On the weekday afternoon we visited this pleasant village we saw no one: it had the feel of a commuter dormitory for Dorchester, being just three and a half miles from the county town and about half a mile from the main road to Yeovil it is ideally positioned for the role. Some of the dwellings here appear to be recent developments and others are tasteful restorations of older properties. Appearances can be deceptive; peel away the patina of modernity and there is much of interest to be found here.
In the closing years of the 17th century Robert Hutchins was curate at St. Mary’s, Bradford Peverell, and rector of Dorchester All Saints; his son John was born in the village on the 21st of September 1698. Like his father, John was a man of the church and held positions at Swyre, Melcombe Horsey and Holy Trinity Wareham, all the while collecting information for what was to become the most important reference work on the history of the county: The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset. (See our article in the Biography Category: ‘John Hutchins’ published January 13th 2010.)
William Howley became Rector of Bradford Peverell on the 23rd of May 1811 and held the position until 1813; in 1828 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. With Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, he went to Kensington Palace at 6am on the 20th of June 1837 and announced to Victoria her accession to the throne. A year later he crowned Queen Victoria at her Coronation. The ceremony did not go smoothly and Howley is reported to have said afterwards: “we should have had a full rehearsal.” He later conducted the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert and earlier he had presided over the Coronation of King William IV.
Ownership of the manor of Bradford can be traced back to the reign of Edward the Confessor (1042-1066) but the suffix Peverell was added when Richard I granted the manor to Robert Peverel and his grant was confirmed by King John. The Peverel family owned the manor for over three hundred years to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
Domesday Book (1086) records that Bradford was held by Tol or Thurli a Dane who owned several Dorset estates. These passed to a Norman Chieftain William de Ow (or d’eu) the Count of Picardy, who came to England with the Conqueror. In 1096 he was executed at Salisbury for treason against William II of England, the third son of William the Conqueror. The estates then passed to the Earl of Hereford and later became part of the Duchy of Lancaster.
During the reign of Henry I (1100-1135) and Stephen (1135-1154) the manors of Bradford and Muckleford came into the possession of the De Port family as tenants of the Duchy of Lancaster. Adam de Port was outlawed and his land forfeited to King Richard I who, as we tell above, granted the manors to Robert Peverel but during the reign of Elizabeth I the male Peveril line became extinct: William Peverel leaving an only daughter, Jane.
Jane married Nicholas Meggs of Cambridgeshire. The Meggs’ suffered heavy losses during the Civil War and in 1683 Thomas Meggs sold the manor of Muckleford, a small hamlet within the parish, to make good the family finances. The rest of the parish remained in the hands of the Meggs family until 1770, when Harry Meggs sold it to John Purling. (See our story ‘The Muckleford Treasure’ in the Bradford Peverell category).
John Purling was a director of the East India Company and from 1774 to 1784 the Member of Parliament for Melcombe Regis. He built a house about a mile from the church that burnt down in 1822.
In 1848 the manor passed by will to Hastings Nathaniel Middleton and he built a new house in 1866. He was a nephew of John Purling and grandson of Nathaniel Middleton, the agent to Warren Hastings at Lucknow in 1774: Warren Hastings was Governor General of India from 1774 to 1785. In 1898 his son, Hastings Burton Middleton, became lord of the manor; he lost two sons: Hastings Charles Middleton to a chill caught at Oxford while rowing and Captain Frank Middleton during the Persian Gulf Expedition of 1914 during the First World War and so it was Hastings Burton Middleton’s grandson, Lieutenant Hastings Frank Middleton R.A., who became lord of the manor. It was Hastings Nathaniel Middleton who rebuilt the church in 1850.
John Hutchins has left us a description of the old church: “The church is a small and ancient fabric, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It stands on the south side of the parish, near the seat of the Meggs’, and consists of a chancel tiled, a body, and a small south aisle, the burial place of the Meggs’ between both, covered with lead. In a wooden turret, covered also with lead, are three bells. It has a porch, to build which Robert Roberts, rector, by will 1852, left 60s.”
The present church was designed in the early English style by Decimus Burton and consists of a chancel, nave, south porch and a west tower with a steeple of Portland stone; this can be seen from some distance. There were originally three bells: one dated A.D.1616, another dated 1674 and a third cast by William Knight of Blandford is inscribed: Harry Meggs Esq C.W 1747. These bells were recast in 1896 when a new tenor and treble were added with inscriptions to the Middleton family.
Some of the stained glass from the old church has found a home in the new church and tells the story of the Virgin Mary. Another window which contains glass from the old Church illustrates the arms of William of Wykeham, who purchased the advowson of the living in 1391. The east window of the chancel also survives from the old Church.
Thomas Gerard in his book Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire (1732) wrote: “Bradford Peverll. The Seate for a longe time of the antient Familie of Peverells whose estate about Henry the Eighth’s time fell by a Female Heire to Nicholas Meggs and his Posteritie enjoy it. Neare Bradford the River dividing itself, making an Island of manie faire and fruitful Maedowes, and there joineth againe a little belowe Dorchester, the more northern branch, being the lesser, amongst these Maedoes runneth by Wolton, more trulie Wolvehampton, a fine and rich Seate which (by the daughter and Heire of John Jordan the antient owner of it) came to John Mohune. His only daughter and Heire Alice brought a faire Estate unto her husband Henry Trinchard of Hampshire whose Grandchilde Sir Thomas Trinchard, gracious with King Henry the Eighth was called chief Builder of the Habitation of Sir George Trinchard, a Man of Great Courage.” (See our article: ‘Thomas Gerard of Trent’ Published 17th July 2011, in the Trent category.)
The parish is a little less than 3,000 acres and has been home to a population of between 300 and 400 since 1851, the 2001 census records 344 inhabitants. In the 1880’s the village supported two grocers, a butcher, a blacksmith, a builder, a dairyman, a miller and three farmers. A National School for sixty children was established in the village in 1836 and for many years the village benefited from having a railway station – Bradford Peverell and Stratton Halt.
The village stands on the south bank of the River Frome. Bradford is a reference to the ‘broad ford’ over the river on the site of a Roman bridge. The village is approached by crossing over the river on an iron bridge which replaced an earlier wooden structure. A Roman aqueduct in the form of a clay-lined channel that was used to get water from the River Frome at Frampton to Durnovaria (Dorchester) can still be seen. Evidence of ancient occupation can be found in the parish: there are four Neolithic Long Barrows and, from the Bronze Age, twenty-eight round barrows.