Short History of Stratton St Margaret

Stratton St Margaret, once a small village, has now become the north east corner of Swindon and is rapidly losing any semblance of the village community that it once was.  The area of the parish was originally much larger than it is now.  Most of Gorse Hill was part of the parish until it was taken into Swindon in 1890 and a large part of the housing estate of Penhill was once fields in Stratton St Margaret.

Stratton derives its name form the Latin, strata (a paved way or street) after the old Roman road which goes through the parish from east to west.  In the Domesday Survey of 1086, the name is shown as Stratone, when the parish was in the possession of Nigel, the physician of William the Conqueror.  The village consisted of three hamlets - The Street, the area around Green Road and Dores Road and including the few houses at Kingsdown; and Stratton Green, mainly around Tilleys Lane.  Footpaths and coffin-ways joined the hamlets.

The parish church of St Margaret dates back to the 13th century, with many later additions, including partial rebuilding in the middle of the last century.  Amongst the interesting churchyard tombs is one to Sir William Hedges who was president of an East India Company in the 17th century.  He lived where the Crematorium now stands.  The church registers date from 1608.  Near the church once stood an Elizabethan style tythe barn, mainly of wooden construction, and the village pound and the small parochial school.  The main tythe barn stood near Parsonage Farm in Swindon Road (both now demolished).