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Northleigh House

Bradford Leigh, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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The southern façade of Northleigh House in the early part of the 20th century, the earliest parts on the left and Victorian extension on the right.

Northleigh House was a large mansion which stood in the north-west quadrant of the crossroads at Bradford Leigh, opposite Leigh Park House. On a plan of 1826 the land was marked as the property of “Bush Esqr”. The 1841 Tithe Map gives George Bush as the owner and it was occupied by Cornelius Lewis (1757-1842), who was a grazier and butcher. The map shows a rectangular house with outbuildings there.

The house had been greatly extended by January 1870 when Thomas Spenser became the subject of the inspectors of the Commissions & Inquisitions of Lunacy. The word covered many conditions then and perhaps he had alzheimer’s. His wife, Fanny Alice, was recorded there in the 1871 Census, but in 1878 a Mrs Hopkins “of Northleigh House” gave a chalice to Broughton Gifford church. She was Pamela, wife of Charles Hopkins, a farmer of 100 acres of land and she was still there until 1886 when the house and Home Farm were put up for sale by auction. It was the home of members of the Lopes family in the 1910s: George Ludlow Lopes (he died there in 1909) and his wife Georgina Emma (she died in 1912); their son Rev John Ludlow Lopes (1882-1961) was there in 1908. Captain (later Major) Robert Chaloner Critchley Long (1858-1938) was living there in 1915 when Kelly’s directory described it as standing in 40 acres. Then, in the 1920s there was Robert Kennard (1857-1929), who was Deputy Lieutenant of Wiltshire and a Justice of the Peace. After Kennard’s death a valuation of the furniture, silver, pictures and effects was carried out, perhaps for sale or probate, but the house was still vacant in 1931.

In about 1940, like many other big houses, it was requisitioned by the government and it was used to house families that had been displaced from London in World War 2. After the war it was divided into seven homes by Bradford Urban District Council, but in about 1953 it was demolished and the grounds were sold and developed as a small estate of bungalows from 1955. The walled garden and some buildings around it became Northleigh Nursery (plants) for a while.

Two gate-lodge houses, one on the Bradford to Corsham road and the other on the Frankleigh to Woolley road, still survive, as do the walls of the former walled garden.