Midway Manor is a

country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...

and farm in Wingfield parish, about south of

Bradford on Avon Bradford-on-Avon (sometimes Bradford on Avon) is a town and civil parish in west Wiltshire, England, near the border with Somerset. The town's canal, historic buildings, shops, pubs and restaurants make it popular with tourists. The parish had ...

in Wiltshire, England. The house is approximately midway between Bradford on Avon and Wingfield, on the B3109 road. It was originally an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The Roman symbol of Britannia (a female per ...

Manor Farm flanked by two large stone barns. In about 1723, the Midway estate was the property of the Shrapnel family who were prosperous cloth merchants from Bradford on Avon. Lieutenant-General

Henry Shrapnel Lieutenant-General Henry Scrope Shrapnel (3 June 1761 – 13 March 1842) was a British Army officer whose name has entered the English language as the inventor of the shrapnel shell. Biography Henry Shrapnel was born at Midway Manor in Bradfo ...

(1761–1842), inventor of the

Shrapnel shell Shrapnel shells were anti-personnel artillery munitions that carried many individual bullets close to a target area and then ejected them to allow them to continue along the shell's trajectory and strike targets individually. They relied almost ...

, was born at Midway Manor which remained with the Shrapnel family until 1871. The house had stone cannonballs mounted in various places on the front façade, and a carving of the Shrapnel shell exploding with the Latin inscription ''Ratio Ultima Regum'' ("the Last Argument of Kings"), a phrase

Louis XIV LouisXIV (Louis-Dieudonné; 5 September 16381 September 1715), also known as Louis the Great () or the Sun King (), was King of France from 1643 until his death in 1715. His verified reign of 72 years and 110 days is the List of longest-reign ...

of France had cast on the cannons of his armies. This carving is now immediately outside the Manor's entrance gates. On the back of the gate piers, the names of some of the battles that were won with the aid of the Shrapnel shell are engraved. These include the battles of

Waterloo Waterloo most commonly refers to: * Battle of Waterloo, 1815 battle where Napoleon's French army was defeated by Anglo-allied and Prussian forces * Waterloo, Belgium Waterloo may also refer to: Other places Australia * Waterloo, New South Wale ...

, Talavera, the Kyber Pass,

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

, San Sebastian,

Bidassoa __NOTOC__ The Bidasoa (; ; , ) is a river in the Basque Country of northern Spain and southern France that runs largely south to north. Named as such downstream of the village of Oronoz-Mugairi (municipality of Baztan) in the province of Navar ...

, Bella Formosa, Tsage, Abyssinia, Monte Video,

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, Ghuzznee (Ghazni), Bussaco,

Table Bay Table Bay (Afrikaans: ''Tafelbaai'') is a natural bay on the Atlantic Ocean overlooked by Cape Town and is at the northern end of the Cape Peninsula, which stretches south to the Cape of Good Hope. It was named because it is dominated by the fl ...

, Kioze as well as the

Crimean Crimea ( ) is a peninsula in Eastern Europe, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, almost entirely surrounded by the Black Sea and the smaller Sea of Azov. The Isthmus of Perekop connects the peninsula to Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukrai ...

and Burmese wars. On top of each gate pier are four of the original spherical case shots. The late-19th century gate piers are

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

since 1988. In 1892, the manor became the property of Henry Baynton who removed the front façade, necessitating an almost complete rebuilding of the houseMidway Manor Wingfield, Nr Trowbridge, Wiltshire
at shrapnel.org.uk. with stone provided from the barns which were then demolished.

References

{{Reflist Country houses in Wiltshire