Norton Bavant ~ Notes By Bruce Watkin, 1985:
“One of the prettiest spots that my eyes ever beheld,” said Cobbett in 1826, in “country singularly bright and beautiful.”
Of this little village between lush Wylye meadows and downland corn fields, the same can be said today.
The parish is a little more than meets the eye from the valley roads, about two square miles in all, extending over the ridge formed by Middle, Scratchbury and Cotley hills onto Salisbury Plain. It was a little larger in 1884 when it lost two outliers, Butler’s Combe to Warminster and the five-mile-distant Dertford area in Corsley. The village itself is on a narrow gravelly terrace above the river Wylye; the rest is chalk, porous and dry.
Its name tells us much of its history. It was the north “tun” or homestead to which Sutton Veny was the south, while the suffix Bavent/Bavant was the name of 14th century lords of the manor. In 1086 it was held by Alfred of Marlborough, later by the Scudamores and was called Norton Skydmore until after the marriage of Adam de Bavente to the heiress of Peter de Scudamore (died 1293), who had been Lord of both Upton and Norton.
In 1344, following a family dispute, Adam’s grandson Roger granted most of his lands to Edward III, but the King granted these in 1358 to nuns from Dertford Priory (Kent) though with provision for Roger’s widow during her life. From 1361 the nuns held Norton absolutely until the Dissolution of their Priory in 1539. Dertford is now in Corsley parish but was then part of their Norton estate and its name is a corruption of Dartford.
An even longer interest in Norton was held by the Benet/Benett family, better known as masters of Pyt House near Tisbury. A John Benet held land at Norton in the late 14th century. The Benetts were prosperous clothiers here in the 15th century and were already leasing the Manor Farm before the Dissolution. By 1611 they had acquired the freehold and the manorial rights and from then on held most of the land in Norton down to 1947. In the late 17th century William Benett of the Norton branch married the heiress of the Pythouse Benetts and their son Thomas bought back Pythouse itself which had been sold by the family in 1669. From then on the Benetts lost much interest in Norton, though unmarried sisters lived here. They were said to have found Norton Manor House low-lying and damp. By the late 19th century the extensive estates were inherited by a Fane who added the surname of Benett and, on marrying a Stanford heiress, the additional name of Stanford.
Their son John Montagu Fane-Benett-Stanford outlived his children and died in 1947 without direct heir. The long connection of Benetts with Norton (and Pythouse) ended. A large part of the estate north of the railway had been bought by the War Office as part of their Imber training area in 1930. The rest was sold after Stanford’s death, the main part including Norton manor going to Sir Kenneth Nicholson and then to his son-in-law Sir John Jardine-Paterson, the present occupier.
Middleton, now the name of a single farm north of the main Salisbury road, was a hamlet in mediaeval days and a separate estate for much of Norton’s history. In 1086 it was held by the Giffords (along with Boyton) who gave it to the Priory of Fontenay. As foreign property this was seized by Henry V but given by Henry VI to Eton College in 1441. It was farmed by William Benett in the mid-16th century along with Norton Manor and was bought from his descendant V. F-B-Stanford at the end of the 19th century and added to the main Manor estate.
Norton had always been a small place. In 1086 about 23 families lived at Norton, and another 3 at Middleton. In 1377 there were 76 poll-tax payers at Norton and 18 at Middleton, small figures for villages in the Warminster area. The 16th century tax-assessments were also relatively low, although a late 17th century population estimate suggests there may have been 400 residents then. At the first Census in 1801 the population was 264. It rose slightly during the early part of the 19th century (when most villages were growing faster). It reached a peak of 285 in 1841 and then decreased steadily. 17 persons were put in Corsley and 19 in Warminster in 1884 and the downward trend continued until in 1971 the figure was as low as 91. The now “select” nature of the village made it more popular and with the building of new houses, making provision for the young, the population rose to 120 by 1981.
In spite of the influx of professional people, the village may be little different from its mediaeval mix. There is still one great landlord, one great house with the parish Church under its wing, agriculture is the predominant industry and the village is still in a tight block near the river and the Manor House. The Manor House has been made grander by extensions and the removal of farm buildings to the newer South Farm in the 18th century and the village has extended at the eastern end. The old pattern of agriculture was half arable and half meadow. After 19th and 20th century decline in the former it has now reached a record proportion.
Other industries have been minimal though early and good use was made of local mills. Two are recorded in 1086, worth together 40 shillings, well above the average for the Wylye Valley. These were probably on the site of the existing Norton mill near the church and the known, though now overgrown, site of Thresher’s Mill downstream by the Sutton Veny-Heytesbury road. Both the latter were in use by the cloth trade in the 16th century and probably much earlier to judge by the cloth-merchant marks of 15th century Benetts in the Church. The Everetts of Heytesbury used both in their own 18th and 19th century clothing empire but Thresher’s was demolished in the 19th century and Norton ended its active life as a grist mill.