OPC Vacancy
Monkton Farleigh Photo Gallery
Contiguous Parishes (our neighbours)
Bathford (SOM) – Box – Bradford on Avon – South Wraxall – Winsley
Websites of Interest
The Parish Church of St. Peter
The church has a chancel, nave, tower and north porch, and has a stone-tiled roof. The building is Grade 11* listed, with the oldest parts being the 12th century arched north door and the tower, which is generally thought to be 13th Century. The church was extensively rebuilt in 1844 and again in 1874, and there is a single story extension to the south of early 19th century date, now a vestry.
Between 1800 and 1843 the entrance to the church was moved from the south side to the north, and at that time the font was moved to the base of the tower and a framework to house three bells was also built. The font, and the bell ropes, are still to be seen there by visitors today. Original features still to be seen in the interior include two sections of linen-fold panelling (originally from a gallery on the west wall) and the Piscina and Ambry. There are many interesting memorials on the walls, and a carved wooden pulpit which may be Jacobean. There is also a carved memorial on the wall of the church for some of the dead of the two World Wars , and in the porch a wooden-framed and hand-written Roll of Honour which lists the names of eighty four casualties of World War 1. Twelve of the names on the Roll of Honour bear a mark beside them, and these are the names commemorated on the memorial inside the church. The surrounding burial ground holds many interesting and old headstones, but unfortunately many of them are now sadly indecipherable due to weathering
St. Peter’s Gallery St. Peter’s Interior Gallery St. Peter’s Churchyard Gallery
Church and Churchyard Memorials Churchyard Memorial Inscriptions Incumbents List 1842-2005
Church Memorial Plaques
Parish Registers held at WSHC
Baptisms 1570-1881
Marriages 1570-1982
Burials 1597-1949
Parish History
The parish of Monkton Farleigh includes the hamlets of Farleigh Wick, Farleigh Rise and Pinckney Green. These three hamlets between them have less than 30 properties, and the current population of the parish as a whole is circa 500.
The parish of Monkton Farleigh lies at the edge of Wiltshire, four miles north of Bradford On Avon and just over five miles from Bath. It is situated at a height of around 700 feet on the highest and most northwestern extent of a crescent of hilly ground which runs from Bradford on Avon through Monkton Farleigh and on towards Box and Corsham. On both the northern and western sides the land slopes steeply down to the Somerset border. The old London to Bath Roman road runs close by, and in the area there are signs of Bronze and Iron age occupation.
Two possible derivations for the name are given generally, with both agreeing that the ‘Monkton’ part refers to the Priory Monks owning or living there. One version gives the original name as ‘Farnlege’, a Saxon word meaning ferny clearing – whilst the other gives the original as ‘Farlege’ meaning fair meadow.
Monkton Farleigh village is small and formed around the Manor, and is largely agriculturally based, although there has also been an extensive history of stone quarrying and mining of the local Bath limestone. The village of Monkton Farleigh is attractive and historical and there are over thirty listed buildings including the Church, the Manor, the Refectory ruins and the Kings Arms Public House. Within the village are four farms: Home Farm, Hill Farm, Manor Farm and Church Farm, and there are more farms in the immediate vicinity. There is a small village shop/Post Office There is an infrequent bus service linking the village to Bradford on Avon & Trowbridge, and the nearest railway access is either Bradford On Avon or Bath Spa.
Monkton Farleigh is mentioned in the Domesday Book, with two entries. Both entries seem identical in as much as they both record for the year 1086 5 villagers, 3 smallholders and 4 slaves and a taxable value of 5 geld units, with the same amount of ploughlands (4) and 20 acres of pasture and 3 acres of woodlands. The differences appear in the recorded holders of the land. One record simply shows the Lord in 1086 as Alwy, brother of Brictric. The second entry records the Lord in 1066 as Brictmer and the Lord in 1086 as Aelfric of Melksham.
Books on Monkton Farleigh
Our Village, Monkton Farleigh & Farleigh Wick. Published 2012 by Monkton Farleigh Women’s Institute, this book is a beautifully presented facsimile of the original 1956 book and it was produced in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year.
Civil Registration
1837 – April 1936 Bradford Registration District
April 1936 – Present Trowbridge Registration District
Buildings and Land
Land Surveys
Maps
Ordnance Surveyor’s Drawings 1808-1811
Notable Buildings
Monk’s Conduit
The Monk’s Conduit is situated in a field immediately outside the village and is a small 14th Century stone building with a steeply pitched roof, built over a spring and associated with the Cluniac Priory founded in Monkton Farleigh in 1125. It was rebuilt in 1784. The building is Grade 11 listed and a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Public Houses
King’s Arms
The inn is of chiefly 17th and late 19th Century construction, of a U-shaped plan with front courtyard. It is mostly of 2 storeys, with the central gabled porch being of three storeys. There are mullioned windows and stone tiled roofs and it is overall very attractive. The building is reputed to be haunted. It is Grade 11 listed. In April 2013 new owners changed the name of the King’s Arms to be The Muddy Duck.
Crime and Legal Matters
General
Poaching
Transportation
Assault, Robbery and Theft of Livestock 1831
Directories
Education
A Sunday School maintained by voluntary subscription was opened in Monkton Farleigh in 1818. In 1829, the Bishop of Salisbury built a room attached to the church for the use of the Sunday School – all children attending were educated at the expense of their parents. Between 1842 and !863, this room was also used to hold a night school for pupils aged between fourteen and twenty four, who had to pay in advance for each session which they attended.
In 1845 Mr Wade Brown, who was the lessee of the Manor, founded a school for boys and girls which was held in a cottage near Church Farm. This school continued until 1870, when a National School was founded. A new school and a teacher’s house were built in the mid 1880s, and by the early 1900s there were over sixty children enrolled. Ten years later, the school roll had increased to seventy five.
From 1930, children over the age of eleven began attending secondary school in Bradford on Avon (four miles away), and the Monkton Farleigh school became a junior mixed and infants school with around fifty pupils. This number increased in the 1950s after some new building in the parish and with the transfer of the pupils from South Wraxhall school: – the Monkton Farleigh school then being called Monkton Farleigh & South Wraxhall school. In 2006 the school merged again, this time with the Atworth school, and became called The Churchfields school. The school has two bases (one in Atworth and one in Monkton Farleigh) and an enrollment of around a hundred pupils.
Emigration and Migration
Employment and Business
Employment in Monkton Farleigh was historically largely agricultural and farm labouring, with some traditional crafts such as weaving, brewing and blacksmithing. Stone mining and quarrying had existed from possibly as early as the thirteenth century, but grew very quickly from the early 1800s.
Community Services
Health & Pension of P.C. Joseph Mizen 1905
Mining
Mining History of Monkton Farleigh
Miscellaneous Documents
Non Conformity and Other Places of Worship
People and Parish Notables
Census Returns Transcripts
Elections and Polls
Poll of Freeholders 1772 Poll Book 1818 Voters List 1832 Voters Lists Revisions 1843 MP Nominations 2017
Family Notices
Family Notices 1750-1799 Family Notices 1850-1899
General Items
Secrets of Farming Book Subscribers 1863 Residents Mentioned in Kilvert’s Diary 1870-1879
Personal Research Items
Tuck Family Research Marriage Extracts – These items were donated by Ken Tuck and contains entries that may or may not relate to the Tuck family however they have been published as such. Many references to Quaker entries may be found from across the county.
Poor Law, Charity and the Workhouse
Appointments of Poor Law Officers
Election of Poor Law Union Officers 1835 Bradford Union Medical Appointments 1842 Election of Guardians of the Poor March 1842 Election of Guardians of the Poor June 1842
Miscellaneous Items
Bradford Union Registration Districts 1836 Poor Law Union Audit 1849
