Barford, Warwickshire

Barford
Church Street and St Peter's Church
Barford Location within Warwickshire
Population	1,336 (2011 Census)
District	Warwick
Shire county	Warwickshire
Region	West Midlands
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Warwick
Postcode district	CV35
Police	Warwickshire
Fire	Warwickshire
Ambulance	West Midlands
UK Parliament	Warwick and Leamington
List of places UK England Warwickshire 52°14′42″N 1°36′18″W / 52.245°N 1.605°W / 52.245; -1.605Coordinates: 52°14′42″N 1°36′18″W / 52.245°N 1.605°W / 52.245; -1.605

Barford is a village and civil parish in the Warwick district of Warwickshire, England, about three miles south of Warwick.

As at the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,171, that increased to 1,336 at the 2011 census.^[1] The Joint Parish Council also runs the villages of Sherbourne and Wasperton. In March 2014 "The Sunday Times" listed the village as one of the Top 10 places to live in The Midlands.^[2] In the village there are two pubs, a hotel with swimming pool, and a village shop owned and run by the community.^[3] The Church of England primary school that is in the village is called "Barford St. Peters".^[4] The University of Warwick Boat Club trains on the River Avon at Barford.

Barford is served by Stagecoach bus routes X18 and 18A which link it with Coventry, Leamington Spa, Warwick and Stratford Upon Avon.^[5] The M40 motorway is just 1.5 miles from the village, with Warwick and Warwick Parkway railway stations just over 4 miles away.

Notable people[]

• Joseph Arch (1826–1919), first president of the National Agricultural Labourers Union and Liberal MP. One of the two pubs in Barford is named after him.
• Annie Butler (4 June 1897 – 28 September 2009), English supercentenarian, who, at the age of 112, was the second-oldest person in the United Kingdom until her death in 2009.
• Wenman Wykeham-Musgrave (1899–1989), a Royal Navy officer who survived being torpedoed on three different ships on the same day in the action of 22 September 1914.
• John Fairfax (24 October 1804 – 16 June 1877), English-born journalist, is notable for the incorporation of the major newspapers of modern-day Australia.
• William Ivens (1878 – 1957), a religious and political figure in Manitoba

In Fiction[]

In C. P. Snow's novel The New Men the story's main location is a fictional early British nuclear experimental establishment based in Barford where the characters try to get an early nuclear pile going and also try to harvest enough enriched uranium or plutonium to try and beat the Americans to the bomb.

As Snow’s science researchers, and science civil servant, characters are, or were, portrayed as Cambridge dons in this book (and the previous book in the series - The Masters) he clearly did want to make the location of the research station the real UK nuclear Centre at Harwell with its close association with Oxford. So instead, as this line from the novel puts it,: “For a site, they picked on a place called Barford –which I had not heard of, but found to be a village in Warwickshire, a few miles from Stratford-upon-Avon”.

Several commentators claim, or suggest, that not only is the research station fictional but so is the village Barford, Warwickshire. However clearly Snow was thinking of the real Barford which is indeed not far from Stratford-upon-Avon. If the “final” version of the research station as described in the last chapter of the book was real its size would certainly have more than dominated the real village of Barford.

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Barford, Warwickshire.

• Barford community website
• Barford cricket club
• Barford in the Domesday Book

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