Broad Town is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated to Wilts) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It borders Gloucestershire to the north, Oxfordshire to the north-east, Berkshire to the east, Hampshire to the south-east, Dorset to the south, and Somerset to ...

, England, about southeast of

Royal Wootton Bassett Royal Wootton Bassett , formerly Wootton Bassett, is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, with a population of 13,570 at the 2021 Census. In the north of the county, it lies to the west of the town of Swindon and northeast of ...

and southwest of

Swindon Swindon () is a town in Wiltshire, England. At the time of the 2021 Census the population of the built-up area was 183,638, making it the largest settlement in the county. Located at the northeastern edge of the South West England region, Swi ...

. The parish includes the hamlet of Thornhill and the farming hamlet of Cotmarsh. The parish population at the 2021 census was 588. The parish is the site of a chalk horse, believed to have been cut in 1864 and known as the

Broad Town White Horse Broad Town White Horse is a hill figure of a white horse located in the village of Broad Town, Wiltshire, England. One of eight canonical hill figures in Wiltshire depicting a white horse, it is carved into a 45° slope above Little Town Farmhou ...

Archaeology

From 1996, the village and surrounding landscape were the subject of an archaeological project supported by the

University of Bath The University of Bath is a public research university in Bath, England. Bath received its royal charter in 1966 as Bath University of Technology, along with a number of other institutions following the Robbins Report. Like the University ...

Swindon College Swindon College was a further education college in Swindon, England. Its campus was at North Star, just north of the town centre. The college offered HNC/Ds and Foundation Degrees, through to B.A. (Hons) courses and a postgraduate programme. I ...

and QinetiQ Archaeology.

Local government

The civil parish elects a parish council. It is in the area of

Wiltshire Council Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire (district), Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters a ...

unitary authority A unitary authority is a type of local government, local authority in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Unitary authorities are responsible for all local government functions within its area or performing additional functions that elsewhere are ...

, which performs most significant local government functions. The civil parish of Broad Town was created in 1884 by combining parts of

Clyffe Pypard Clyffe Pypard is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish about south of Royal Wootton Bassett in North Wiltshire, England. The parish includes the large Hamlet (place), hamlet of Bushton, Wiltshire, Bushton, the small hamlet of ...

and

Broad Hinton Broad Hinton is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about southwest of Swindon. The parish includes the hamlets of Uffcott and The Weir. History There are several barrows in the parish, notably on Hackpen Hill.Crowley ''et al.' ...

parishes. Until then, Broad Town and Thornhill were tithings of Clyffe Pypard.

Parish church

The

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the Church (building), church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in com ...

, Christ Church was built in 1844–1845 with funding from the Marchioness of Ailesbury (who later provided the estate church, St Katherine's, at

Tottenham House Tottenham House is a large Grade I listed English country house in the parish of Great Bedwyn, Wiltshire, about five miles southeast of the town of Marlborough. It is separated from the town by Savernake Forest, which is part of the Tottenha ...

) and from the local Goddard family. Until the church was built, Broad Town was a

tithing A tithing or tything was a historic English legal, administrative or territorial unit, originally ten hides (and hence, one tenth of a hundred). Tithings later came to be seen as subdivisions of a manor or civil parish. The tithing's leader or ...

; the area served by the new church comprised parts of the ecclesiastical parishes of Clyffe Pypard and

Amenities

The local school, now Broad Town

CofE The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglican tradition, with foundational doctrines being contained in the '' Thirty-nine Articles'' and ''Th ...

( VC) Primary School, was built near the church in 1859 and expanded in 1892. More classrooms were added in the 20th and early 21st centuries. The parish has village hall that is used by a

social club A social club or social organization may be a group of people or the place where they meet, generally formed around a common interest, occupation or activity with in an organizational association known as a Club (organization), club. Exampl ...

. There is an annual Broad Town Village Show, which since 2006 has taken the form of the "Broad Town Big Gig". This event is held at Manor Farm and features both local and national bands playing on a Saturday evening in September.

Notable residents

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

(1902–1983), architectural historian, lived within the parish. *

Geoffrey Grigson Geoffrey Edward Harvey Grigson (2 March 1905 – 25 November 1985) was a British poet, writer, editor, critic, exhibition curator, anthologist and naturalist. In the 1930s he was editor of the influential magazine ''New Verse'', and went on to p ...

(1905–1985), poet and critic, lived at Broad Town Farmhouse from 1945 to 1985. *

Jane Grigson Jane Grigson (born Heather Mabel Jane McIntire; 13 March 1928 – 12 March 1990) was an English cookery writer. In the latter part of the 20th century she was the author of the food column for ''The Observer'' and wrote numerous books about Eu ...

(1928–1990), food writer. *

Lionel Grigson Lionel Grigson (12 February 1942 – 14 June 1994) was an English jazz pianist, cornettist, trumpeter, composer, writer and teacher, who in the 1980s started the jazz course at the Guildhall School of Music. As Simon Purcell wrote in ''The Ind ...

(1942–1994), jazz musician and educator, lived for part of his childhood at Broad Town. *

Sophie Grigson Hester Sophia Frances Grigson (born 19 June 1959) is an English cookery writer and celebrity cook. She has followed the same path and career as her mother, Jane Grigson. Her father was the poet and writer Geoffrey Grigson, and her half-brother ...

(b. 1959), food writer, spent her childhood at Broad Town.

References

External links

Broad Town Parish Council

Broad Town village website

Broad Town Archaeology & History Project

Broad Town
at Wiltshire Community History {{Authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire