The Woolfonts (villages), Wiltshire

The Woolfonts: Magna, Crucis, Abbas, Parva

Sponsored by the *Beechbourne Herald & Courier*

**The Woolfonts,** consisting of the villages of Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis, and Woolfont Abbas (on some old maps labelled as ‘Woolfont Ducis’), and the hamlet of Woolfont Parva, is a collective term for these settlements and the country ’round, in South West Wiltshire near to the County border with Dorset.

## **Geography**

The area lies on the River Wolfbourne and its tributaries (notably the Spring Rill and the Dapple Brook), which river flows into the River Nadder below Wolminster and Wolchester, opposite Staple Woolton. All four settlements are within the civil parish of The Woolfonts, and are part of the same Wiltshire Authority ward (Teddy Gates, LD, councillor).

They lie to the Eastwards of Wolf Down, the Wolfdown White Horse, and Grimsbarrow, well to the West of which is Sutton Whitfield; Westwards of Sharpington, Sutton Littlecombe, Wilton, and Salisbury; South-Eastwards of Pebbury; Southwards of Chickmarsh and the Here Way; South-Westwards of Beechbourne, the Woolheads, Belbourne S Peter, and Belbourne S Paul; North-Eastwards of the Downlands of The Somerfords (Somerford Mally, Somerford Canons alias Canonicorum, Somerford Tout Saints, Lamsford, Cliff Ambries, Shifford Ombres, and Combe Woddley alias Waddlycombe) and the Harstbournes (Chalford Mallet, Harstbourne Fitzwarren, Harstbourne Sallis, and Harstbourne Fratrum alias Friars) and the Shrunken Mediaeval Village of Hawksbourne, beyond which are: Wodewough Wood, Wadpool, Wades Barrow, Grimmelsmere, Freeford, Rethebury Rings; the Vale and its villages, including Semelford Malet, Stoke Yarncombe with Yarncombe Mitton, and Wadhay; and the road to Gillingham and Shaftesbury; Northwards of Tenter Down, Tenterdown, Thanesmill, Woolmill, Tuckmill, Fullen Mulliner, Coytmoor Wood, and Pencotmore; and North-Westwards of Honey Combe, the Wolbournes (Wolbourne Mallet, Wolbourne Gravell, Wolbourne Harfleet, Wolbourne Chalke, and Wolbourne Chantreys), Wolminster, Wolchester, Staple Woolton, and Tisbury.

The area is primarily sheep country, now as formerly. It lies within an area Westwards of the intersection of two Roman Roads, of which the Southern, running South-West to North-East, is an extension of the Portway.

## **History**

The Woolfonts were anciently held by a cadet branch of the House of Wessex, into which family, after the Conquest, the Malets married. Owing to the broken nature of the ground and the spring level, which had made settlement possible, communications between the villages and the hamlet of Woolfont Parva, and between these and even the nearby market towns, were often difficult or impossible in flood, spate, or snow; in consequence, the three villages were separate manors, but held, with the surrounding countryside for many miles in all directions, by the Malets as lords; and the whole of the Malet holdings, still almost all in the possession of their descendants the Dukes of Taunton, were treated as a single economic unit.

The surrounding sheepwalks were always kept as pastoral, not arable, and put ‘in farm’ by the Malets to the Abbey at Wolfdown, of which the abbot was almost invariably a Malet scion. The oldest of the villages, at least in ecclesiastical terms, is Woolfont Crucis, so named for the preaching cross set up there by S Aldhelm in about 676. The saint seems swiftly to have learnt what later ecclesiastics and secular lords learnt, that for part of each year there was ‘no thoroughfare’ between the villages. Consequently, Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis, and Woolfont Abbas early became separate ecclesiastical parishes. The present ‘wool churches’ of the 14th - 15th Centuries remain in use at Magna and Crucis: S Margaret of Antioch and S Aldhelm. In Abbas, the parish church is that formerly used as a joint abbatial and parish church, SS Mary and Leonard, and is one of the treasures of its period. It is a member of the Greater Churches Network.

#### **Economic history**

The villages, Magna in particular, were a transshipment point in the years of the wool trade, to which the sheep were driven by shepherd-drovers to be sheared, the staplers then packing the fleeces on shallow-draught barges for transport down the Wolfbourne to Wolminster, Wolchester, and Staple Woolton, at the Wolfbourne / Nadder confluence, whence they were taken in stages to the River Avon and thus to seaports and on to Calais.

#### **Early modern history and after**

The Dissolution was managed in a notably cosy fashion between the then abbot, a Malet, and the secular lord, a Malet; and no major changes to the manorial economy resulted, the countryside remaining largely devoted to wool. The milling of textiles later became a significant part of the economy of the villages’ hinterland, including, at a very early date, the throwing of silk. By the time such activities were increasingly unprofitable, the Dukes of Taunton had long succeeded their ancestress Frances Malet (Lady Holles), mistress of James II when yet Duke of York in exile during the Interregnum; and, not being reliant on the local economy, they chose to preserve the area as it were ‘in amber’.

Pope, in his lines *Upon the R. [Wolfbourne] above Hawksbourne,* written about 1720, wrote of the hinterland,

> Sheep safely graze where once the Wolf did prowl;
>
>
>
> And, in the quiet
> night, none save the Owl
>
> Now hunts the Groves that border on thy Brooks,
>
> And no alarums fright th’ nesting Rooks.
>
> Thy Verdure and thy Bowers now do lie
>
> All placid ’neath the Stars that Heav’n pie,
>
>
>
>
> Thou Nymph, *Voliba*!
>
>

But, being Pope, could

not resist a caustic tone in his conclusion:

>
>
>
>
> …thy Ways to keep
>
> Amidst the fleecy pasturage of Sheep,
>
> And
> far from Town, sweet Peace attend thy Crown,
>
>
>
>
> And as a breachless Wall keep thou thy Down.
>
>

His view of the proprietor, the contemporary Duke of Taunton, was acid, as his *Lines on a Noble Duke Suspect of Iacobitism,* a year after, attest:

> … Who nourishes the Poor with fatten’d *Mutton*
>
>

> From *P-bb-ry* to *S-mm-r F-rd* to *S-tt-n,*
>
>

> Yet London starves of Loyal, Publick *Duty*.
>
>

> He finds his *Grace* in other modes of *Beauty:*
>
>

> A *Whore,* a *Bottle,* Crown’d and Exil’d *Scots,*
>
>

> His *Cousins* and his *Kindred* – and all *Sots*.
>
>

Dr Johnson, a generation after, had equally disapproved. In his *Impromptu Upon the Duke of Taunton,* he wrote,

> At Taunton-House amidst the Pomp
>
>

> Of *London* seems he half-asleep
>
>

> Who’s wide-awake at Wolf-Down-House
>
>

> Amidst his less confiding Sheep;
>
>

and, writing to Boswell, he complained,

> ***Sir,*** a Nobleman *ought* to make a publick shew of his Nobility: it pleases the commoner People with a due Entertainment, and makes some Recompense of the expence of supporting Nobility. But, sir, the Duke makes a shew only of himself, and not his Dignity, and that meanly. Those entrusted with publick Duty in the Senate of Empire ought to support a Character more expansive than that of a West-Country squire whose mind is all a-fleece.
>
>

It was left to Pevsner, to Alec Clifton-Taylor (a friend of the current duke’s mother, Frances (née Daubeny), Duchess of Taunton), and to Sir John Betjeman, godfather to the present Duke of Taunton, to rejoice that the long stasis of the 18th – 20th Centuries had stopped further development in the area and preserved the architecture, previously derided as ‘chocolate-box’, which is nowadays the reason for most of The Woolfonts’ and the surrounding district being scheduled at least as Grade II\*.

## **Antiquities**

Effectively all of the land in the villages and the countryside adjacent, and the buildings, is scheduled. Roman and pre-Roman antiquities include the earthworks called, inaccurately, Claudius’ Camp, Westwards of Crucis and between Magna and Abbas, which are Iron Age fortifications possibly briefly refortified in the Roman and Sub-Roman periods. Abbey Wood and Canon’s Coppice form a remnant of ancient woodland, on the verge of which Claudius’ Camp is sited; the wood includes an mediæval assart, Abbot’s Glebe. The former Abbey outside Woolfont Abbas is now a National Trust property, although its church is not, being now the parish church of Abbas, and most of its lands came into the Malets’ demesne at the Dissolution and are part of the extensive Wolfdown House holdings.

By the 14th Century, the Malets, in a show of confidence bordering, according to the current Duke, on arrogance, had dismantled previous fortifications in the area, including one at the Wool Ford, and reused the materials in their own domestic buildings. Wolfdown House itself, a Grade I building, continued to expand and evolve into the last of the Stuart period and not since; the Dower House (Grade I) preserves a Yorkist Age exterior, unchanged, and an unchanged Jacobean interior.

Davill Court (Grade II\*), the seat of the Douty baronets, is a Tudor construction with a Caroline extension.

Woolfont Crucis, as the geographic centre-point of The Woolfonts, contains a number of community foundations, notably the Jacobean almshouse.

The churches of Magna and Crucis are wool churches, unchanged since the 14th Century; such restorations and repair and repointing as have been necessary have always been done (successive Dukes of Taunton being the lay rectors in charge of the fabric) in the old style, including by Thomas Sumsion in the Georgian period. They, and Abbas church, have notably escaped the vandalism of Victorian ‘restoration’.

## **Religious Sites**

There are parish churches of the Church of England in Magna, Crucis, and Abbas, and a Church of England chapel in Wolfdown House. The Woolfonts are within the geographically extensive bounds of the Roman Catholic parish of Our Lady and S Edith of Wilton, Beechbourne, of which the incumbent is Mgr Timothy Folan. The Woolfonts are within a joint United Area Association of the Methodist and United Reform Churches, although there is now no chapel in the villages; the Local Preacher, Patricia Mullen, is afforded facilities in the community buildings and Anglican parish hall at Crucis.

There are no Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, or Hindu places of worship in the villages. However, with the recent creation of the Agincourt Estate, adjoining the Wolfdown House purlieus, as social housing for retired Gurkhas and their families, the Duke has donated a temple on the estate at which Hindu (and Buddhist) worship may be held.

## **Governance**

The Woolfonts Civil Parish has a parish council. Almost all governmental functions are the responsibility of the Wiltshire Unitary Authority.

## **Politics**

Although ward councillor Teddy Gates is a Liberal Democrat, elected owing to his personal popularity, the villages and the Civil Parish are overwhelmingly Conservative.

His Grace the Duke of Taunton serves as Chairman of the Woolfonts, Beechbourne & Chickmarsh Conservative Association, despite his fury at the refusal of CCHQ to allow an Oxford comma after *Beechbourne.*

## **Demographics**

The population is by ethnicity almost entirely White British. Most identify as Church of England, followed by Dissenting (Methodist / URC almost entirely) and Roman Catholic populations; and churchgoing remains remarkably strong in the villages and countryside. The Church of England parishes are very much and have always been High Church (understandably, as the area was a Cavalier stronghold and the Dukes are an illegitimate branch of the House of Stewart), and are under Alternative Episcopal Oversight, using the 1662 *Book of Common Prayer.*

There are two Jews, two Sikhs, and (when TH the Nawab and Begum of Hubli are in residence) nine Muslims in the villages; the creation of the Agincourt Estate has brought in some sixty Nepali and British Nepali residents, all of them followers of Nepali Hinduism (syncretic in the main with Nepali Buddhism).

In the last census, fewer than 11 per cent. of the respondents indicated no religious preference.

## **Transport**

### **Road**

No A roads run through the villages. The Sarum Road (the Old Turnpike) passes through Magna, as a B road; C roads radiate thenceto Crucis and to Parva. There is a B road to Abbas, the Wolfdown Road, and B roads from Magna to Chickmarsh and Beechbourne.

There was formerly river traffic on the Wolfbourne, in a small way, barging fleeces to Wolminster and Wolchester for lading upon barges on the Nadder to Wilton and Salisbury. This had ceased by the 17th Century.

### **Bus**

A flexible community-operated bus service, Woollybus, runs in the District, with connecting services to Wilts & Dorset and to Stagecoach South.

### **Railways**

    The W&CR nowadays carries most of the commuting and goods traffic required. A projected late 18th and early 19th Century canal, for which an Act was secured, never eventuated and was hardly begun prior to the railway revolution; in the past two years, however, the project has been resurrected, as a community leisure amenity, and surveys are ongoing.

The Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway now runs from Gillingham Peacemarsh, whence it connects at Gillingham to the West of England Main Line, through the Vale, the Downlands, and The Woolfonts, to Sharpingham and thence to its connexion, at Warminster, with the Wessex Main Line.

## **Commerce**

Although none of the villages was ever chartered as a market town, they were, and Woolfont Magna specially was, prosperous by reason of being distribution centres for wool for the Staple, and at the head of navigation upon the River Wolfbourne, which connected with the River Nadder and thence to the Salisbury Avon.

Although there is some arable land under plough and long has been, The Woolfonts were always wool towns, and were able to trade their superior fleeces, and, later, textiles, for most of their needs, from staple foodstuffs and drink to luxuries.

    Today, their hinterland remains primarily agricultural; and the villages traffic in its produce, profiting also from a good deal of heritage tourism. The Woolford House Hotel, a multiply-award-winning gastropub, hotel, and inn, just over the Wool Ford from the bounds of Wolfdown House, is run by the ‘Celebrated Hipsta Chef’ and television cookery personality, Teddy Gates, who is also the local councillor; an award-winning, community-owned real ale brewery, the Woolfont Brewery, brewing real ales and real cider, is in Woolfont Parva; and the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway, likewise community-owned, operates both as a heritage steam railway and, through microfranchising and subsequent connexions to the national network, as a profitable night-time goods line.

The villages are served by several shops-cum-sub-post-offices, and by a greengrocer’s (Penny’s), butcher’s (Mullins, Quality Family Butchers), fishmonger’s (Whatley), and fruiterer’s (Bungay & Sons) in Magna. Magna also has a famous sweetshop, Hart’s. Market Day in Beechbourne, and Chickmarsh Market, however, remain important.

The Kellow family run the Blue Boar in Magna and the restored Woolpack in Crucis, both being free houses and listed in the CAMRA pub guide.

There is no mass manufacturing in the villages; but bespoke lacemaking and bespoke smithing are both notably carried on The Woolfonts.

The Woolbury Stud, owned by the Hon. Gwen Maguire (née Evans), daughter of the trainer and life peer The Baron Evans of Aintree and Pont-y-Clun, and her husband Brian Maguire OBE, the Irish-born former England wicketkeeper and *TMS* commentator, is just to the West-North-Westwards of Woolfont Magna. The local veterinarian is the equine specialist Sir Giles Trulock KBE FRCVS, the second husband of the Duke’s widowed former sister-in-law.

## **Media and communication**

The Duke of Taunton secured high-speed rural broadband for the area some years ago. The telephone exchange is located just outside Magna, on the road to the Woolbury Stud, opposite the Scout Hut. Each of the villages, and Parva, possesses a sub-post-office.

### **Media**

BBC Wiltshire is the BBC Local Radio public service station for the whole county. Regional television services are provided by BBC South and ITV Meridian. A licence for local television is being sought, and an Independent Local Radio station is under consideration.

The local newspaper serving the District is the Beechbourne *Herald & Courier.*

## **Culture**

The Woolfonts possess a Silver Band and an Amateur Dramatic Society. Owing to the residence of several celebrated persons, including Sher Mirza, Brian Maguire, Teddy Gates, Edmond Huskisson, Canon Noel Paddick, Dr Tim Campion (organist and choir director), Dame Edith Rice (the celebrated actress), the late Sir Bennett Salmon, Dame Antonia Freemantle-Ridgeway (the noted sculptress and art potter), and the Duke and Duchess of Taunton, the villages also have a notable gallery of art; a concert series; the Woolfont Consort; a theatre festival; a lecture series; and other amenities. The combined choirs of the Combined Benefice have been featured on the BBC’s *Choral Evensong;* and several charity appeal CDs and concerts have been produced and given by ‘The Fonts’, a mostly Northern Soul group composed of Canon Paddick, Mr Mirza, Cllr Gates, Mr Huskisson, Mr Maguire, and the Duke as *basso profondissimo**.***

        District-wide amenities centred upon the Woolfonts include the Woolfonts Literary Group, a sort of superior book club and creative writing circle; a lace-making group; and the Woolfonts Literary History Society, a scholarly gathering.

## **Climate**

The Woolfonts experience an oceanic climate (Köppen climate classification Cfb) similar to almost all of the United Kingdom. The area is amongst the sunniest of Inland areas in the UK, averaging over 1600 hours of sunshine in a typical year. Temperature extremes since 1960 have ranged from −12.4 °C (9.7 °F) in January 1963 to 34.5 °C (94.1 °F) during July 2006. The lowest temperature to be recorded in recent years was −10.1 °C (13.8 °F) during December 2010.

## **Education**

There is a C of E Voluntary Aided school in Magna. Pupils go on from there to Beechbourne Free School, as a rule, or in some cases to Bishop Wordsworth’s in Salisbury.

## **Notable people**

The Woolfonts have been home to a surprising number of notable people for their size. These include:

* S Aldhelm, founder of the parishes
* The Revd Canon Noel Paddick SSC, rector, author, theologian
* Edred *Cild,* thegn, scion of the House of Wessex
* Cynric Atheling, Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Baldred, Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Cwichelm *Comes,* Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Ingild *Cild,* Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Ælfwine *Deorling,* Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Æthelwulf *Atheling,* Saxon nobleman of the House of Wessex
* Eadgyth, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex, monastic foundress
* Æthelgifu, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex, monastic patroness
* Gilbert Malet of Étretat, first feudal baron of Wolfdown, nephew of William Malet (d 1071), lord of Graville, companion of William the Bastard of Normandy at Hastings
* Ælffæd, daughter of Edred *Cild,* wife to Gilbert Malet of Étretat, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex, monastic foundress
* Ælfthryth, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex, monastic patroness
* Ælfgifu, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex
* Wynflæd, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex by marriage, patroness of S Aldhelm
* Wulfthryth, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessex by marriage, abbatial foundress
* Cwenburh, Saxon noblewoman of the House of Wessexby marriage
* Sir Geoffrey Malet, secured charters for Beechbourne and Chickmarsh as market towns
* Frances (Malet), Lady Holles, mistress of James II and mother of the 1st Duke of Taunton
* Denzil, 7th Duke of Taunton, Acting Governor of Malta
* Charles, 11thDuke of Taunton
* Millicent, Duchess of Taunton
* Brian Maguire CBE, Irish-born England cricketer
* The Hon. Gwen (Mrs Brian) Maguire, breeder and trainer, the Woolbury Stud
* Sher Mirza CBE, teacher, composer, English and Music master, the Beechbourne Free School
* Jeremy Trulock MA, headmaster, the Beechbourne Free School
* Dame Edith Rice (née Eiluned Jones) DBE, actress, Drama mistress, the Beechbourne Free School, theatre historian
* Sir Giles Trulock FRCVS, equine specialist
* Constance, the Hon. Lady Trulock, formerly Lady Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, dog breeder
* Sir Thomas Douty Bt, retired City merchant, late Alderman of the City of London for the Ward of Farringdon Without
* Sir Bennett Salmon KBE RA, artist
* Lewis David d’Avigdor Salmon OBE, City merchant, late Alderman of the City of London for Vintry Ward, nephew to Sir Bennett Salmon, philanthropist
* Melanie (Mrs Lew) Salmon, philanthropist
* Teddy Gates OBE JP MW, celebrity chef and local councillor
* Edmond Huskisson OBE JP, activist, former Premier League footballer (Leeds Utd; Manchester City)
* Dame Antonia Freemantle-Ridgeway DBE, sculptor and artist-potter
* Mr M Alam Javed Khan Mirza MBE, father of Sher Mirza, Executive, the Agincourt Housing Trust
* Emily (Mrs Alam) Mirza
* HH the Nawab of Hubli, cricketer, uncle to Sher Mirza, brother-in-law to Alam Mirza
* HH the Begum of Hubli, aunt to Sher Mirza, sister to Alam Mirza, philanthropist

## **Sport**

The Woolbury Stud is a major provider of bloodstock for Flat and National Hunt racing alike.

The Duke of Taunton’s Hunt continues to operate within the restrictions of current legislation.

Despite the best efforts of Edmund Huskisson OBE, football in the villages remains casual. The great local obsession is cricket; and the Woolfonts Combined CC dominates the West of England Premier League in cricket – not surprisingly, as it can call upon the Duke of Taunton, an OUCC Blue and MCC member; former England wicketkeeper Brian ‘The Breener’ Maguire CBE; and, when in residence, the Duke’s fellow Oxford cricketing Blue the Nawab of Hubli; as well as, in the Long Vac., the Duke’s nephew and heir, currently a member of the OUCC Blues 1st XI, Rupert, Master of Dilton.

There are regular runs around an ancient barrow, often at night-time, called by the Duke and the Headmaster and required of those wishing to play for the 1st XI as well as of pupils at the Beechbourne Free School who wish to participate in organised sport.

## **In popular culture**

Pope, Johnson, Gray, Wordsworth, and Coleridge all passed through The Woolfonts and wrote of them or, more often, of their economic hinterland (*see* article on the Downlands); Addison, as MP for Malmesbury in the county, put up at Wolfdown, in Abbas, and notably wrote to Steele, from there,

A *Politick* Nobleman, in yis *Rurality*, muſt leave some Things be; it is ye *Art* of *Wiſdom* to know, Which are yeſe Things?

Alec Clifton-Taylor, Betjeman, and Pevsner have celebrated their architecture; WG Hoskins was planning, shortly before his death, a book and television series on the area.

John Aubrey and Hermann, *Fürst von Pückler-Muskau,* in his *Tour of a German Prince,* also visited and wrote of The Woolfonts.

The late Royal Academician, Sir Bennett Salmon, retired to the area in his later years to paint the villages and their adjacent landscapes, and, living longer than he had anticipated, left behind a very considerable body of work, of which several canvasses are in the National Gallery and in Tate Britain. Dame Antonia Freemantle-Ridgeway, the art potter and sculptor, who resides just outside Magna, has based much of her work upon the views as well.

More recently, the villages have been regularly in the news, owing to the activities of its celebrated and indeed celebrity residents: the activism of Edmond Huskisson; the cookery of Chef Gates; the creative and scholarly accomplishments of Sher Mirza; the work of their Rector, Canon Noel Paddick SSC, and his curates; and of course the conservation and restoration projects, scholarship, and political activities of TG the Duke and Duchess of Taunton and their friends Sir Thomas Douty Bt, Mr and Mrs Lew Salmon, and TH the Nawab and Begum of Hubli. An online fandom has grown up centred upon the Woolfonts and their notable residents.

Several recent musical compositions by Sher Mirza have likewise been admittedly inspired by the villages and their setting.

Both Kipling and Conan Doyle stopped at Wolfdown, and local legends acquired there contributed to *Puck of Pook’s Hill* and *The Hound of the Baskervilles.*

## **See also**

* Duke of Taunton
* Nawab of Hubli
* Malet family
* Wolfdown House
* Davill Court
* Douty baronets
* Sir Bennett Salmon RA
* Antonia Freemantle-Ridgeway DBE
* The Woolbury Stud
* Wodewough Wood
* Wodewough Man
* The Great Vale Dig (archæological project)
* SS Mary and Leonard (parish church), Woolfont Abbas
* S Margaret of Antioch (parish church), Woolfont Magna
* S Aldhelm (parish church), Woolfont Crucis
* The Woolfont Brewery
* The Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway
* Woollybus
* Grade I buildings in Wiltshire
* Grade II buildings in Wiltshire
* Grade II\* buildings in Wiltshire
* The Woolfonts Combined Cricket Club