A tiny hamlet with a big history

Louise Ryland-Epton, just starting work on Christian Malford for Volume 20, writes about one fascinating little corner she has come across.

Avon

The settlement of Avon is tiny: approx. 150 acres and several properties on the banks of the river with the same name, 3 miles north-west of Chippenham. It is, nonetheless, intriguing. In its history, it has been part of a large parish, a miniature pseudo parish in its own right and part of no parish at all, and thereby outside normal arrangements of civil and ecclesiastical control. A legal limbo that may have had some interesting repercussions. This changing status is reflected in the fact the hamlet once had a church or chapel and a rector, whose patron was the lord of the manor of Avon. For at least three centuries until the sixteenth century, these incumbents served their small flock in an edifice dedicated to a yet nameless saint, an edifice which has seemingly disappeared. It will be my absolute pleasure to peel back the layers from this place to see what can be discovered. And, it may yet be even more captivating than a tale of a lost church and a place beyond government. In the seventeenth century John Aubrey observed, ‘they have a tradition here that a Queen lay in here.’ What exactly he meant, he did not elaborate. So this place of apparent insignificance also has a fabled connection to monarchy. Suffice to say, I am now bewitched.