Stert is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of Parish (administrative division), administrative parish used for Local government in England, local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below district ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershir ...

, England. Its nearest town is

Devizes Devizes is a market town and civil parish in Wiltshire, England. It developed around Devizes Castle, an 11th-century Norman castle, and received a charter in 1141. The castle was besieged during the Anarchy, a 12th-century civil war between St ...

, about away to the northwest. The village is south of the

A342 The A342 is an A road in England that runs from Pewsham near Chippenham, Wiltshire to Andover, Hampshire. Route The road begins at the A4 junction just outside the small village of Pewsham, to the east of Chippenham. It heads south past ...

Devizes-

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia *Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * And ...

road. The Wayside Monument (previously known as The Long Monument) stands at the roadside, just over the border in Etchilhampton parish. It was erected in 1771 and dedicated to James Long of Wedhampton, who had promoted the diversion of the road to a more southerly route, avoiding Etchilhampton Hill.

History

Stert was recorded as having 22 households in the 1086 Domesday Book. In 1393

William of Wykeham William of Wykeham (; 1320 or 1324 – 27 September 1404) was Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England. He founded New College, Oxford, and New College School in 1379, and founded Winchester College in 1382. He was also the clerk of w ...

, Bishop of Winchester, conveyed the manor to

New College, Oxford New College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as its feeder school, New College is one of the oldest colleges at ...

who retained ownership until the middle of the 20th century. The Manor Farmhouse, next to the church, is from the 17th century and late 18th. A school was built in the village in 1842 and attended by children of all ages. The school closed in 1927 after a decline in the local population. The

Wessex Ridgeway The Wessex Ridgeway is a long-distance footpath in southwest England. It runs from Marlborough in Wiltshire to Lyme Regis in Dorset, via the northern edge of Salisbury Plain and across Cranborne Chase AONB. The footpath was opened in 1994 ...

, the long-distance National Trail from Marlborough to

Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a town in west Dorset, England, west of Dorchester and east of Exeter. Sometimes dubbed the "Pearl of Dorset", it lies by the English Channel at the Dorset–Devon border. It has noted fossils in cliffs and beaches on the Heri ...

, passes through the Eastern edge of the village.

Religious sites

A chapel at Stert is first mentioned c. 1232 and it has always been a

chapelry A chapelry was a subdivision of an ecclesiastical parish in England and parts of Lowland Scotland up to the mid 19th century. Status It had a similar status to a township but was so named as it had a chapel of ease (chapel) which was the com ...

Urchfont Urchfont is a rural village and civil parish in the southwest of the Vale of Pewsey and north of Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, about southeast of the market town of Devizes. The hamlet of Cuckoo's Corner is in the northwest of the vil ...

parish. The church of St James stands on the highest ground in the parish. In 1846, to increase its capacity it was largely rebuilt by J.H. Hakewill, retaining the

Perpendicular In elementary geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at a right angle (90 degrees or π/2 radians). The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the ''perpendicular symbol'', ⟂. It can ...

north aisle. A

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

chapel was built in the village c. 1869 and sold to the Devizes Baptists in 1887. The chapel closed in 1957 and passed into residential use.

Railways

The

Berks and Hants Extension Railway Berks may refer to: Places * Berkshire, England * Berks, Nebraska, United States * Berks County, Pennsylvania, United States Other uses * Berks (TV series), ''Berks'' (TV series), Filipino television series * Berks station, a SEPTA station in Ph ...

was built through the parish, passing close to the north of Stert village, for the GWR in 1862. This provided a route from

Hungerford Hungerford is a historic market town and civil parish in Berkshire, England, west of Newbury, east of Marlborough, northeast of Salisbury and 60 miles (97 km) west of London. The Kennet and Avon Canal passes through the town alongside t ...

via Pewsey to Devizes, where trains continued westward on the 1857 line. In 1900 the GWR built the

Stert and Westbury Railway The Stert and Westbury Railway was opened by the Great Western Railway Company in 1900 in Wiltshire, England. It shortened the distance between London Paddington station and , and since 1906 has also formed part of the Reading to Taunton line f ...

, which diverged from the earlier line near Patney, east of Stert parish, and later formed part of the parish's southern boundary. This line avoided the hill at Devizes to make a direct route to and southwest England; in 1906 it became part of the

Reading to Taunton Line Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of letters, symbols, etc., especially by sight or touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process involving such areas as word recognition, orthography (spelling) ...

. The line through Devizes closed in 1966 and was dismantled, while the 1900 line is still in use.

References

External links

*
Stert Parish
at genuki.org.uk {{authority control Villages in Wiltshire Civil parishes in Wiltshire