Lyneham's Roads

Over the years, roads in the parish have remained relatively unchanged since the 18th century. The main focal point of the village was at the junction at The Green where the Swindon to Chippenham road was adjoined by the Lyneham to Calne Road. The main routing of traffic across the region from east to west was on the A4 Trunk road from London to Bristol. Slightly north, Lyneham was part of the Swindon to Chippenham network itinerary where the main traffic passed the village on the A420.

The Lyneham to Calne road followed its present course through the village, as early as 1736, and at that time was known as Even Lane. Although a secondary road it was later classified as the B3102, the route was extensively used for the distribution of air freight and essential military supplies for the Hercules aircraft which arrived on the airbase in November 1967. Overseas demand and worldwide committments meant the minor roads were being heavily used around the clock and causing extensive maintenance problems. The accessibility to the newer main freight road network of the M4 motorway, made Lyneham ideally located for air freight distribution.

Advances in road haulage and distribution methods provided us with unparalleled consumer choices, 24-hour shop opening hours and just-in-time deliveries. In fact, efficient and flexible freight distribution services become such an integral part of modern living that it is difficult to imagine life without them. As county freight network routes were reassessed, priorities to preserve and reduce excessive maintenance costs to the Dauntsey Banks route, mean most traffic was routed via Calne on the current A3102.

The volume of larger vehicles travelling down the Dauntsey Banks route, namely the B4069, accompanied with geological under surface problems led to the escarpment-hugging road regularly subsiding and make the route dangerous. The way in which freight distribution supports economic vibrancy and growth in this case at the expense of the environment, Wiltshire County Council recognised the long term problems of routing freight vehicles along this unsuitable road and decided to achieve a more sustainable distribution of freight by routing the heavy vehicles from junction 17 of the M4 south along the A350 to Chippenham, then east along the A4 to Calne and then north on the A3102 to Lyneham and Wootton Bassett.

Before the M4 Motorway
The Swindon to Chippenham road, up until the M4 between junctions 14 -18, was built in 1971, was the main route for most of the traffic throughout the parish and indeed Wiltshire. The slow, undulating and hazardous road was named the A420 and the Lyneham to Calne road from The Green roundabout was the B3102. Eventually when the M4 was complete, motorist changed their routes for the faster lanes of the motorway, relieving the extensive damage being caused to the Dauntsey Banks road.

As primary freight routes were changed in the district, the Lyneham to Chippenham route was downgraded from an A-class route to the B4069. Underlying water and geological conditions made this heavily utilised route very acceptable to land slip. Even today, many heavy goods vehicles still use the B4069 and cause extensive and costly damage to the road. Did you know the M4 was started in 1959 at Chiswick Flyover which is the junction 1.

Locally
The Barrow End Road was probably of some importance during the Middle Ages, when it led to the Bradenstoke Priory and to the Clack spring and fall fairs. On leaving Bradenstoke the road skirted Lyneham Green and then ran north-eastwards to Tockenham, leaving the parish to the north of Shaw Farm.

By 1887 a bypass to the north of Bradenstoke was built and from this day forward that part of the road which formed Bradenstoke High Street became relatively unimportant. In 1968 the Swindon-Chippenharn road was the only main road in the parish.

Two small roads in the parish have been entirely obliterated with the coming of the airfield. One of these led to Lyneham Court Farm, named Ewage Lane, which ran from Barrow End Farm through Barrow End Common past Cranley Farm, then bordering the Lyneham Court estate south and bending east to join the Lyneham to Hilmartion Road towards Freegrove Farm.

On this same ring road, to the western outskirts of the current military estate, another road adjacent to the pumping house was removed which previously led on to Stockham Marsh (Bremhill). The Barrow End route was the main link into Bradenstoke-cum-Clack before the current Bradenstoke Hollow Way juction was built in c1965

The eastern boundary of the parish in 1968 ran along the west side of the minor road known north of West Tockenham as Trow Lane, and to the south as Greenway, thus bringing the west side of Tockenham village street, which lay along this road, into Lyneham.

In 1968 a proposal to move the boundary westwards and thus to include West Tockenham in the parish of Tockenham was being discussed. From this road a small lane turns back westwards past Thickthorn and Preston to Church End. An early-19th-century toll-house stood at this junction and survived until c. 1960.

Tockenham Reservoir, constructed in c. 1810 to feed the Wilts. and Berks. Canal, which had been constructed north of the parish by 1801, lay partly within the parish north-east of Blind Mill. The reservoir was abandoned when the Swindon section of the canal was closed in 1914. In 1968 it was used for boating and fishing.

The two farm-houses at Preston are largely of early 18th-century date although Preston East Farm incorporates a 17th-century building. To the south of Preston West Farm is an older house, now two cottages, of which the principal range was formerly timber-framed and of medieval cruck construction; the remains of two cruck trusses dividing its three bays have survived. A small group of timber-framed thatched cottages stands near the ford at the east end of Preston. Shaw Farm, which lies east of Trow Lane, is an 18th-century building.

The arrival of the R.A.F. Station in 1940 and its consequent housing development have partly obscured the agricultural village of Lyneham, which straddled the Lyneham - Hilmarton road. The nucleus of the village lay to the north, where few houses of various periods were grouped around the village green and others scattered along the Calne Road between the green and Church End.

Lyneham's housing development since the Second World War has been limited for the most part of an area directly west of Church End. In June 1963 the Air Ministry indroduced plans for a regeneration and expansion of accomodation for the forces families and 55 Warrant Officers houses were to be built at Slessor Road for commencement in August 1965. Similarly, plans were were drawn up for 121 lower ranks houses on the same site. In June 1963 27 Officers Married quarters were built arounfthe Pintail Court area. By 1968, new schools surrounded by an R.A.F. housing estate were completed and the extension of the estate lay in the apex of the Preston and Hilmarton roads.

West of the Calne-Lyneham road the parish is now covered by the airfield of R.A.F. Station Lyneham, which stretches the width of the Corallian ridge from Bradenstoke in the north to the northerly edge of Catcomb Wood (Hilmarton), in the south. R.A.F. Station Lyneham, opened in 1940, assumed full status as a station in 1942.

The airfield covered over 1,200 a. in 1968 and was made up of land formerly belonging to Lyneham Court Farm, Church Farm, Cranley Farm, and Bradenstoke Abbey Farm. In 1968 the station was the principal employer of labour within the parish.

Turnpikes and Tolls
For further information and background behind the Turnpike Trust Act and how it affected Lyneham read here