Map - Bulkington, Wiltshire (Bulkington)

Bulkington is a village and civil parish in the county of Wiltshire, England. The village is about 4.5 mi west of Devizes and a similar distance southeast of Melksham.

The northern boundary of the parish is the Summerham Brook, and the Semington Brook is the boundary to the west and south.

Bulkington was one of the villages featured in the 2003 BBC2 television documentary A Country Parish.

This brief history of Bulkington has been taken mainly from editions of the journal of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.

Excavations at Lawn Farm in 1994 have uncovered evidence of periodic occupation from the 12th century onwards, with a first mention in historical records in 1217 (77 1997). There is also physical evidence of pre-medieval human activity represented by a tiny assemblage of worked flint, possibly Mesolithic or Neolithic in date and a sherd of Roman pot (90 1997).

Aligned ENE-WSW and flanked by two brooks, Bulkington brook to the east and Semington Brook to the west, the village was initially formed within the manor of Edington. Edington Church contains a monument/tomb in the south transept, ascribed to Thomas Bulkington – rebus Boc-in-tun, the Boc signifying a beech tree (xlvii 1939). The addition of the –ton has also been attributed to an organised community that probably occupied pastured land after Domesday Book was published in 1086, whose records suggest that the area where Bulkington lies was woodland (xlviii 1939).

It is feasible that Thomas Bulkington may have been the donor of the original manor circa 1244 (90 1997) situated opposite the present-day church (linked with Manor Farm and the fieldworks behind it), and tithes of Bulkington before he joined the convent. His presence in the area is consolidated as a witness to the transfer of Keevil church to the monastery in 1393 (xlvii 1937; xx1982; xxxii 1902).

The Lambeth Parliamentary Surveys of 1649 state that Bulkington was part of Keevil parish, paying tithes to Holy Trinity of Winchester. The monastery had a manor, a farm, customary rents and a rectorial tithe (xx 1982). Throughout time, Bulkington has had links with local gentry such as the Fitzlans, Earls of Arundel, the Stourton family, Richard Vere, the Earl of Oxford and Thomas Barkesdale (xx 1882).

The layout of the village suggests two initial focal points, 'The Cross' monument and Christ Church, highlighting a separation between worship and trade in the village.

The foundation of a church in Bulkington is steeped in tradition, with many claiming of a pre-reformation church in the New Leys Field (possibly near Seend), which is said to have donated a bell to Steeple Ashton when it was pulled down (xxxix 1917). It is possible that there was another unofficial church, possibly a temporary structure in Bulkington that may explain the notion of the other church (xxxii). However, the historical records suggest that there was no church until 1860 when Chamberline made Bulkington a separate parish, later becoming a civil parish in the 1880s (90 1997), and erected the present day structure in an enclosure formerly known as Damers Close dating back to 1769 (90 1997).