If you look at satellite imagery of Old Church Farm you will see the outline of a Saxon circular barrow. Circular barrows of this kind were mostly created five and a half thousand years ago (3500 BC). Its position on top of the hill known as the Ridgeway (later corrupted to ‘Rudgeway’) would have had spiritual significance at the time.
I am grateful to our neighbour Sir George White for providing the following historical background:
“Alveston was set anciently in the Forest of Kingswood. Evidence from excavation and later field names shows that there was a clearing and settlement in the forest, in the immediate area of Church Farm, at the time of the late Iron Age. The almost circular churchyard on which the house is partially built, and the yew tree of exceptional antiquity growing near to the churchyard’s centre, strongly suggest that this part of the clearing was a pre-Christian religious site . The tree alone may be two millennia old.
It is not known when the now ruined Christian church of St Helen was first built within that circle, but the comparatively rare dedication to St Helen may suggest a Roman connection. St Helen (c.AD 246-330) was the mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great. The archaeological remains of a substantial Roman villa, boasting at least twenty-three rooms and six fine pavements, is situated only 900m to the southwest . A sizeable Romano British fort lies some 2km to the north. Churches dedicated to St. Helen with Roman associations were often associated with springs or wells. 120m to the east of St Helens are a series of spring-fed pools. A little beyond, now concealed in woodland, is a spring with a stone surround, traditionally said to be Roman.
In 1962, at the time when the nave and chancel of the old church were demolished, rudimentary records were made. It was noted that the atypical proportions of the chancel could be precisely measured in Anglo-Saxon poles, and that those measurements exactly matched the proportions of the famous and virtually unaltered Anglo-Saxon church at Bradford on Avon. There is reason to believe therefore that the first stone structure on the Alveston site was of Anglo-Saxon date and that the later Early English chancel was built on its footprint.
Archaeological and structural investigation of Church Farm itself was undertaken at the same time. The discovery in the ground of mediaeval glass and pottery, together with details such as the direction and variety of the joists supporting the upstairs floors, suggested that the house began in the early mediaeval period as an open hall house with a solar and buttery. An infilled gothic arch at the south-eastern corner of the house, visible from the church yard, is of mediaeval date.
Tradition has it that King William II, who held the manor, was staying at Alveston in March 1092, shortly after the death of Lanfranc, his Archbishop of Canterbury. He had delayed making a new appointment to the See, preferring to appropriate the archbishop’s lands and revenues for his own use. However, while at Alveston, he is said to have fallen seriously ill and was carried to Gloucester, where he feared he might die and face the condemnation of God for this sin. With unseemly haste, he appointed the great Anselm of Bec, who was enthroned in September 1093. It is highly unlikely that at that date, there was any building in Alveston (other than an early version of the hall house in the forest clearing), that would have been suitable for the reception of the monarch.
It is recorded that thereafter, various distinguished members of the FitzWarin family, powerful landowners during the 12th and 13th centuries, were either born or died at Alveston, so again the manor house must have been of sufficient importance for them to consider it as a residence . Many of the adventures of Fulk FitzWarin III (c.1160-1258) as told in mediaeval romance, are reputed to have taken place at Alveston. In addition, it is said that “Fulk, being a hospitable man, turned the royal road to run past his house at Alveston, so that no traveller should pass without food.” Five FitzWarins in all held the manor at various times.
Ralph Bigland’s 18th century survey of Gloucestershire, records that “The manor belonged to the crown in the reign of King Henry III, as that King made a reservation of his park at Alveston, at the time when the Forest of Kingswood was disforested.” This was a key moment in the development of the area, because as can clearly be seen from field shapes in the present landscape, the boundary of the reserved Royal park began directly across the lane from Church Farm and stretched at least to The Street in the north and almost to Earthcott in the east. So it was that as the population of the parish grew, a new village could not cluster around the manor house and parish church, because it could not trespass upon the Royal demesne. Instead, it spread itself out around the park boundary. The parish remains in this configuration today. Church Farm, then Alveston Manor, was not out on a limb and remote from the main areas of population as is sometimes suggested. For centuries it was the power base in a ring of population, the fount of justice, patronage and faith. Through its park, it dominated the entire centre of the landscape. The tower at Lodge Farm, 900m east of the manor, marks the centre of that centre and was either the Manor’s mediaeval hunting stand or warrener’s lodge.
During the mid-Tudor period, the house was again considered of sufficient importance to be recorded by the poet and antiquary John Leland. In his famous Itinerary written between c.1535 and 1543, he noted that Denys family (of Dyrham and Olveston) had “a pretty house two miles from Dyrham at Siston, and another manor and place called Alveston, two miles from Thornbury.”
An unnamed historian who was able to study the structure of Church Farm during its restoration by Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd. in 1960, estimated that it was some forty years after Leland visited the district that Church Farm took on its present internal form. He wrote “there are some structural details which seem to suggest that the major alterations to the interior of the house were not carried out until quite late in Elizabethan times; perhaps about 1580, which is the date given to the decorated ceilings in the study and drawing room.”
The same writer records that excavations in 1963 revealed foundations of what he believed to be a late 16th century south wing, completed by 1634, the date carved above the existing entrance porch. Although this additional wing was demolished in the later 18th century, measurements taken from its footings showed that while it stood, the ground-plan of the house was “E” shaped, making the western front wholly symmetrical.
These alterations were almost certainly the work of Nicholas Veel (d.1621) and his son Thomas (1591- 1664), whose arms can still be seen above the front door. Any further plans they may have had to expand or beautify their house were undoubtedly curtailed by the Civil War and its aftermath. Thomas was a fervent Royalist and as such had served as Governor of Berkeley Castle from 1643 to 1644. He remained in arms and in due course his estates were sequestrated. He recovered them at very heavy cost, selling Conygre Farm, an integral part of the mediaeval park, to help defray the expenditure and cover his debts. During the Protectorate, he became a ‘pivotal figure’ in organising a local uprising, with the intention of taking Gloucester and Bristol, in conjunction with the Parliamentarian turned Royalist, Sir Edward Massey. Charles II, then in exile, sent him blank recruiting commissions to assist in this in November 1656 and again in May 1659. But in July, Colonel Veel, his two sons, his grandson and Massey were arrested and imprisoned. For the second time his estates were sequestrated. Although the King clearly intended to reward him after the Restoration, he failed to do so in any meaningful way. Colonel Veel died in 1664 and was buried in a vault in Old St. Helen’s chancel . The manor house and estate passed to Edward Hill, believed to be Col. Veel’s son-in-law, who dramatically revived both house and garden .
Gloucestershire is fortunate that in the in the last years of the 17th century, Sir Robert Atkyns (1647-1711) commissioned a parish-by-parish survey of the county, for publication as a folio volume entitled The Ancient and Present State of Gloucestershire. Included in it were some sixty large scale ‘bird’s eye’ views of significant Gloucestershire mansions, each set in its own landscape. The Dutch artist and engraver Johannes Kip (1652-1722) was commissioned to make the drawings and engrave the expensive copper plates to print them. The book, complete with Kip’s illustrations, was first published in 1712. Church Farm, then described as “Alveston, the seat of Edward Hill Esq” and as “a large handsome house by the church” was one of only nine houses in what is now South Gloucestershire to be illustrated. Kip showed the house from the southwest, the Elizabethan wing by then sporting a highly fashionable late 17th century façade. A second floor, which now no longer exists can be seen on the north wing. A balustraded viewing platform was set high on the roof, commanding magnificent views from the River Severn and Wales in the west to the Cotswold Hills in the east. A highly fashionable ‘Dutch’ garden was shown to the south and west.
It has often been said that Kip’s engravings are unreliable and that for instance, he was prepared to include projected architectural details, some of which were never actually built. For this reason, doubt has at times been cast on the existence of Church Farm’s south-facing wing. But Nicholas Kingsley, the foremost living expert on the great houses of Gloucestershire has written that “although doubt has, in the past, been cast on their accuracy, research has shown that, with few exceptions, these detailed bird’s-eye views can be relied upon for the information they give about both houses and gardens.” The late Christopher Bishop (1930-2005), a distinguished Gloucestershire conservation architect who worked on the reconstruction of the National Trust’s ‘Dutch’ water garden at Westbury-on-Severn, believed that Kip had some mechanical means of laying out his drawings and their perspective with great accuracy. He noted that even the positions of individual flower beds and plants as drawn by Kip at Westbury, were proved correct by archaeological excavation. He was convinced that Kip drew only what he saw. These assurances are hardly needed in the case of Church Farm, where in 1960, the actual footings of the south wing were identified beneath the ground.
The transition in use from manor house to farmhouse began in the last years of the 18th century, when Edward Hill’s descendants separated the manorial rights from the manor house itself. Rev. Thomas Rudge in 1803, described the house as already reduced in size, writing of “Alveston village, in which the church stands, and near to this the remains of a large and handsome house, with lofty and spacious rooms. The style of the building is that of Elizabeth’s reign. Annexed to this is a good estate, formerly the manerial, and at the beginning of the last century, belonging to Edward Hill, Esq., from whom it passed by purchase into the family of Sitwell, and Edward Sacheverell Sitwell, Esq. is the present proprietor.” The Sitwells, who were vastly wealthy colliery owners and ironmasters, were based in Derbyshire, but at about this time took an interest in southern Gloucestershire, after they had inherited Over Court, Almondsbury and its estates, together with the lordships of many of the local manors. Sitwell paid by far the largest sums of Land Tax in Alveston in 1797, showing that he was now the principal landowner within the parish. His two tenants were George Kent and John Champion. Which of these was at Church Farm is presently unclear.
Several of the great houses of the district became tenanted farmhouses, as their architectural style fell out of fashion. Little Sodbury Manor and Iron Acton Court are two examples. In many ways, this was no bad thing as their ancient fabric was shielded from change. Church Farm was simply reduced in size (as Acton Court had been), but retained its mediaeval core, two of its Elizabethan plaster ceilings, its panelling, its great stone fireplaces, its decorated porch, its garden structure, its setting in the landscape and its barns and its stables. But just as Little Sodbury Manor was revived before the Great War in the hands of the architect Harold Breakspear (1870-1934), so, on a smaller scale, Church Farm underwent restoration by a presently unknown but sensitive architect, perhaps at much the same time or early in the 1920s. Far from reducing the historic importance of the house, the restoration conserved its features and returned dignity to it. The restoration is as much part of its long history, as the construction of the upstairs floor in the original hall house, or the adding of the dramatic Elizabethan plasterwork in the 16th century. The present small northern extension was built at the same time, but again was built with sensitivity.
Church Farm was purchased by Bristol Siddeley Engines Ltd., in 1960, a company subsequently taken over by Rolls-Royce plc., to be used as a guesthouse for their visitors and staff. For this purpose, it was expensively arranged and decorated internally as a private country house. The purchase coincided with the design and construction of Concorde at nearby Filton, the world’s only successful supersonic passenger aircraft. The revolutionary Bristol-Siddeley Pegasus vectored thrust turbofan, which powered the Harrier ‘jump jet’ was developed at the same time. These were machines of international importance and many of Britain’s greatest designers and engineers met at Church Farm, often in the greatest secrecy to discuss them, adding yet more magic to its long story. When Church Farm was sold to its present owners in 2017, it was sold complete with its county house decoration and furnishings and has continued in use as a “boutique private hotel” . It has therefore not suffered the institutional use generally associated with a commercial hotel. A small “conference centre”, constructed to a high standard by Rolls-Royce, has three meeting rooms and is in a separate stable or barn. It is wholly independent of the main building.
Berkeley Castle, where Colonel Thomas Veel served as Governor in 1643, is celebrated for its claim of continuous occupation from the 11th century. There is good reason to believe that Church Farm and the land on which it is built, have been continuously occupied in one form or another, since the Iron Age.
The Garden
Johannes Kip’s late 17th century engraving shows an elaborate and highly fashionable garden to the south and west of Church Farm. The area is divided into four rectangular walled spaces, just as it is today. Within two of these, mathematically exact ‘parterres’ were laid out. Paths, perhaps of coloured gravels, divided geometric plant beds, surrounded by carefully clipped topiary. Espaliered fruit trees adorned the walls. From the front door, a straight path carried the eye between artfully arranged clipped yews, to a slatted wooden fence and though that, into the landscape, by way of a neatly planted avenue.
This style of gardening was first introduced to England in the early 17th century. It was originally devised in France, but its popularity soon spread to other European countries, including the Netherlands. In England, it came to be known as the “Dutch” style, because it rose to the height of fashion in the reigns of William and Mary, William being both King of England and Stadholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic.
The Kip illustrations in Atkyns late 17th century survey of Gloucestershire showed that by William and Mary’s reigns, most of the great households in Gloucestershire were enhanced by ‘Dutch’ gardens, of varying size and complexity. Nine of these were in what is now known as South Gloucestershire: Alveston, Badminton, Dyrham, Hill, Knole, Over, Tortworth, Siston, Stoke Gifford and Cleeve Hill.
Of these, the houses at Cleeve Hill, Knole, Over and Tortworth have since been demolished and their settings lost. The Dutch gardens at Badminton, Dyrham and Hill, were similarly destroyed, when the 18th century fashion for naturalistic landscape, caused them to be swept away. The minimal Dutch garden at Stoke Gifford, which largely consisted of avenues, has been built over. Siston Court, certainly retains some of its Dutch garden structure, but is now in divided ownership. This leaves Alveston, or Old Church Farm, as the only remaining house in single private ownership in South Gloucestershire, whose entire Dutch garden structure remains as Kip drew it and whose historic planting scheme, as recorded by Kip, is known with accuracy. That alone would make it an unmatched historic document in the locality, but there is strong evidence to show that just below the present ground level, yet more of that document remains. It is recorded that in the 1960’s “the gardeners … found a paved carriageway about fourteen foot wide only a foot below the turf and flower beds in front of the house.” This is precisely where Kip indicates that a path should be, leading due south-west from the house. Further it was reported that “they have also found a paved path some two feet below the surface in the kitchen garden.” Again, that is exactly what is to be expected. The 1894-1903 Ordnance Survey map shows that as late as 1903, the paths around the principal parterre were still in use and those too may exist beneath the turf. In South Gloucestershire and indeed wider terms, this is a garden of considerable importance.”
Sir George White FSA 2024