in Stockton but the most important archaeological site is Stockton earthworks. This is a British village covering some 100 acres that dates from the pre-Roman Iron Age to the late Roman Period, suggesting at least four centuries of almost continuous development. Excavations have revealed a series of interlocked enclosures for livestock, suggesting that Stockton was a farming village and possibly a minor market. The site has also yielded many finds, including Bronze brooches dating from the early Iron Age and Roman periods.

The southern boundary of Stockton parish is formed by part of the Grovely Grim’s Ditch. This ditch runs for nine miles in Wiltshire and forms large parts of the boundaries of the twelve parishes it passes through. It was probably dug in the Saxon period and was intended as a boundary marking the extent of the Saxon territory.

In 1205 the manor of Stockton was held by the Bishop of Winchester to help support the monks of St Swithun’s. After the Dissolution the manor was among the estates given to the dean and chapter of Windsor. By 1547 it was in the hands of the Earls of Pembroke who in 1585 sold it to John Topp, a citizen and merchant tailor of London. The last Topp heirs were two sisters, Susan Everard and Christiana Lansdown. In 1749 the manor was divided into two, the manor itself and Lower Farm. The manor was sold to Henry Biggs in 1772 but Lower Farm was not sold to the Biggs family until 1841. A Biggs nephew named Major.-General Arthur Yeatman succeeded in 1877 and he took the additional name Biggs.

In 1898 the manor passed to H.W. Yeatman-Biggs, who bought Glebe Farm in 1898. This gentleman had a very successful career in the church and was bishop successively of Southwark, Worcester and Coventry. He sold the manor in 1921 but passed the farm on to his son. The land associated with Stockton manor has been held by the Stratton family since 1950; the Strattons have farmed Kingston Deverill since the mid-19^th century. Both families are still in residence.

The manor of Bapton was sold in 1627 to John Davis, a yeoman from North Wraxall. The property remained in the Davis family, who eventually acquired Fisherton manor and almost all the land in Fisherton and Bapton, until 1871. It was then sold to Joseph Deans Willis and stayed in his family until 1927. They lived at Bapton Manor. In 1927 the house was occupied by Major Dunbar Kelly who was the agent to the lord of the manor, Sir Cecil Chubb. During the Second World War it was occupied by the military.

The parish church of St. John the Baptist is built of ashlar and has a chancel with north vestry, a nave with aisles, north porch and west tower. Rebuilding work took place in the chancel, north aisle and south aisle in the 1840s. In 1879 there was a general restoration of the whole church. In the later 18^th century and the early 19^th there were a few dissenters, and in 1812 a house was licensed for meetings. There was a small school for dissenters’ children in 1859 and there were three families of Independents in 1864, but no nonconformist chapel has ever been built in the parish.

Stockton has many houses and cottages dating from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, but the earliest listed building is Long Hall. This house dates from the 15^th century and by the 1600s was known as Lower Farm. There are two smoke-blackened trusses in the roof of the main east-west range that have survived from the medieval house. In the 16^th century a massive chimney stack and a first floor were added. In the 17^th century wings were added to the south side. In the late 18^th century the north front was refaced in red brick. Short wings were added to the east and west sides in 1900. In 1923 more extensive kitchen and service quarters were added on the south and west of the west wing which had most of its floors and walls removed to form a new dining room and picture gallery.

Stockton House is a Grade I listed Elizabethan country house, built in the late 1590s by John Topp. The walls are of banded flint and stone. Within the building are the remaining walls of the medieval hall which are nearly three feet thick. In 1802 Sir Jeffry Wyattville designed a new staircase and redecorated several small rooms. Between 1877 and 1882 extensive restorations and additions were carried out by the architects Edmund and E.B. Ferrey but in the early 1930s most of their decorations were removed. Several antique fittings, including an early 16^th century fire-place in the hall were added.

The interior of the house is exceptionally rich in plasterwork and fireplaces. One example is the White Drawing Room which is completely Tudor. It has panelled walls, a plastered ceiling and an ornate fire-place with the family coat of arms of John and Mary Topp centrally placed. On the first floor the Great Chamber has a superb plaster ceiling showing the animals, fruits and flowers of paradise. Adam and Eve are shown over the ornate Tudor fire-place. A bedroom known as the Shadrach Room has a plastered ceiling and a highly carved fire-place that illustrates the Old Testament story of the Three Youths in the Fiery Furnace.

The Old Rectory is a substantial Georgian house set in 1.75 acres of ground. It was built in 1799 for the Rev. Henry Good who was Rector of Stockton from 1789-1824. The house is built of brick and has two storeys plus three attic rooms. The accommodation consists of a double drawing room, dining room, sitting room, study and kitchen. On the first floor are five principal bedrooms and two bathrooms. There is also a former coach house and stables.

Bapton Manor dates back to the 17^th century (if not earlier) when the east end was built. To the west of this is a block dating from the 1730s with a stone front that has five windows. In the 19^th century a single storey addition was made to the left and an extension to the right in the 20^th century.

Until the Second World War farming was the major source of employment. The 1851 census shows that Sarah Patient, a widow, was farming 960 acres and employed 32 labourers. Thomas Compton farmed 670 acres and employed 24 labourers. The population was 300 and there were 61 households; most families would have contained at least one agricultural labourer. John Fleming kept a shop and William Haines was a grocer and draper, enabling the villagers to buy locally the small number of items they would have been able to afford. By 1901 John Gay was the only farmer at Stockton Farm and would have been the major employer. Other forms of employment were beginning to appear. There was a road man and four men who worked for the G.W.R.

The population of Stockton in 2011 was 204. This figure is very close to those for both 1801 and 1901, with various fluctuations in between. The highest point was 307 people in 1841 and the lowest was just 177 in 1931. The building of ten council houses and four council flats contributed to the sharp increase between 1931 and 1951 from 177 to 268 people.

The earliest indication of the size of the population is the Domesday survey taken in 1086 when there were approximately 54 people living in Stockton. In 1377 there were 140 poll tax payers aged 14 and over. The next available figure is from 1676, when the Bishop of London sent out a voluntary survey to all parishes requesting the number of people aged sixteen or over who were Church of England, Roman Catholic or Non Conformist. A return was sent for Stockton giving a figure of 120 people who were all Church of England. There were 78 baptisms during the period 1660-76 of whom approximately 25 did not survive until adulthood, making an estimated total of 173 people living in Stockton in 1676. The first official figure for the whole population was the census taken in 1801 by which time it had risen to 234 people.

The residents of Stockton were fortunate enough to have a fine alms-house built for them. It was founded c.1645 by the trustees of John Topp who died in 1640 and left £1,000 to benefit the poor. The alms-house was built round three sides of an enclosed courtyard to house six people in separate pairs of rooms. The accommodation was increased to eight by the addition of north and south wings in 1714. In the 19^th century it was reduced to six people again to save money, following extensive repairs to the building. The inmates were aged over 60 or infirm, single, respectable and poor. They were given fuel, a cloak each year and a weekly allowance. Married people were not admitted until as recently as 1977. Today the almshouses are still occupied by local residents or people from Codford St Mary.

The biggest change to the parish in the 20^th century was its increase in size in 1934 when the 1,174 acres of Bapton land were added to it. The 1910 Inland Revenue map shows that the small area of land north of the road through the modern parish belonged to Fisherton de la Mere Farm. The much larger area to the south (approximately 1,000 acres) belonged to Bapton Manor.

The 1885 Kelly’s Directory for Wiltshire shows that Stockton had all the trades you would expect to find in a farming village. There was a blacksmith, a carpenter and a wheelwright. The villagers also had a shop, a carrier (who would take you to Warminster or Salisbury) and two beer retailers. By 1903 very little had changed. The Rt. Rev. H.W. Yeatman-Biggs was in residence at Stockton House and he was able to employ a farm bailiff, a gardener and a gamekeeper. In 1935 the farming trades had gone, but the village shop was still in the Farley family after more than 50 years. A second shop and Post Office had opened and as well as Glebe Farm and Manor Farm, Miss Weston was advertising as a poultry farmer.

Bapton had its own shop, which had opened in the mid-19^th century and there was also a smithy. A Reading Room opened sometime between 1901 and 1910. No doubt there was some interaction between the Stockton and Bapton residents, as Stockton had a pub and Bapton had a Reading Room. In 1910 there were 28 households in Bapton.

Stockton villagers would probably have looked to the neighbouring village of Codford to provide the services that they didn’t have themselves. These would have included access to a doctor (if they could afford it) and a wider range of shops. They may also have joined in some of the social activities; for example, Codford had a Women’s Institute. Stockton did, however, have its own social life, some of which was led by William Yeatman-Biggs, who lived at Long Hall after his father sold the manor in 1921. He was president of the Stockton and Wylye Players, having converted one of his barns into the Barn Theatre. He was also president of the cricket club. This information came from the Yeatman-Biggs archive held here at the History Centre. It is a treasure trove of written history, paintings and photographs started by the Rev. Thomas Miles in 1847 and continued by William Yeatman-Biggs until his death in 1952. It gives a unique insight into village buildings in the mid-19^th century, moving on to more modern newspaper cuttings and photographs.

In 1951 the population of Stockton was 268. Some of the residents would have been employed on the farms, but many would have travelled to Warminster to work. From 1951 through to 2001 the population dropped steadily, as more people moved out of the village to find work and affordable housing. A colour photograph published in Country Life magazine in 1951 showed the main street on a summer’s day and all the houses were thatched. Stockton is still a very attractive village today. I will conclude with a description by W.H. Hudson in ‘A Shepherd’s Life’ (published in 1910). Stockton was one of five small villages between Wylye and Sutton Veny described by him as ‘of the old, quiet, now almost obsolete type of village, so unobtrusive as to affect the mind soothingly, like the sight of trees and flowery banks and grazing cattle’.