Product Code Database
Sutton Veny is a village and civil parish in the River Wylye, to the southeast of the town of Warminster in Wiltshire, England; the village is about from Warminster town centre. 'Sutton' means 'south farmstead' in relation to Norton Bavant, one mile () to the north. 'Veny' may be a French family name or may describe the village's situation. In 2011 the parish had a population of 734.
The parish is bounded in the northeast by the Wylye, and in the east includes part of the village of Tytherington. In 1885 when the small parish of Pertwood was extinguished, its northern section was transferred to Sutton Veny.
To the west of the village, by the Longbridge Deverill road, is the site of a henge which survives as an earthwork, 80m in diameter. It was noted by Sir Richard Colt Hoare and sketched by William Cunnington.
Robin Hood's Bower, in the middle of Southleigh wood, is an earthwork enclosure of uncertain date and purpose. Several Iron Age enclosures have been found on Cow Down, southwest of Sutton Veny village, including a D-shape bank and ditch, where partial excavation found evidence of a circular wooden hut.
By 1294 there were two townships: Great Sutton around St Leonard's church, and Little Sutton to the west, towards Tytherington. From the 14th century to the 19th there was another hamlet called Newnham, northwest of the church.
Later landowners included the Baron Hungerford family (from the 14th century) and Sir Stephen Fox (1680s), who sold the manors in lots.
The Great Western Railway opened their Salisbury branch line across the northeast of the parish in 1856, and station was nearby. That station closed in 1955 but the line and station remain open.
The church, which is built in Frome stone, was paid for by members of the Everett family in memory of Joseph Everett (d. 1865), who had built Sutton Veny House. The six bells were transferred from St Leonard's church; three are from the late 17th century and two from the 18th. The church was recorded as Grade I listed in 1986.
In the churchyard is a Portland stone war memorial in the shape of a cross, erected in 1920 with the names of 15 local servicemen who died during World War I; seven names were added after World War II. There is also an Australian War Graves cemetery, where 127 men of the Australian Military Forces were buried during the First World War, most dying in local hospitals of disease or from wounds. Among the graves is the burial place of Matron Jean Walker, the only Tasmanian nurse to die on active duty during that war; she succumbed to the flu pandemic in October 1918. "The Late Matron Walker" Sydney Morning Herald (11 January 1919): 17. via Trove
After it was replaced by St John's church in 1868 the chancel was used for a time as a mortuary chapel, while the nave was partly dismantled and fell into ruin. It was declared redundant church in 1970 and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.
Greenhill House (now Sutton Veny House) was built in 1856 on the site of an earlier house, for Joseph Everett of Heytesbury. Standing in parkland and with formal gardens, the two-storey Regency-style ashlar house has a seven-window front, with a domed projection and Tuscan columns, and more columns form a verandah at the right side. Interior features such as the stairs, round-arched openings, panelling and fireplaces are in the style of the 17th and early 18th centuries. Lodges of similar date at the north and south entrances to the grounds have distyle in antis porticos. Renamed Sutton Veny House around the 1920s, since the 1980s it has been used as a nursing home.
Everett also built, in Tudor style, Greenhill Farm and a range of farm buildings and estate houses next to it along the Norton Bavant road.
A hutted army hospital opened in the parish in 1916, with beds for 11 officers and 1,261 soldiers. After the armistice in November 1918, the 1st Australian General Hospital was transferred from France to Sutton Veny. Greenhill House was used by the YMCA as a headquarters and recreation centre. A railway line was built by the War Department from to the military camp; it was closed soon after the end of the war.
An internment camp for German prisoners of war was at Cooper's Bottom, north of Greenhill House, from 1916. A record made in February 1918 lists 131 civilian internees at Sutton Veny, engaged in work for the Royal Engineers.
A camp with brick huts was built to the west of the village, on both sides of the Longbridge Deverill road, just over the parish boundary. A 1958 map shows unlabelled groupings of small buildings. On modern maps the north side has reverted to farmland, but on the south most of the internal roads and some of the small buildings remain, and the area is a light industrial estate.
The village is represented in parliament by Andrew Murrison and in Wiltshire Council by Fleur de Rhé-Philipe, both Conservatives.
The village hall is next to the school. The village has a public house, the Woolpack.
The home ground of the Heytesbury and Sutton Veny Cricket Club is in Sutton Veny.
|
|
