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Liddington
Liddington
	The Village Inn, Liddington, in 2009
	Liddington Location within Wiltshire
Population	593 (in 2021)
OS grid reference	SU207815
Civil parish	Liddington;
Unitary authority	Swindon;
Ceremonial county	Wiltshire;
Region	South West;
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Swindon
Postcode district	SN4
Dialling code	01793
Police	Wiltshire
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	East Wiltshire;
Website	Parish Council
	List of places UK England Wiltshire 51°31′55″N 1°42′11″W / 51.532°N 1.703°W

Liddington is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Swindon, England. The village is about a mile beyond the south-east edge of Swindon's built-up area, close to junction 15 of the M4 motorway, which is approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) away via the B4192.

History

The parish has been an area of settlement since the earliest times. The ancient Ridgeway traverses the parish just north of the village and the Iron Age hill-fort known as Liddington Castle, which is a scheduled monument, overlooks the present-day village.^[2] Liddington is recorded in the late Saxon period, around 940 AD. The Domesday Book of 1086 refers to the settlement as Ledentone.^[3] The population of the parish peaked at 454 in 1841 and then gradually declined.^[4]

The spelling Lyddington has sometimes been used, and still appears in the name of the Church of England parish.^[5]

Most of the village was designated as a Conservation Area in 1990.^[6] The Great Western Hospital, a large district hospital, was built in the north-west corner of the parish in 2002.^[7]

Parish church

A church at Liddington is first mentioned in 1291.^[8] All Saints, the Church of England parish church, stands south of the present village and is a Grade I listed building.^[9] It has a 13th-century chancel, a three-bay nave from the 14th or 15th century, and a plain three-stage west tower. The north aisle is described by Historic England as 13th-century and little altered. The arches below the tower are off-centre, indicating that there was a south aisle in the past.^[10] The church was heavily restored in 1847 by J. H. Hakewill;^[10] the work included renewal of most windows and the nave roof, and the addition of the south porch.^[8]

The oldest feature of the church is the font, a tapered stone tub of c.1200 on a 19th-century base.^[11] The original ring of five bells, now unringable, includes three cast in 1663 by Roger and William Purdue. A new ring of six dated 2016 by John Taylor & Co is installed below them.^[12] The churchyard has the remains of a 15th-century cross: only the base and a stump of the shaft.^[13]

The church was anciently attached to Shaftesbury Abbey as a prebend, and the prebendaries or rectors – who did not live at Liddington – provided a vicar to serve the church.^[8] Although the prebend ceased after William Sharington bought the manor in 1543, it came back into use towards the end of the 17th century and was still recognised in 1975.^[14]

The benefice was united with that of Wanborough in 1975,^[14] and at some point the parishes were united too.^[5] Today the parish is part of a larger benefice which also covers Bishopstone and Hinton Parva.^[15]

Notable rectors include the mathematician Nathaniel Torporley (around 1611) and William Baker Pitt (from 1882 to 1935, remembered as the founder of Swindon Town Football Club).^[16]

'Starfish' decoy control bunker

Liddington Hill was the site of a control bunker for a World War II 'Starfish' bombing decoy site. This would have been used to control fires, which would have acted as a decoy to enemy planes targeting the town of Swindon to the north. The bunker had a hatch in its concrete roof and consisted of two rooms off a central passage; the room on the right housed generators, while the control room was on the left.^[17]

Economy

Just east of the village is the children's adventure centre PGL Liddington,^[18] based at the historic King Edward's Place. Whilst the centre takes its name from Liddington as the nearest village, the centre is in the neighbouring parish of Wanborough.

References

^ "Liddington: population statistics, 2021 Census". CityPopulation.de. Retrieved 25 April 2023.
^ Historic England. "Liddington Castle (1016312)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 8 December 2021.
^ Liddington in the Domesday Book
^ "Liddington Census Information". Wiltshire Community History. Wiltshire Council. Archived from the original on 8 December 2021 – via Internet Archive.
^ ^a ^b "All Saints, Liddington". A Church Near You. The Archbishops' Council. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
^ "No. 52292". The London Gazette. 4 October 1990. p. 15595.
^ "Great Western Hospital - Swindon". Semperian. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c Dunning, R. W.; Rogers, K. H.; Spalding, P. A.; Shrimpton, Colin; Stevenson, Janet H.; Tomlinson, Margaret (1970). "Parishes: Liddington". In Crittall, Elizabeth (ed.). A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 9. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 65–75. Retrieved 18 March 2024 – via British History Online.
^ Historic England. "Church of All Saints (1299741)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
^ ^a ^b Orbach, Julian; Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (2021). Wiltshire. The Buildings Of England. New Haven, US and London: Yale University Press. pp. 399–400. ISBN 978-0-300-25120-3. OCLC 1201298091.
^ "All Saints, Liddington, Wiltshire". The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland. King's College London. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
^ "Liddington". Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
^ Historic England. "Churchyard Cross (1023397)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^ ^a ^b "No. 46622". The London Gazette. 1 July 1975. p. 8391.
^ "Profile of the Benefice of Lyddington & Wanborough and Bishopstone with Hinton Parva" (PDF). Wanborough.info. 2012. Retrieved 18 March 2024.
^ "In The Beginning..." www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk. Retrieved 19 March 2024.
^ Historic England. "Starfish Bombing Decoy Sf41a (19191)". Research records (formerly PastScape). Retrieved 8 December 2021.
^ "Adventure centre creates 106 jobs". BBC News. 13 May 2010. Retrieved 15 October 2023.