The village has a pub called the Harp and Crown.[1]
History and church
Parish church of St John the Baptist
Remains of an early field system at Gastard are believed to date from the Romano-British period,[2] and Roman jewellery has been found.[3]
The name of the village has had several different forms over the centuries and was recorded variously as Gatesterta in 1154, Getestert in 1167, Gateherst in 1177, Gastard in 1428.[4] In 1875 it was referred to in a directory as "Gastard (or Gustard)".[5]
For Church of England purposes, Gastard is an ecclesiastical parish and has its own parish church dedicated to St John the Baptist. Located on Lanes End, Gastard (approx. postcode SN13 9QS), the Church was built in 1912 on a field called ‘Home Orchard’ donated by Miss Jean Fowler of Gastard House and constructed (through her generosity) as a memorial to her father, Sir Robert N Fowler, Bt, and her brother, Sir Thomas Fowler, Bt, who had been killed in 1902 during the second Boer War. The Church possibly acquired its dedication from a former chapel at the top of Velley Hill, Gastard, known as the chapel of St John the Baptist, for which some historical record can be traced to the 14thC. The Church was dedicated on St John’s Day, 24 June 1913.
Built between 1912-13 to the architectural designs of Captain Edmond Warre, is it in a free perpendicular style with a broad shallow gabled tower of 36 feet height, with a small bell turret. Capt.Warre (1877-1961), known as ‘Bear’, was son of Edmond Ware (1837-1920), headmaster and Provost of Eton College, and educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. He served in WWI as a Captain in the King’s Royal Rifle Corps and subsequently in the RAF. Contemporary reports list him as a ‘well-known’ architect, working as the architect at Eton from about 1911[9]. He was responsible for works to Wilton House, converting the Wyatt Library into a drawing room in 1913[10].
The Church, Grade II listed, has a nave of 36 feet long by 22 feet wide supported by piers of dressed Bath stone forming two arches[11] at the west end, there is an oak gallery in a 17th C style[12]. Originally intended for choir and organ, the instrument installed in 1962 (at the chancel steps) to mark 50 years of the parish came from St Bede’s Church, Fishponds (which had closed that year[13]). St John’s, along with Ss Philip and James, Neston, was absorbed into the Team Ministry of Greater Corsham in 1979, being designated in 1985 as its own Parish Church within the united benefice of Greater Corsham and Lacock.[14] The church still has a morning service every Sunday.[1]
In 1967, the village experienced a freak hailstorm, with some of the hailstones of nearly three inches in diameter.[15]
↑ Simon Draper, Landscape, settlement and society in Roman and early medieval Wiltshire (2006), p. 94
↑ D. F. Mackreth , 'Roman brooches from Gastard, Corsham, Wiltshire', in Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine vol. 85 (1992), pp. 51-62
↑ Richard Tomkins, Wiltshire Place Names (1983), p. 54
↑ Slocombe, Pamela M (2006). Architects and Building Craftsmen with work in Wiltshire. Trowbridge, Wiltshire: Wiltshire Building Record. p.172. ISBN0952793318.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
