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Explore Bradford on Avon:
Barton Orchard
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Barton Orchard runs from the top of Church Street and from Newtown down to Barton Bridge. It must have been one of the routes that led to the Abbey of Shaftesbury’s grange at Barton Farm.
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The Chantry started life as a house for supporting a chantry priest, whose job was to pray for the soul of Thomas Horton, who died in 1530 and had paid for endowing the post. Horton’s chantry was dissolved by King Edward VI in 1548 and the house was sold off. There is a core from the 16th century, but most of the big mansion that you see today was built in the early 18th century. A cloth factory was built in the grounds. Here lived John Cam Hobhouse (1786-1869), travelling companion of Lord Byron, politician and later Baron Broughton.
Click on the thumbnail pictures for a bigger view.
Opposite the Chantry is a row of four-storey 18th century houses that is designed as a mini-Bath-style row with bays arranged symmetrically around a central door. The top floor may have been used for weaving. These days the houses are split, with separate two-storey homes entered from the back at the top.
Steps to the right and the carriage road lead up to > Newtown.
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Number 3 Barton Orchard is a small clothier’s mansion refronted in the late 18th century. It has a central feature of a triple “venetian” window on the first floor with pilasters carried up to the third floor. These are blind at present, but old photographs show them as functioning windows.
Bradford Museum has the deeds to number 4, with interesting details about rights of way and water supply.
Steps beyond the house lead up to > Newtown and Belcombe Road.
The tall thin summer house on the bend of Barton Orchard belongs to Wellclose House on Belcombe Road, the big house across the paddock. It has only one room with a small fireplace and a low cellar underneath. The windows and door have a type of moulding around them that is known as bolection and was popular in the first couple of decades of the 18th century.
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