Wingfield, Wiltshire

Wingfield is mentioned in a charter of 954.[2] Domesday Book in 1086 recorded a settlement named Winefel in Bradford hundred with 12 households and a mill, on land held by Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances.[3] From at least the early 13th century until the Dissolution, Wingfield manor was linked to Keynsham Abbey. Thereafter the manor was granted to Thomas Bayley, whose heirs held it until 1647;[2] the Wiltshire Victoria County History has an account of later owners.[2]

The name "Winkfield" or "Winkfield with Rowley" was used in the 19th century.[4] The Imperial Gazetteer in the 1870s has "Wingfield, or Winkfield, a parish, with Rowley tything".[5] In 1934 the civil parish gained 532 acres on the abolition of Bradford Without parish, and a further 62 acres were transferred from Trowbridge.[4]

Church Farm

Stowford Manor, a late 15th-century farmhouse with a three-gable front, is also Grade II* listed.[7] Church Farmhouse, just north of the church, has 16th-century origins and was occupied continuously by the Baily family from the 17th century, according to the 1962 listed building record.[8] The farmyard has a 17th-century cowshed.[9] Midway Manor, a house in the north of the parish towards Bradford on Avon, was in the late 18th century the home of Henry Shrapnel, inventor of the Shrapnel shell.[10]

Parish church

St Mary's church

The Church of England parish church of St Mary, on the eastern edge of the village, is mostly in dressed limestone; it has a 15th-century tower with a stair-turret, a nave rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries and a chancel rebuilt in 1861.[11][12] The church was designated as Grade II* listed in 1962.[11]

Parish registers from 1654 are held in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Chippenham.[12] Today the church is part of the benefice of Bradford on Avon Holy Trinity, Westwood and Wingfield.[13]

A National School was built in the village in 1852 and educated children of all ages until 1926.[2][14] It became a Church of England school, and since 2009 has been a satellite of The Mead Community Primary School at Hilperton.[15][16]

The village has a pub, the Poplars Inn.

Wingfield is part of the Winsley and Westwood ward of Wiltshire Council, a unitary authority. This is represented by John Kidney (Conservative) who has held the position since May 2017.[17] Wingfield has a parish council with five members.[18][19]

Edward William Grinfield (1785–1864, biblical scholar) and Thomas De Quincey (1785–1859, writer) were educated at a private school at Wingfield, run by the rector.[2]

Media related to Wingfield, Wiltshire at Wikimedia Commons

• Wingfield on Genuki