Heath Avenue, The Park

About 50 years ago, most of Manor Farm on the north of the High Street was sold off to build a factory which processed chickens for selling in supermarkets. Then the chicken factory was sold, at about the same time as Hazelwood Farm was sold, and all the houses known as The Park were built.

The large building on the left is the only old building on The Park, and is over 100 years old. When it was built it was known as 'Park View', and during the early 1800s was the home of Major General George Bowness, an Indian Army officer who retired to Sutton Benger. Later it was the home of Joseph Hull, a Grocer and Wine Merchant with a shop where La Flambé dining room is now. It was then the home of Henry Beauchamp Harrison, the Land Agent or manager of the Draycot Estate. After the Estate Sale in 1920 it was sold as one of the biggest houses in the village, and became known as ‘Stoneleigh’. It was divided into flats in about 1950, and then became the offices for the chicken factory. It has now been renamed as 'The Old Gatehouse' and is a family home once again.

Most villages in the 1800s and early 1900s had their own village policeman. The first one recorded in Sutton Benger was Constable Richard Ellery, in 1820. He was a part-time policeman, who combined the job with his normal profession as a baker. The role became more professional from around the 1840s, and the Censuses show that there were policemen in the village throughout the 1800s, but at a number of different locations. Wherever the policeman lived, with his family, was effectively 'the police station'.

From about 1915 the situation became more formal, and there was a more permanent police station established; it was on the south side of the road at the house now known as The Old Police House. Different police constables lived there with their families for over 50 years until 1975, when the last village policeman moved to Chippenham and the house was sold.