A Brief History of Pucklechurch

Information provided by courtesy of Ann E. Wilson of Court Farm, Pucklechurch © 2001

The village was prominent in early Saxon times and was the setting for the murder of Edmund, a young Saxon king of Wessex, whilst his son some years later was crowned in nearby Bath Abbey as King of Northumbria, Mercia, East Anglia and Wessex, thus uniting all the Saxon kingdoms and so becoming the first King of all England.

The Elizabethan and Stuart eras brought the building of houses to the village. The influential and important Denis family, who held the manor of Pucklechurch until the 18th century, brought important visitors and even, reputedly, William III, himself, enroute from Bristol to Badminton, after the Battle of the Boyne.

By 1718 the village was endowed with a school for the education of 10 poor boys and 10 poor girls of the Parish, this being due to the charity of the Vicar the Revd. Henry Berrow, who was the first of several benefactors of Pucklechurch.

A hundred years later by 1848, great social changes came to the Parish with the founding of the colliery at Parkfield by Handel Cossham. This brought much employment and Handel Cossham, being a man of compassion, endeavoured to care for his workers by building houses and a school at Parkfield. In 1893 the school had to be closed during a period of depression. To accommodate the influx of Parkfield Children to the village school, a new school building for Infant children was built on Parkfield Road in 1895. This still stands and is now a private dwelling.

1894 saw another change in village life with the election of the first Parish Council, thus breaking the old feudal tradition of administration by the Churchwardens. The beginnings of local government in Pucklechurch were achieved, but not without a degree of controversy at the time.

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[This information was contributed by Ann E. Wilson, of Court Farm, Pucklechurch: 5 Mar 2001]