As traffic form London speeds towards Junction 17 on the M4, about four miles north-east of Chippenham, it cuts through the remnants of Draycot Park. In a quiet valley to the south lie the Park's ancient church, its lawns, shrubbery and lake. But the large Georgian house is no more.

The Estate lay in the Avon valley - Draycot Cerne, Sutton Benger, Seagry and Kington Langley. This is the land of John Aubrey, Francis Kilvert and the Tanners' Wiltshire Village.

From medieval knights to the inheritors of a monastic land, here were murders, ghostly hands and bitter family feuds, Montague and Capulet style. Loyalty to the Crown was well rewarded with property and a steady rise up the aristocratic hierarchy. Decline set in when a young heiress refused the corpulent Duke of Clarence but preferred instead to marry the handsome young nephew of the Duke of Wellington. She could have been Queen of England but died a broken woman 13 years later.

Through Victorian Lords to Edwardian Princes, this is a story of great families. But the villagers are not forgotten and there is plenty for the genealogist searching for ancestors among the Draycot Estate workers.

IBSN 1 093341 72 6      ELSP
The book is available at Chippenham Town Library Local History Section, Wiltshire Heritage Museum Library and the Wiltshire and Swindon Record Office.