Castle Combe, Wiltshire Family History Guide
Castle Combe is an Ancient Parish in the county of Wiltshire.
Parish church: St. Andrew
Parish registers begin:
- Parish registers: 1653
- Bishop’s Transcripts: 1602
Nonconformists include: Baptist and Independent/Congregational.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
CASTLE-COMBE, a village, a parish, and a subdistrict, in Chippenham district, Wilts. The village stands on the Box rivulet, near Akeman-street, 5 miles NNW of Corsham r. station, and 5½ WNW of Chippenham; and has a post-office under Chippenham, and an inn.
It was once a place of some note, and had a weekly market; and it still has a fair, for cattle, sheep, and horses, on 4 May. An ancient market-cross is in it; a number of gable-fronted old houses line its streets; and an old dowry-house and an old manor house stand, the one at the end of its principal street, the other in the near neighbourhood.
A Saxon fort, or even a Roman camp, is supposed to have crowned an adjacent hill; and a great castle of the Dunstanvilles was built there about the year 1200, and dismantled before the close of the 14th century. Both the earlier fort and the later castle, perhaps the former quite as much as the latter, are now represented only by remains of a fosse and rampart. The manor passed from the Dunstanvilles to the Badlesmeres and others; but has belonged, for about 500 years, to the Scropes.
The present mansion occupies a romantic site on the Box, deeply embosomed among steep and wooded slopes. Two notable occupants of the manor were Lord Chancellor Scrope, of the time of Richard II., and William Scrope, author of “Days of Deer Stalking.”
The parish comprises 1,494 acres. Real property, £3,241. Pop., 534. Houses, 122. The property is not much divided. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Gloucestor and Bristol. Value, not reported. Patron, G. P. Scrope, Esq.
The church is early English; consists of nave, chancel, and two aisles, with a square tower; was restored in 1851, at a cost of £3,000; and contains an octagonal font and a cenotaph of the Scropes.
There are chapels for Independents and Baptists.
The subdistrict contains eight parishes. Acres, 14,011. Pop., 3,286. Houses, 701.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848
CASTLE-COMBE (St. Andrew), a parish, in the union and hundred of Chippenham, Chippenham and Calne, and N. divisions of Wilts, 6 miles (N. W. by W.) from Chippenham; containing 600 inhabitants.
The village, which is very considerable, was anciently celebrated for a castle, built in the early part of the thirteenth century, by Walter de Dunstanville, son-in-law of Reginald, Earl of Cornwall, and which was dismantled before the close of the fourteenth; it stood on a hill north of the village, where the remains of its intrenchments are still discernible. A market was obtained by Bartholomew, Lord Badlesmere, which has been discontinued; but the market-cross remains in the centre of the village.
The living is a rectory, valued in the king’s books at 9; patron, William Scroop, Esq. The church appears to be of very ancient date, and consists of a nave, north and south aisles, and a chancel, with a tower at the west end, about eighty feet high, supported by angular buttresses with pinnacles.
Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848
Parish Records
FamilySearch
Maps
Vision of Britain historical maps
Administration
- County: Wiltshire
- Civil Registration District: Chippenham
- Probate Court: Pre-1786 – Court of the Peculiar of Castle Combe, Post-1785 – Court of the Archdeaconry of Wiltshire
- Diocese: Gloucester and Bristol
- Rural Deanery: Pre-1847 – None, Post-1846 – Malmesbury
- Poor Law Union: Chippenham
- Hundred: Chippenham
- Province: Canterbury