Belcombe Court, West Wiltshire, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.

A mid 18th-century landscape park laid out for Francis Yerbury and further developed by the Yerbury family in the late 18th century, surrounding a 15th-century house extended and improved by John Wood the Elder in 1734.
 

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

Belcombe Court, a site of 13.5ha, is situated to the west of Bradford-on-Avon, to the north of Belcombe Road which forms its southern boundary. This boundary is marked by a stone wall (probably 18th-century) along the full length of the site. Belcombe Court lies on the north bank of the River Avon, the site rising in a north and north-westerly direction with steeply sloping woodland in the far northern part of the site. From here a small stream called the Belcombe Brook runs down the valley in a southerly direction. To the north-east the site is bounded by a tall leylandii hedge with late 20th-century houses beyond it. To the far south-east the site is bounded by Belcombe Farm, now (2000) a private dwelling with a garden to its north which was formerly laid out as an orchard. To the west the site is bounded by fields, and to the far south-west by an electricity sub-station.
 

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

John Wood the Elder, Essay towards a description of Bath (1765)

Country Life, 108 (22 December 1950), pp 2146-50; 112 (3 October 1952), p 1018; no 29 (20 July 1989), pp 72-5

Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire VII, (1953), p 6

B Cherry and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Wiltshire (4th edn 1985), p 138

J Phibbs and N Owen, Notes on the Register entry for Belcombe Court, Bradford, Wilts, (April 1990) [copy on EH file]
 

Maps

Andrews and Drury, Map of Wiltshire, 1773

G C Ashmead, Town map of Bradford-on-Avon, surveyed 1836 and corrected up to 1864 (G13/990/13L), (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office)

OS 6" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1884-5, published 1887

3rd edition revised 1922, published 1926

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition surveyed 1884-5, published 1887

2nd edition revised 1899, published 1901

3rd edition revised 1922, published 1924

Archival items

Sale particulars for Belcombe Court, to be sold at auction 30 March 1903 (3142/1), (Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office)