Hillmarton, Wiltshire
Historical Description
Hillmarton, a village and a parish in Wiltshire. The village stands 3 miles NNE of Calne station on the G.W.R., and 7 SW by W of Wootton Bassett, and has a post office under Calne; money order and telegraph office, Calne. The parish includes also the hamlets of Catcomb, Beversbrook, Goatacre, and Cleveancy. Acreage, 5311; population of the civil parish, 810; of the ecclesiastical, 701. The manor belongs to the Poynder family. Brick clay occurs, and building stone is quarried. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £260. Patron, the Crown. The church is Later English, and has been restored. It contains an old chained Bible, with wooden binding. There are Congregational and Primitive Methodist chapels, also a reading-room. Five almshouses were erected and endowed by the late William Poynder in 1877.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Wiltshire | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Hillmarton St. Lawrence | |
| Hundred | Kingsbridge | |
| Poor Law union | Calne |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register dates from the year 1645.
Churches
Church of England
St. Lawrence (parish church)
The church of St. Lawrence is an edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, north aisle, south porch, organ chamber, and an embattled western tower, with four pinnacles, and containing 6 bells, rehung and retuned in 1885, when a chiming apparatus was added, and again since; the nave is separated from the aisle by columns of the Early English order, and the chancel is entered from the aisle through an opening of unusual character in the buttress of the chancel arch; and a stone screen separates the chancel from the nave: the windows are mostly Perpendicular; the east window is a memorial to W. H. Poynder esq. and there are others to Mrs. Elizabeth Goddard, wife of the Rev. Canon Goddard, the Rev. Francis Fisher, a former vicar, and to Isabella Poynder: the monuments include some to the Calley and Quinton families; to Thomas Poynder esq. who partly restored the church in 1840; Thomas H. A. Poynder esq. his son, and Mrs. M. A. Poynder: the old chained bible, with its wooden binding, was well restored by the Rev. F. Fisher; the original chain is still attached, and it has been replaced by the chancel arch: the tower was partly rebuilt in 1840, and in 1880-81 the church was restored, under the direction of the late Mr. G. E. Street R.A. the eminent architect, at the cost of the late William H. Poynder esq.: it was re-opened on the 24th February, 1881, and has 250 sittings.
Baptist
Baptist Chapel
Congregational
Congregational Chapel, Goatacre
Primitive Methodist Chapel, Goatacre
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Hillmarton from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Hillmarton (St. Lawrence))
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Wiltshire papers online: