Kington Langley

Kington Langley is a village and civil parish about 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Chippenham in Wiltshire, England.

The village is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) long and is separated from Kington St. Michael (to the west) by the A350 road which links Chippenham with the M4 motorway and Malmesbury.

It is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which performs most local government functions.

[5] A settlement of 25 households at Langhelei was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, when the land was held by Glastonbury Abbey.

[10] The third generation, Simon Uncles Salter and his brother Isaac, moved to old Burton Hill House, near Malmesbury, and continued the manufacture of woollen goods at a new site near the bridge.

[12] It was restored and extended between 1907 and 1913 for Charles Garnett, a stockbroker from London, who had moved from Vasterne House, Wootton Bassett.

The architect was Douglas Stewart of London, and the contractors were James Long & Son of Bradford-on-Avon.

[13] Greathouse Estate was sold in 1957[14] and in 1972 there was an auction of antique effects[15] on behalf of Leonard Cheshire who used the premises until 2018.

It was converted to the Manor House by Walter Coleman (1778–1845) on his coming of age and inheritance of much of the land and cottages in the Tything of Kington Langley.

There were vestiges of the moat remaining in the late 19th century, by which time the farm had been converted to Eli Holder's sawmills, on the Draycot Estate (until 1920).

[19] There is no evidence that Reginald Fitzurse, one of the Knights who murdered Thomas Becket, was ever resident in Kington Langley.

From 1954 the vicar of Kington Langley also served the former parish of Draycot Cerne, which lost its church in 1994 when St James' was declared redundant.

[28] The earliest known record of Protestant Dissenters meeting for worship in Kington Langley is dated 1742.

Great House, Kington Langley