Heywood, Wiltshire

For most of its history, Heywood formed part of the parish and hundred of Westbury. From the 13th century the manor of Heywood was an estate of Stanley Abbey. It was acquired by Sir Edward Bayntun in 1537; later landowners included the Long family and the Earls of Marlborough.

In 1848 the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway was built through the parish, passing between Heywood and Dursley, to link the Swindon-Bath line (near Chippenham) with Westbury via Trowbridge. This line remains open.

The civil parish of Heywood was created in 1896 from the northern section of Westbury parish; part of Heywood was transferred back to Westbury in 1909.{{Cite web |title=Heywood |url=https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/unit/10404897 |access-date=16 September 2022 |website=A Vision of Britain through Time |publisher=University of Portsmouth}}{{cite web|website=British History Online|title=Victoria County History – Wiltshire – Vol 8 pp 139–148 – Westbury: Introduction|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol8/pp139-148|publisher=University of London|access-date=12 December 2015}}

{{Main|Brook Hall}}

Brook Hall, in the west of Heywood parish near the Biss Brook, is a c. 1600 farmhouse which incorporates a Grade I listed wing of a 15th-century manor house.{{National Heritage List for England|num=1285019|desc=Early Wing at Brook Hall|access-date=15 December 2020}}

James Ley (Member of Parliament for Westbury, and later Lord High Treasurer and Earl of Marlborough), and his brother Matthew (also MP for Westbury) acquired land at Heywood in the early 17th century, and James built a house there.{{Cite web|title=LEY, Matthew (c.1545-1636), of Westbury and Teffont Evias, Wilts.|url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/ley-matthew-1545-1636|access-date=2020-12-13|website=History of Parliament Online}} His grandson James, 3rd Earl pursued a naval career and sold most of his Wiltshire property, including the house, soon after he came into his inheritance in 1638.{{Cite book |url=https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol8/pp148-163 |title=A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 8 |date=1965 |publisher=University of London |series=Victoria County History |pages=148–163 |chapter=Westbury: Manors |access-date=16 September 2022 |via=British History Online}}

In 1700 the house was bought by Thomas Phipps (c. 1648 – 1715), who came from a family of Westbury cloth merchants and had made money in London by trading with the East Indies and New England.{{Cite web |last=Hayton |first=D. W. |title=PHIPPS, Thomas (?1648-1715), of Clerkenwell, Mdx. and Heywood Place, nr. Westbury, Wilts. |url=http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690-1715/member/phipps-thomas-1648-1715 |access-date=16 September 2022 |website=History of Parliament Online}} His son William Phipps, a former Governor of Bombay, died at the house in 1748. Later in the century the house came into the Ludlow family, and in 1837 Henry Gaisford Gibbs Ludlow had the present Heywood House built on the same site, east of the present A350.{{National Heritage List for England|num=1284971|desc=Heywood House, Heywood Park|access-date=12 December 2015}}

On Henry's death in 1876 the house passed to Henry Charles Lopes, of the Lopes family who owned Westbury manor. Henry Lopes was created Baron Ludlow in 1897; the title became extinct in 1922 on the death of his son, also Henry Lopes. Since then the house had several owners and for a time housed the headquarters of the National Trust; in 1987 it was designated as Grade II* listed. The house is now multi-tenanted offices.{{cite web|title=Businesses encouraged to relocate to Heywood House|url=http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/12941406.Businesses_encouraged_to_relocate_to_Heywood_House/|website=Wiltshire Times|date=10 May 2015|first=Tanya|last=Yilmaz|access-date=12 December 2015}}

From 1935 until 1974, Heywood was part of the Warminster and Westbury Rural District, which was abolished by the Local Government Act 1972, when it joined the new West Wiltshire district.[http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/relationships.jsp?u_id=10073996 unit history of WARMINSTER AND WESTBURY] at visionofbritain.org.uk, accessed 26 March 2012 Since the abolition of West Wiltshire as a district in 2009, all significant local government functions have been carried out by the new Wiltshire Council unitary authority.

Heywood falls within the South West Wiltshire parliamentary constituency, which has been represented since 2001 by Andrew Murrison (Conservative).

A small Congregational church was built at Hawkeridge in 1844.{{cite web|website=British History Online|title=Victoria County History – Wiltshire – Vol 8 pp181-185 – Westbury: Protestant nonconformity|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol8/pp181-185|publisher=University of London|access-date=12 December 2015}} As of 2015 the church remains in use.{{cite web|title=Hawkeridge|url=http://www.congregational.org.uk/find-a-church/church-finder/172/hawkeridge|publisher=The Congregational Federation|access-date=12 December 2015}}

The Church of England parish church of the Holy Trinity was built in 1849 and served a new ecclesiastical parish which was formed from the northern part of the parish of Westbury.{{cite web|website=British History Online|title=Victoria County History – Wiltshire – Vol 8 pp176-181 – Westbury: Churches|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol8/pp176-181|publisher=University of London|access-date=12 December 2015}}{{London Gazette

| issue = 20996

| date = 6 July 1849

| pages = 2156-2157

}} The building is in the 13th-century style; Pevsner describes the east window of 1876 as "especially horrible".{{cite book |last1=Pevsner |first1=Nikolaus |author-link1=Nikolaus Pevsner |last2=Cherry |first2=Bridget (revision) |year=1975 |orig-year=1963 |title=Wiltshire |series=The Buildings of England |edition=2nd |place=Harmondsworth |publisher=Penguin Books |isbn=0-14-0710-26-4 |page=268}} The church closed in 1981{{cite web|website=Wiltshire Community History|title=Holy Trinity Church, Heywood|url=https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/Church/Details/1166|publisher=Wiltshire Council|access-date=12 December 2015}} and was converted for residential use.

There is a pub at Hawkeridge, the Royal Oak.

The village primary school was closed in 1971.{{cite web|website=Wiltshire Community History|title=Heywood Voluntary Controlled School|url=https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/School/Details/1232|publisher=Wiltshire Council|access-date=12 December 2015}} It had been built in 1836 at the expense of Henry G.G. Ludlow and educated children of all ages until 1930.{{cite web|website=British History Online|title=Victoria County History – Wiltshire – Vol 8 pp188-191 – Westbury: Schools|url=http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol8/pp188-191|publisher=University of London|access-date=12 December 2015}}

The Eaves Learning Centre, just over the north boundary of the parish near Dursley, is a small independent school for children with special needs aged 8 to 19, run by Witherslack Group.{{Cite web |title=The Eaves Learning Centre |url=https://get-information-schools.service.gov.uk/Establishments/Establishment/Details/148176 |access-date=15 September 2022 |website=GOV.UK: Schools}}{{Cite web |last= |first= |date= |title=The Eaves |url=https://www.witherslackgroup.co.uk/our-locations/integrated-therapeutic-provision-learning-centre/the-eaves-learning-centre/ |access-date=15 September 2022 |website=Witherslack Group}}

John Barnard Bush, Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire 2004 to 2012,London Gazette dated 9 December 2004, [http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/57490/notices/1001/ Notice: 1001 (Issue: 57490)]: "The QUEEN has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 10 November 2004 to appoint John Barnard Bush, Esquire, OBE, to be Lord-Lieutenant of and in the County of Wiltshire." farmed at Heywood.

{{Reflist|30em}}

• W. H. Hamilton Rogers, The Strife of the Roses & Days of the Tudors in the West (Exeter: 1890): [http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/s/21806-the-strife-of-the-roses-and-days-of-the-tudors-in on-line text] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181006100828/http://www.freefictionbooks.org/books/s/21806-the-strife-of-the-roses-and-days-of-the-tudors-in |date=6 October 2018 }}

• [https://apps.wiltshire.gov.uk/communityhistory/Community/Index/116 Wiltshire Community History: Heywood]
• [https://www.heywoodparishcouncil.co.uk/ Heywood Parish Council]

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{{South West Wiltshire}}

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Category:Civil parishes in Wiltshire

Category:Villages in Wiltshire