North Bradley, Wiltshire
Historical Description
Bradley, North, a tithing and a parish in Wilts. The tithing lies on an affluent of the river Avon, 2 miles S of Trowbridge station on the G.W.R., and has a post office under Trowbridge, which is the money order office; telegraph iiifice, West Ashton. The parish includes also the tithing of Southwick. Area of the parish, 1768 acres; population of the civil parish, 809; of the ecclesiastical, 1560. The living is a vicarage, with Southwick, in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £160. Patron, Winchester College. The church was built in the 14th century, in the Transition period. Additions were made about 80 years later, including a N chapel erected by Archbishop Stafford for his mother's tomb (died 1446). The church was restored in 1863. Road-Hill vicarage is a separate charge. There is a Baptist chapel. An asylum for poor, founded by Archdeacon Daubeny, and a school have endowments; another asylum by the same founder is unendowed.
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 | North Bradley St. Nicholas | |
| Hundred | Whorwelsdown | |
| Poor Law union | Westbury and Whorwelsdown |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1641.
Findmypast, in association with the Wiltshire Record Office, have the following parish records online for North Bradley:
| Baptisms | Banns | Marriages | Burials |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1603-1917 | 1754-1802 | 1621-1888 | 1621-1948 |
Churches
Church of England
Mission Church
The iron mission church at BROKERSWOOD, erected in 1905, has seating for 80 persons.
St Nicholas (parish church)
The church of St. Nicholas is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave of six bays, transepts, aisles, south porch and an embattled western tower, containing 6 bells, rehung in 1894, at a cost of £200: the east and west windows and two others are stained, and there are monuments to Elizabeth, 2nd wife of Sir Humphrey Stafford, d. 1446, and mother of John Stafford, Bishop of Bath and Wells, 1425-43, and Archbishop of Canterbury, 1443-52, and a mural monument to John Trenchard, a political writer (d. 17 Dec. 1723), and several to the Long family, including Henry Long, 1727, Ellen Long, 1752, and Wm. Long, 1773: the church was restored about 1803 at a cost of nearly £2,000, and affords 278 sittings.
Baptist
Baptist Chapel
The Baptist chapel, built in 1775, and enlarged in 1803 and 1831, will hold 500.
Baptist Chapel, Yarnbrook
The Baptist chapel, built in 1874, has seating for 110 persons.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for North Bradley from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Bradley, North (St. Nicholas))
Maps
Online maps of North Bradley are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Wiltshire papers online: