Place:Berwick St. Leonard, Wiltshire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Berwick St. Leonard is a small village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 8 miles (13 km) southeast of Warminster and 14 miles (23 km) west of Salisbury. In the UK census of 2011 it had a population of 47.

In 1934 the adjoining parish of Hindon which, up to that time had been extremely small, absorbed a section of the parish of Berwick St. Leonard, including the actual village of Hindon. (Compare maps of Wiltshire in 1900 and Wiltshire in 1944).

The A303 road, linking London with southwest England, crosses the parish. Berwick St. John village is on the B3089 about 0.8 miles (1.3 km) to the south.

From before 1650 to around 1900, nearly all the land in the parish belonged to a single farm, probably Cold Berwick Farm, which appears on a 1773 map but had been demolished by 1822. In the 11th and 12th centuries the manor was probably part of Shaftesbury Abbey's Tisbury estate. Berwick House is from the late 18th century.

St. Leonard's Church was built in the 12th century. It has been designated as a Grade II* listed building. The church was closed in 1966, declared redundant in 1973 and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.

Research Tips

• Victoria County History - Wiltshire - Vol 13, pp100-105 - Parish: Berwick St. Leonard. British History Online. University of London.
• From this Ancestry page you can browse the Wiltshire parishes which have parish register transcripts online, quite often from very early dates. However, reading the early ones requires skill and patience. Transcriptions should also be in FamilySearch.
• A further collection of online source references will be found on the county page for Wiltshire.