Ashton Keynes

Ashton Keynes
The Thames entering the village
Buildings and the Thames along the main road through the village (High Road)
Ashton Keynes Location within Wiltshire
Population	1,400 (in 2011)[1]
OS grid reference	SU046940
Unitary authority	Wiltshire
Ceremonial county	Wiltshire
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SWINDON
Postcode district	SN6
Dialling code	01285
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	North Wiltshire
Website	Parish Council
List of places UK England Wiltshire 51°38′42″N 1°56′06″W / 51.645°N 01.935°W / 51.645; -01.935Coordinates: 51°38′42″N 1°56′06″W / 51.645°N 01.935°W / 51.645; -01.935

Ashton Keynes is a village and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England which borders with Gloucestershire. The village is about 5 miles (8 km) south of Cirencester and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west of Cricklade. At the 2011 census the population of the parish, which includes the hamlet of North End, was 1,400.^[1]

The village lies within the Cotswold Water Park and is the only settlement substantially on both sides of the River Thames, which has many channels here, centred 6.5 miles (10 km) from its source at Thames Head.

History[]

The Horse and Jockey pub (now closed) in 2007

A Romano-British settlement and field system was west of the present-day village, spanning the county boundary; it was investigated in 1971 before it was destroyed by gravel extraction.^[2] In 1086, land at Essitone held by Cranborne Priory (Dorset) was recorded in the Domesday Book within Cricklade hundred.^[3] The land was transferred to the recently founded Tewkesbury Abbey (Gloucestershire) in 1102.^[4]

Ashton Keynes Castle (or Hall's Close) was a 12th-century moated ringwork and bailey, just north of the village.^[5] The manor was held by the de Cahaignes or Keynes family, and this was incorporated into the village name. Land at Leigh, to the southeast, was part of Ashton Keynes manor until 1584 when Leigh became a separate manor.^[4]

Ashton House was built in the 18th century and is Grade II listed.^[6]

In 1851 in the 35 homes in Gosditch were living a tailor, saddler, tallow chandler, stonemason, many glove makers and a cobbler. The Horse and Jockey (now closed) was a "scrumpy house", selling cider made from the apples from the orchards in the village.^{[citation needed]}

Leigh became a separate civil parish in 1884.^[4][7]

The Swindon to Stroud railway, opened in 1841 and today known as the Golden Valley line, passes close to the southwest of Ashton Keynes parish. The station at Minety was renamed Minety and Ashton Keynes in 1905; it closed in 1964 on the withdrawal of stopping services.^[8]

Another railway, the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway opened their extension from Swindon to Cirencester in 1883, passing through South Cerney parish to the northeast of Ashton Keynes; there was a station at South Cerney called Cerney and Ashton Keynes. By 1892 the line, now the Midland and South Western Junction Railway, was completed as far as Cheltenham and thus connected the Midlands with the docks at Southampton. The line closed to passengers in 1961 and the track was taken up.^[9]

Since c.1944, much of the farmland in the parish has been turned over to gravel extraction. After removal of the gravel layer the high water table leads to the workings becoming flooded, and by 2010 the resulting shallow lakes covered more than half the area of the parish.^[4] Since 1967^[4] the lakes in Ashton Keynes and nearby parishes in Wiltshire and Gloucestershire – altogether over 40 square miles (100 km²) – have been designated as the Cotswold Water Park, with areas for nature conservation, recreation and holiday accommodation.^[10]

To take gravel lorries away from the villages, and to provide access to the water park, from 1971 the Spine Road was built across the parish, its east end connecting with the A419 Cirencester-M4 road.^[4]

An area in the southwest of the village, mostly developed in the 20th century, is known as Derry Fields.^[4]

Religious sites[]

Parish church[]

Church of the Holy Cross

The Church of England parish church of the Holy Cross has stood since the late 12th century on a site which is now on the northwest edge of the village. It is built in coursed limestone and has a west tower, nave with narrow aisles, and chancel with north chapel.^[11] Although altered in later centuries, and restored by William Butterfield in 1876–7, the fabric retains early features: the north arcade was built in two phases from the late 12th century to the mid 13th, and the south arcade was built around 1200. The chancel arch has three carved orders; Butterfield made the arch wider and taller but it retains stonework from the late 12th century.^[12]

The north chapel is from the early 13th century. In the 14th the three-stage tower was built, the walls of the aisles were rebuilt and the clerestory was added; the church largely retains its 14th-century appearance.^[4] The north and south porches were added in the 15th century, and the nave roof is from the same century. Some windows were renewed in the 19th century, and Butterfield embellished the east end of the chancel using polychrome brickwork and floor tiles. The building, little altered since then, was designated as Grade I listed in 1955.^[11]

The 12th-century tubular font is decorated with carved leaves and chevrons.^[12] The ring of bells was increased from five to six in 1994,^[4] and includes four cast by Abraham I Rudhall in 1707 and 1713.^[13]

All Saints Church at Leigh, built in the 13th century, was a chapelry of Ashton Keynes. Baptisms and marriages took place at Leigh but there was no right of burial until 1865. Although Leigh became a separate civil parish in 1884, for church purposes the benefice continued as 'Ashton Keynes with Leigh';^[14] in 1978 Leigh was still described as a chapelry.^[15] For a time from 1982 the vicar also served Minety parish.^[16] Today the parish is part of the Upper Thames group, alongside the churches at Leigh and Latton, and centred on St Sampson's, Cricklade.^[17]

Others[]

A Congregational chapel (Bethesda Chapel) was built in 1838 and closed in 1970.^[18] A Primitive Methodist chapel was opened in 1840 and closed in the early 1930s.^[19]

Amenities[]

The local school is Ashton Keynes Church of England School, a voluntary controlled school.^[20] Parts of the school building date back to 1870.^[21]

Ashton Keynes is twinned with the French village of Grandchamps-des-Fontaines. There is a Twinning Association in the village, which organises regular exchange trips and other activities between the village communities.^[22]

Residents in the village have taken on two businesses (both on the High Road) as community businesses when they faced closure. The one remaining pub, the White Hart Inn, is collectively owned and run by several village residents who took on the licence in 2011. In 2012, the White Hart was awarded 'Best Community Pub' for the South West region in the Great British Pub Awards.^[23] The village shop has also been community owned and run since December 2011, housed in a newly built annexe of the village hall.^[24]

Landmarks[]

River Thames[]

Forming many channels through the village and joined by the Swill Brook and smaller tributaries, the Thames at Ashton Keynes has frontage to a large minority of the village's properties.

Ashton Keynes has always suffered from periodic flooding, and the Thames that flows along beside High Road and crosses under Gosditch by the little bridge was prone to washing down to the School and beyond on its near banks. Villagers expected to be flooded every winter, although the water could be controlled and directed to some extent by opening and closing 'hatches' on the river. People talked of keeping their back door and front door open so the water flowed straight through, and of a foot of water standing indoors for weeks. As late as 1924 there were 23 children absent from school in June when flooding in the Derry just south of the Horse and Jockey public house left them marooned in their bedrooms after a night of storms.

Ditches all round the village helped to channel the water, but as these were also used as a place to tip household rubbish and many privies were emptied into them, particularly after the demise of the night soil industry, there was regularly a serious public health problem from rats and water contamination in Gosditch.

SSSIs[]

There are two Sites of Special Scientific Interest in the parish. Pike Corner is an area of unimproved meadow in the floodplain of the Swill Brook.^[25] Upper Waterhay Meadow, in the Thames floodplain, is important for the snakeshead fritillary and is managed by Wiltshire Wildlife Trust as a nature reserve.^[26]

Cotswold Community[]

The Cotswold Community, a site 250 acres (100 ha) in area west of Ashton Keynes towards Somerford Keynes, was a Bruderhof religious community^[27] in the 1930s.^[28] Later it was the site of the Cotswold School, a therapeutic community for children from complex backgrounds, operated by the National Children's Home charity which became Action for Children. The school closed in 2012^[29] and the charity left the site in 2013, leading to a proposal for housing development.^[30]

Notable residents[]

Reginald Dyer, the officer responsible for the Amritsar massacre in 1919, retired to Ashton Keynes and was living in the village at Ashton Fields at the time of his death in 1927.^[31]

References[]

External links[]

Media related to Ashton Keynes at Wikimedia Commons

• "Ashton Keynes". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Retrieved 2 September 2015.
• Village community website
• Ashton Keynes Parish Council
• Ashton Keynes Village Hall