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Explore Broughton Gifford

Broughton Gifford, in the Hundred of Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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Situated on the southern edge of the village, St Mary’s Church has a west tower in 15th century perpendicular style, while the body is 13th century Early English gothic with an arcade on the north of the nave. A south chapel was added c1300 and next to it the perpendicular style south porch, which originally had an upper storey.

Read more about the church

North from the church and old nucleus, the village continues along a long winding street towards the Common. At the junction with Mill Lane is Broughton Gifford Manor House which is all steep gables and mullioned windows, is dated 1622 and was built for Sir John Horton. It became divided into two, but was restored by a Mr Schmidt around 1909. In the early 20th century it was a home of the playwright Clifford Bax (1886-1962), brother of the composer Arnold Bax. The poet Edward Thomas (1878-1917) was a visitor here in 1912.

The Fox & Hounds public house started as a row of three 17th century houses of rubble stone with mullioned windows, under a roof of stone tiles. After a period of closure, it re-opened abbreviated as The Fox. Another closure came in 2016; its name changed again in mid 2017 to The Rusty Stag, a restaurant rather than pub, but closed again at the end of the same year. After being empty for five years, it opened again in October 2022, back under its original name.

The Methodist Chapel was built in 1907 of coursed squared rock-faced stone blocks with ashlar used on the buttresses and lancet-style windows, replacing a smaller building down the road that became a Reading Room and is now a house. The architect was Arthur E.A. Bush, Melksham Surveyor & Sanitary Inspector.

The former General Store shop, run by H. Moody in 1963, was at 10 The Street, now called the Old Shop, which is all built of stone on the northern side and of bright red brick on the southern. The Post Office was further to the north and was run by Mrs V.L. Gerrish in the 1960s. Both are closed now.

St Mary’s School was built in 1853 with a grant from the Anglican National Schools Society, on the site of a charity school that had been set up by 1782 with money given by Francis and Betty Paradice (she has a monument dated 1786 in the church). The left side, with datestone, is the original National School building; it was extended in 1872, 1893, 1974 and again in 2016. The grounds were extended into the field at the rear in 1959.

Hollybrook House is a Georgian house of three bays and three floors, with two-storey single bays on each side. It is all faced in ashlar; only the left side wing, a 19th century addition to match the other side, has a stone-tiled roof. The façade to the street is actually a late-Georgian refronting of an earlier 18th century house. Both the house and the wrought iron railings and gate are listed.

Broughton Gifford Common is a triangular area of former waste -low value land- that is surrounded by what was originally an unhealthy squatter settlement, but now quite desirable. Read more about the Common

The Bell on the Common public house seems to have begun as a short rank of houses, but part at least had become the Bell by 1782.

The neat building in the form of a cube with pyramidal slate-covered roof next to the Bell was built as a Particular Baptist Chapel in 1806. Its graveyard contains a large number of members of the local Mortimer and Gerrish families.

At the far end of the Common is Gifford House, a five-bay house of two storeys and attic under a hipped roof covered with stone tiles. Its windows are surrounded by bolection-mouldings, typical of a building dating from about 1700. It was built for William Harding.

The Packhorse Bridge over the River Avon at Monkton, Broughton Gifford is just wide enough for laden animals to cross. It was built in about 1725 to provide a connection with Whaddon, replacing a derelict wooden bridge.

Monkton House preserves remains of a 15th century building that is likely to have been the local offshoot of Monkton Farleigh Priory. After the dissolution of the Priory it passed into the hands of the Thynne and Long families. It was added to in the 16th and 17th centuries, with further alterations at later dates. SME Conservation Ltd did a thorough examination of the house after it had changed hands in 2015, before restoration and modernisation.

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Just to the west of Monkton House is a well-preserved Second World War pillbox, one of a line that was built across the country in 1940 against an enemy invasion. There are others nearby.