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Question

Where exactly was Wolfhall (or Wulfhall) the home of the Seymours at the time Jane became queen of England? Does anything remain of the site and can it be visited? If so, have you a National Grid Reference for it?

Question asked on

04 July 2011

Answer

Wolfhall is in the parish of Burbage, although until a boundary change in 1988 it lay within the parish of Grafton. Its National Grid reference is SU 214618 and it can be found on Landranger sheet 174. It is 3/4m ENE of the centre of Burbage village, on the road towards the Crofton Beam Engines on the Kennet and Avon Canal. According to Pevsner there is a Victorian house, opposite which is a red-brick house with a Tudor wing, with distinctive features. There was also to the south a great barn where the royal wedding festivities were held, but, although this is shown as "remains" on the 1961 6-inch map it is said to have been destroyed by the turn of the twentieth century.

The Department of the Environment Lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest has rather more detail, including the fact that some of its stained glass was reset in Great Bedwyn parish church, and the fact that the present building, for all its Tudor features, is on the site of the Seymour manor house visited by Henry VIII in 1535 and 1539, derelict and abandoned after 1571. The definitive account of Wolfhall and its Seymour connexions was published by Canon Jackson, both in the Wiltshire Archaeological Magazine and as a monograph, as referenced below. Perhaps more accessible is the VCH, vol. 16 for the hundred of Kinwardstone, also referenced below and available on the worldwide web. Both these sources include an artist's impression of the barn where the royal wedding took place.

UK-restricted Google searches on Wolfhall and on "Wolf Hall" give over 1000 hits, mainly to do with the railway and the Kennet and Avon Canal, some booksellers' pages and genealogical material, but also including the Wolfhall pages from Colin Younger's Burbage website, which has a number of useful illustrations.

Bibliography

Crowley, D.A., editor: A history of Wiltshire, vol. 16: Kinwardstone hundred (Oxford University Press for the Institute of Historical Research, 1999), passim, and also at
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/source.asp?pubid=105

Department of the Environment: Lists of buildings of special architectural or historic interest: District of Kennet, vol. 4 ([Wiltshire Library and Museum Service], 1989), [fasc. 1] p. 14

Jackson, J.E.: Wulfhall and the Seymours, with an appendix of original documents discovered at Longleat, reprinted from the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine, vol 15, p. 140 (Devizes: H.F. and E. Bull, 1875)

Ordnance Survey: Newbury and Wantage. Edition D1; Sc. 1:50,000 2nd series (OS, 2005. –Landranger Map 174 ), ref. SU2461

Ordnance Survey: Sheet SU 26 SW. Sc. 1:10,560, 1:10,000 (OS, 1961 and 1984)

Ordnance Survey: Sheet Wiltshire XXXVI. Sc. 1:10,560 (OS, 1888), viewable online at http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapsheet.asp?sheetid=9195&compid=55143

Pevsner, Sir Nikolaus: Wiltshire. 2nd ed., revised by Bridget Cherry (Yale University Press, 2002, reprint of 1975 edition), p. 152.

Younger, Colin: “Wolf Hall” – webpage in his Burbage, Wiltshire website, at http://www.burbage-wiltshire.co.uk/historic/wolfhall.html