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Explore South Wraxall
South Wraxall, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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South Wraxall is village to the north of Bradford on Avon and formerly a part of the large parish of Bradford. It is divided into the Upper Village which is grouped around the church and pub and the Lower Village to the south. Almost separate to the north is the Manor House.
The church of St James in Upper South Wraxall has a tower dating from the beginning of the 14th century, with a saddle back roof and big stair turret. Much of the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1832 and 1882, but the south porch and adjacent chapel are in 15th century perpendicular style. The chapel contains monuments to members of the Long family.
South Wraxall Manor House was started by the Long family in the 15th century as an open hall house, with additions they made in the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.
The largest building in Lower South Wraxall is South Wraxall House, a three-bay late Georgian house under a mansard roof covered with Welsh slates. The door is under a porch that has columns in corinthian style.
Upper Village
Much of the Longs Arms public house opposite the church is 17th century, but has a two-storey 19th century canted bay in the middle. It was already the Longs’ Arms in 1841. Read more about the Longs Arms
Court Farm House is a big late 17th century house of rubble stone under a hipped stone-tiled roof with five bays of cross-mullion and transom windows on the front (and two on the return sides, one blocked) and doorway surrounded by a bolection moulding. At the rear is a 19th century addition. It was formerly Church Farm, where Charles and Sarah Burbidge farmed 255 acres in 1851, employing 12 people.
The National School, next to the churchyard, was built in 1841 for £179 on land belonging to John Wiltshire for Rev Henry Harvey, Vicar of Bradford on Avon. It is in a late perpendicular style, made of ashlar stone and a stone-tiled roof. The school closed in 1972 and the building has now become the Village Hall.
Near the Manor House is the medieval chapel of St Tewen or St Owen, names which are probably corruptions of St Audoen. It seems to have been built in the 14th century and is attached to Manor Farmhouse. In 1577 it was said to have formerly belonged to Monkton Farleigh Priory. It may be that the chapel was of the otherwise lost manor of Barley (or Barlegh, Berlegh).
Lower Village
Home Farm has a late 17th century house of five bays, built from rubble stone with a stone tile roof. The continuous moulding across the front rises above the door to provide small windows to light the entrance corridor.
Also in Lower Wraxall is Mison’s Farm, a large 16th and 17th century house with a doorway dated 1576. In the paddock behind is a round building under a conical stone-tiled roof, which was a dovecote or pigeon house.
South Wraxall & District Working Men’s Club occupies what may have been a short rank of three cottages on a footpath by the brook in Lower Wraxall. It was founded in the 1890s as a Liberal Club, changing in 1925.
South Wraxall Institute Reading Room was opened in 1866, as recorded over the entrance, which is the only piece of the building to remain after demolition of it and the adjoining Park Cottage. The site is being redeveloped, despite being in the Green Belt, as a large six-bedroom modern house with indoor archery range. The £1.8m year-long project was due for completion in March 2019