Vastern Manor OS.173 (SU049815)
One meets all over the county with country houses, that sit prominent among the rolling countryside scenery, a majority are are now converted into farm-houses, or sometimes divided into labourers cottages, but which were once occupied by gentry or nobility, perhaps even by royalty. One of these is Vastern Manor, located on the A3102 a mile or so from Wootton Bassett towards Lyneham. Vastern Manor was originally known as Fasterne.

There is nothing now very striking in its appearance, but it becomes interesting when we know its history. It was once the chief residence, the manor-house, of the Despensers, the well-known favorites of Edward II., in the middle of their large property here.

Vastern Manor House as built by the Bassetts was a large and impressive structure. It was walled, had a gatehouse, a chapel, a prison, extensive living quarters for man and beast, and all the domestic appurtenances that went with a status house, such as brew house, bake house, kitchens, barns, gardens and fish ponds. Variously called Fetstern (a fortress), Fastern, or Vastern it was set on rising ground, almost surrounded by woods which were later turned into a deer park. The attractive country house known today as Vastern Manor occupies only a small part of the original site.

According to W. F. Parsons, Vastern was one of five seats in Wiltshire selected by the Norman kings as hunting villas, the others being at Clarendon, Corsham, Marlborough and Tollard Royal. The Bassetts and their successors were naturally interested in extending the park which seems to have reached a maximum area of about 2000 acres. Large herds of deer were kept there as late as the 16th century. Sir John Thynne of Longleat was a great friend of Lord Protector Somerset in Edward VI's reign, and Canon Jackson found among the family papers a letter from the Protector's steward, John Berwycke, saying that he had turned out "500 deer, mostly rascals (lean deer) into Braden Forest, and pasture, enough for my Lord Grace's provision, is in better condition this year than it hath ever been at this time."

Exercises in beating the bounds were frequently necessary and one such perambulation is described in great detail. It was made on May 18, 1602 and the following extract deals with the boundary of Great Park adjoining Braden Forest. "Going and viewing the boundes and meres dividing the manors of Wootton Bassett and Brynkworthe of the west side ..... as the most eldest and auncient men hath known and hard tyme aught of minde ..... as also what their forefathers hath toulde them when they were children going the perambulation. John Bathe, 80; Richard Bathe, 80; John Gault, 80; William Henyle, 75; Thomas Haskyns, 66; Christopher Witnam, 77; Thomas Phelps, 76; Thomas Robbins, 100; Thomas Bathe, 70; Richard Iles, 60; William Webb, 56; John Shurmer, 60." ....."The first daye going from Wotton to Broadweyes geat through Whitehall woakhayes meadow passing into a ground lately enclosed by Sir Henry Knyvett at which plasse it is sayd by these old men as they have hard theyre foorfathers saye the Duke of York had his waye forthe by the Faoffe Geat (Hookers)". From there the boundary went to sand pits on Brinkworth Hill, a cross at Highgate (farm), a great "woorke left for a meare (boundary) standing between Mughall and Wotton's wood that was called the Ragge," Braydon Lane, Shropshire Marsh and Baynards Ash. W. F. Parsons said it continued along the ridge to the Row de Dow, across the bottom of Wood St., the upper part of Whitehill Lane and so by way of Hunts Mill brook to Vastern Wilderness. Workmen who maintained the hedge at certain points had the right to cut fuel "as far as a man could through a hatchet and for tryall John Mountaine dyd through his hatchet 8 lugge (poles) and so dyd Thomas Roadway and 3 others."

It is difficult to trace the history of the actual manor house and demesne as it was usually occupied by the lord's bailiff or leased out. Also dilapidation would set in as farming grew more important then feudal splendour. The buildings that Lawrence Hyde acquired in 1676 were probably based on the gatehouse and by the middle of the 19th century Vastern was described as a crumbling farmhouse.

The Victoria County History has tracked down a number of interesting items on the way, such as the existence of a royal stud at Vastern in the 14th and 15th centuries, and the names of Gilbert of Berwick 1331-2, William of Wroughton 1369-76, Richard Rowsewell 1573, John Rowesell 1587-1603, Thomas Jacob 1641, and Thomas Brinsden 1664-70, all of whom lived at the Gatehouse, leased land, or farmed on the estate. In 1648 John Aubrey visited Vastern and in his usual uncritical way accepted from Thomas Jacob the purely fanciful story that Richard III had been born there.

Lawrence Hyde no doubt found Vastern a useful retreat when he was out of favour at court. It also brought him near his elder brother's estate at Blunsdon. This brother, later Lord Clarendon, had to sell Blunsdon Manor in 1695 to Sir Antony Keek to whom he owed £8,000. How long he spent at Vastern is not known, but, according to an entry in his brother's diary, he was certainly there on November 11, 1688. Sir William Temple did not think much of Lawrence's Wiltshire purchase for in a letter dated July 20, 1678 he says "I hear you are grown as ill at court as to be gone down into the country to a scurvy patch of land you had bought there." Later members of the Clarendon family do not seem to have favoured it for personal occupation.

The Home Farm was leased to Charles Cruse of Greenhill unitl 1750 and for 150 years after that to the Henly family. In the early part of the 18th century the house was occupied by a sport-loving county magistrate called Franklyn. Goddard Smith's diary, of which there is a copy in Devizes Museum, records how he dined there with Mr. Walker of Lyneham, Mr. Pleydell of Midgehall, Mr. Hardyman of Lydiard Millicent, the Rev. Paul Forrester of Wootton Bassett, Mrs. Cruse of Greenhill, Mr. Nevil Maskelyne, Robert Long, Mr. Bouchier and other local worthies. Bowling was a great attraction, and he enters all his betting wins and losses. Partridge setting, hunting, cock-fighting, hare-coursing and dancing were among other activities to find their way into the diary.

In 1852 more than 100 years later James Waylen, the Devizes historian, visited Vastern and had this to say. "Few people passing along the high road would suspect the irregular and somewhat naked-looking fabric of Fastern farmhouse to have been the abode of nobility in the giddy times of Charles II. The commanding position, the rookery, traces of a terraced garden, remains of stone mullions replaced by rickety wood and leaden casements, the Tudor doorway, and foundations at the rear of the house of large proportions ..... will be sufficient evidence that the place is but a shadow of its former self." Such must have been its general state when the Meux family bought the manor in 1866 and applied their renovating zeal to it.

The conversion was done with some feeling for the past. The central block built of stone is probably mediaeval, and one of the rooms has "heavily moulded ceiling beams with a foliage boss of late mediaeval date at their intersection." The stone chimney-piece bears the arms of the Englefields and may have originally been on the upper floor where there was a single lofty room. The small wings on the north, east and west sides are probably 17th & 18th century additions. The door in the south west wing is 15th century but it was brought from Berwick Bassett Manor house by Sir Henry Bruce Meux. Any remaining features of Norman origin will be underground but the modernised house still conveys a feeling of the past such as you get nowhere else in Wootton Bassett. The recent by-passing of the house serves only to accentuate its remoteness from the modern world. Nostalgic poems written by the Reverend Stephen Clark in 1873, and by John Henly of Vastern Farm rather earlier show how much the old building, the bluebell woods, the Wilderness, and the Grove moved the romantic imagination of a generation untouched as yet by the prevailing vogue for historical research.