It burnt down. Well most of the village did in
1765 on a hot, dry and unfortunately windy day consuming sixty five
houses, hospital, chapel and free schools.
When not burning to a crisp various other
things happened as catalogued
here and
here. If you want to start a blog on whether the name derives
from Hegtredesbyrig or Heightsbury or used to be the home ground of
Arsenal FC the preceding links will have it covered. Things that I
can add or anyone else can add will be recorded here.
The House of Normandy. In the conflict between
Stephen and Matilda (1135-54) it is suggested that Maud or the
Empress Matilda resided at Heytesbury on the site of the present
East Court at Heytesbury House. I
can confirm that the room adjacent to the library, now the kitchen,
was known as Queen Matilda’s room. Not a lucky room as it was the
point of entry for two burglaries at the house.
The same room was also the seat of the fire
that gutted Heytesbury House following the Sassoon sale to a
development company in the early 1990s. Having poked about the ruins
at the time and had a word with the wise and yellow-suited the fire
was entirely accidental.
Yes, prior to the fire, all of the (fire) doors
had been removed throughout the structure and these highly valuable
solid mahogany doors had most unfortunately perished (without a
trace).
George Sassoon cried. I am told. He was on his
way back from France after a boozy cycling trip when he rounded the
Chitterne Road onto the A36 bypass that had previously cut his
estate in half and saw the flames roaring through the upper storey
billowing from shattered windows. His nursery window among them:
Remember this when childhood's far away;
The sunlight of a showery first spring day;
You from your house-top window laughing down,
And I, returned with whip cracks from a ride,
On the great lawn below you, playing the clown,
Time blots our gladness out. Let this with love abide....
Siegfried Sassoon
There are a number of gothic architectural features dotted around the village. Stone mullion windows at Heytesbury Mill, the walled garden at Heytesbury House (the centre strut is missing because a bull went through it) and a further two and the remains of a third at Woodside Cottage.
Research indicates that the origin of these items was Fonthill Abbey, Fonthill Gifford, Wiltshire.
Fonthill Abbey was one of the most remarkable houses ever built
in Britain and the largest private residence ever constructed. A
romantic folly, it was designed for the eccentric collector William
Beckford (1759-1844).
The tower, built with completely inadequate foundations, collapsed
in 1825. The ruins were cleared away 20 years later so that nothing
now remains of Beckford’s fantasy.
But it does, in Heytesbury.
Letter from Charles Ashe à Court to his brother, Lord Heytesbury. Heytesbury House. March 1826.
'I will bear in mind what you say about the building materials of Fonthill Abbey & if I do purchase for you depend upon it I will do it cautiously.'
By coincidence the later owners of Fonthill estate were the Morrisons, the maternal family line of Hester (Gatty) the wife of Siegfried Sassoon. The existence of the Lochbuie Estate on the Isle of Mull is a legacy of the Morrisons, the Lords of the Isles. And Fonthill.
Click here here for a detailed image of Fonthill Abbey.
No. There is not a station linking direct to Uxbridge saving the bother of the A303 but there are various buried chambers and tunnels in an around Heytesbury House.
Running the entire length of the house is a brick conduit serving a spring springing from near the arched entrance to the courtyard. This tunnel runs out to the winterbourne and George, as a child, crawled the whole length. The spring is why Empress Matilda (13thC) and others more ancient lived on the site.
To the north of the courtyard, beneath the new drive, are a series of chambers discovered during previous works. I was lowered into them and found arched brick structures with flues between them. There was a bricked up gulley leading to the source of the spring.
There was no evidence of carbon (fire) so we concluded that they were cisterns for water storage.
The ice house has now been demolished but once stood in a two storey building close to the entrance of the courtyard. The ‘house’ was in fact a pit where ice was stored mixed with straw for insulation.
The cellars have been in-filled but were once quite extensive. The main cellar was under the still room and north east courtyard and used to flood every winter. We used to punt amid the supporting columns.
There was a smaller cellar blocked by a seized up safe door under the servants’ staircase next to the rope operated lift to the first floor. We broke through into this second cellar but found no gold Doubloons but a few musty bottles of wine from the 1920s and the original sales document for the house from 1932. £33,000. Or it could have been 1933 and £32,000.
The Westminster MP's expenses scandal was epitomised by the Tory grandee who installed a duck island on his lake at our expense. It was supplied by:
Heytesbury Bird Pavilions.
