The parish of Langley Burrell is located on the (Bristol) Avon river north of Chippenham. It encompasses the village of Langley Burrell and the adjacent hamlets of Kellaways (formerly Tytherton Kellaways) and Peckingell. The village is synonymous with the Victorian diarist Francis Kilvert, whose descriptions of the landscape, people and community life in the 1870s bring it vividly to life. The parish is also notable for its connection with Maud Heath’s Causeway. This pathway starts at the top of Wick Hill near Bremhill and continues through Kellaways to Langley Burrell and onward to Chippenham. The causeway owes its existence to the benevolence of a Kellaway’s woman, Maud Heath, who in 1474 placed property in the hands of a trust to provide for its creation. The Trust is still in existence today.
Human settlement is evidenced in the parish from the Mesolithic (mid-Stone Age) period. A Bronze Age barrow (now ploughed over) has been identified south of Bird’s Marsh and west of Barrow Farm. The best indication of Roman occupation in the parish also lies in this area, where evaluation trenches, geophysical and LiDAR surveys have revealed a probable native Romano-British farmstead south of the woodland. This includes a settlement with enclosure, drainage ditches, and a possible roundhouse. The nearby barrow is likely one mentioned in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 854, which also references an adjacent spring. The term used in the charter implies that this was a Romanised spring associated with a Romano-British building. An intriguing mystery is the imperfect stone ellipse or enclosure next to Kilvert’s Parsonage that is currently undated. It may have been a pagan shrine or a hut circle. Elsewhere in the parish, there is evidence of occupation during the Iron Age east of Kellaways, in the form of an enclosure settlement likely dating from 400-100 BC.
Some documentary evidence gathered in 2021-2, and archaeological investigations which are still [Jan 2023] ongoing, suggest the possibility of an additional small medieval settlement, called Barwe, within the parish at Barrow Farm which included a moated house. A second moated house was also discovered in documentary sources for Kellaways. Although lying near the river and road, its precise location has not been found. It may have been the original manor house of Kellaways.
The name Langley refers to a long clearing or wood. The word Burrell distinguishes Langley Burrell from Kington Langley. It derives from the family who owned the manor of Langley Burrell between the eleventh and the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century. The origin of Tytherton is subject to conjecture but may derive from the Old English verb tydrian ‘to propagate’ and -tun ‘farm, village’ a possible reference to the agricultural fertility of the three adjoining settlements, Tytherton Kellaways, Tytherton Lucas and East Tytherton. Kellaways, like Burrell, refers to the family in whose possession the estate was held. It gives its name to a geological clay formation, which is prominent here but outcrops across England from Dorset to Yorkshire.
By 1304 the manor of Langley Burrell had passed into the hands of Sir John Delamare. Delamare was responsible for the construction of the tower of Langley Burrell church and was subsequently buried to the south of the building beside his wife. Around 1343 Delamare sold the manor to Thomas, Lord Berkeley. Berkeley’s daughter Joan married Sir Reynold de Cobham in whose family the estate remained for over a century. On the death of Thomas Cobham, 5th Lord Cobham of Sterborough in 1471, it passed through the marriage of his daughter, Anne, to Edward de Burgh, 2nd Baron Borough of Gainsborough. Burgh’s heir was his son Thomas, 3rd Baron Borough, who was followed by Thomas, the 4th baron and William, 5th baron. In 1569, William sold the manor of Langley Burrell to John Reade. Later, in 1592/3, a clothier, Henry White, purchased it from Edward Reade for £2,300. By 1642, it was in the possession of White’s grandson, also called Henry. After a public scandal surrounding his wife’s affair with the Langley Burrell church minister, Henry leased the estate in 1652, to John Wildman of the Middle Temple, London. Wildman was a noted land-speculator (and conspirator, among his schemes he had planned to assassinate Oliver Cromwell). In 1654 Wildman bought the estate then described as containing 30 houses, 2 dovehouses, 30 gardens, 30 orchards, and land that included 50 acres of woodland and 200 acres of gorse and heath. In 1657, he sold it to Samuel Ashe of the Inner Temple London in whose family the estate remained. His descendant, Robert Ashe, built Langley House 1766-9.
1592/3, a clothier, Henry White, purchased it from Edward Reade for £2,300. By 1642, it was in the possession of White’s grandson, also called Henry. After a public scandal surrounding his wife’s affair with the Langley Burrell church minister, Henry leased the estate in 1652, to John Wildman of the Middle Temple, London. Wildman was a noted land-speculator (and conspirator, among his schemes he had planned to assassinate Oliver Cromwell). In 1654 Wildman bought the estate then described as containing 30 houses, 2 dovehouses, 30 gardens, 30 orchards, and land that included 50 acres of woodland and 200 acres of gorse and heath. In 1657, he sold it to Samuel Ashe of the Inner Temple London in whose family the estate remained. His descendant, Robert Ashe, built Langley House 1766-9.
St Peter’s church is one of the most notable of the parish buildings. The only grade I listed structure in the village it contains elements from before 1200 but was primarily constructed between the mid-thirteenth to the mid-fourteenth century. It has several mysteries. These include the defacing of a monument to Rebekah Norborne (wife of Rev Henry Norborne, rector of Langley Burrell), reportedly by his replacement Thomas Webbe. There is also a Latin inscription in the north wall of the nave whose meaning remains subject to speculation.
The seventeenth century minister of St Peter’s, Thomas Webbe, is possibly the most infamous person to have lived in the parish. Webbe became the self-proclaimed minister of Langley Burrell in the 1640s. His controversial religious teachings rejected the trappings of organised religion and emphasised the importance of personal spiritual experience. However, it was his attitude towards sex and his own sexual conduct, which included a same-sex relationship and an affair with Mary White, wife of the lord of the manor, which brought him to the attention of Parliament and the courts. Adultery and homosexual acts were punishable by death, but Webb avoided serious repercussions and was instead ejected from the living. Just over two hundred years later Robert Kilvert (father of the diarist Francis Kilvert) became rector of the parish, in 1855. Francis was then fifteen years old and away at school. In 1872 Francis became his father’s curate in the village after resigning a curacy in Clyro, Wales. In Langley Burrell and living at what was to become Kilvert’s Parsonage, he continued to write a diary. Long after his premature death in 1879, Francis Kilvert’s diaries were edited, and subsequently, selections were published 1938-40.
One little-known event which could have placed Langley Burrell in the centre of national events was the foiled rebellion of ‘fanatic’ Charles Aland of Langley Burrell. Aland fought in the English Civil War and became disillusioned in peacetime after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. In 1667 Aland tried and failed to initiate an anti-monarchist revolt against Charles II. Conspirators allegedly met on the common at Langley Burrell. Much better known is the ‘murderous affray’ that occurred between the men of Langley (Langley Burrell and Kington Langley) and the men of Chippenham in 1822. According to reports, men of Langley came into Chippenham armed with an assortment of weapons beating all those who crossed their path. The affray ended in a pitched battle between Langley and Chippenham. Two people died following the riot, and over 30 were injured. Twenty people, all from Langley, were arrested. According to one newspaper, the atrocity of the day’s events was ‘nearly unparalleled in English record.’
Farming, particularly dairy, was the mainstay of the economy of Langley Burrell for centuries. However, the early nineteenth century saw the development of Langley Brewery. By the 1860s the business owned the George and Dragon and White Hart public houses in Chippenham while its own ‘tap’ plied a good trade selling beer directly to the public in Langley Burrell. Langley brewery was closed in the early 20th century. The Langley Tap public house remained open in 2023.
The hamlet of Kellaways lies to the east of Langley Burrell, on the east bank of the Avon, along the route of Maud Heath’s Causeway towards Bremhill. It has medieval origins and has been little developed since the construction of St Giles church in the early 1800s. The original church of Kellaways was a chantry chapel until 1450, built as a small private chapel likely by the Kellaways family who owned the manor. Its dedication to St Giles dates from at least 1336. By 1650, the church which was attached to Kellaways mill house had fallen into decay, and by 1805 it was ‘more like a hovel than anything else’. It was subsequently demolished and replaced on the opposite side of the lane in 1805 where it was less subject to flooding. The stone used for the surrounding wall was recycled from the original building.
Around 1500 Kellaways passed to the Long family of Draycot Cerne and South Wraxall, who sold parts of the estate from 1655. The seventeenth-century Kellaways Farm is likely the former manor house. It is listed as grade II* and is the only farmhouse in the parish with this grading.
One little known story about Kellaways concerns the Great Fire of London in 1666. In the aftermath of the blaze a warrant was issued for the arrest of John Woodman, a farmer from Kellaways, after it was alleged he had expressed an intent to set London aflame shortly before. After the warrant was made ‘to apprehend Woodman.. he was gone out of the Country and cannot be heard of since.’ It is not likely Woodman, went very far, however, as he died at home in Kellaways in 1669.
The name Maud Heath is much better known than that of John Woodman from the pathway named after her. However, we know little about Maud herself apart from the details contained in her deed of gift from 1474. This tells us she was the widow of John Heath and from Kellaways. Her gift indicates she owned a significant number of properties and was not the simple pedlar of popular myth.
Tradition suggests Maud was associated with Langley Green House. However, while the origins of the building lie in the fifteenth century (when it was built as a single-storey timber-framed cruck house) no conclusive evidence has been found to link it to Maud Heath. The house is now a listed building, one of a number of historic farmhouses and cottages across the parish, many of which were mentioned in the diaries of Francis Kilvert.
In 1844, Walter Long sold the family’s remaining freehold rights of Kellaways manor and fishing rights for £400 to Rev Robert Ashe, who owned the manor of Langley Burrell. Ashe sold the estate, minus the fishing rights, to Joseph Neeld, Chippenham MP and local benefactor, in 1845 for £300.
Kellaway’s bridge over the (Bristol) Avon is referred to in 1542 and was traditionally maintained by the Maud Heath Trustees. It has been replaced several times, the last in 1961. Historic England lists two structures connected with Maud Heath’s Causeway next to the bridge: the nineteenth-century raised section of the Causeway lying on either side and the Maud Heath Monument dated 1698.
Peckingell, like Kellaways, has a distinctive history. It is first referred to in a tenth-century charter and was part of the manor of Langley Burrell by the thirteenth century. In 1223 the abbot of Glastonbury, who owned Langley Fitzurse purchased 115 a. of rich pasture known as Penicroft (Peckingell) from John Burel. He attached it to his manor and the parish of Kington St Michael. Peckingell remained part of Kington St Michael until 1884 when it re-joined the parish of Langley Burrell.
The first recorded mill in the parish was a fulling mill at Peckingell in 1189. It was owned by Stanley Abbey and is significant as one of the earliest known to have existed in England. Although still operating in the seventeenth century, it was subsequently dismantled. The first mention of a possible mill at Kellaways is in 1249, in a dispute over a dog taken from the mill of Elias de Calewey (whose family owned the manor). However, the current structure dates from the seventeenth century. During the mid-seventeenth century, Kellaways mills were engaged in fulling cloth and grinding grain. The miller was also in possession of a high-status moated house. The mill was in use until the twentieth century.