Ni15 John Nicholas, Esquire of Roundway, was the son of John
Nicholas (Ni16) and Alice Enoch
(En16), daughter and coheiress of Thomas Enoch
Born: about 1455
Married: first Alice Cove, daughter of Richard Cove of the Ley, Wiltshire. second Agnes Gore, daughter and coheiress of John Gore of Hinton, Wiltshire. Died: 1502 John Nicholas and Agnes Gore had children:
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As a direct male descendant of the Nicholas Families of Alcannings
and Roundway he was entitled to bear the Nicholas Coat of Arms, as were
his sons and theirs etc.
Motto: Vigilantia et constantia As seen by maj. Griffin Nicholas the original crest for the Roundway branch is "On a chapeau azure ... owl rising or" except for the head of the family, for which "On a chapeau gules ... owl rising or" applies. As the Roundway branch is the senior branch this specialty will only occur in that line and only for the most senior branch. Assuming that Maj. Griffin Nicholas was correct about other more senior lines being without male heir, his line would be entitled to a gules chapeau, if not the Barony "de la Roch of Bromham." The Visitation of 1565
shows The arms arms as quartered, 1 and 4 being "Argent, on a chevron between three ravens Sable,
two lions rampant respecting each other of the field;
2 Gules, a chevron Argent between three garbs Or; 3, Azure, three roaches naiant in pale Argent,
impaling Gyronny of eight Or and Azure, a canton Ermine (Okden)
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Map of Roundway dating 1773. It is difficult to know how to write about
the parish of Roundway, which was only created in 1894. There is a small
Roundway village that was once in Bishops Cannings’ parish and a very strangely
shaped area of land that surrounds the town of Devizes to the north, east
and south of it. Only a narrow isthmus of land connects the northern and
southern parts of the parish and both these areas contain domestic and
commercial buildings that really belong to the town of Devizes. It is likely
that most people living in the parish, other than those actually in Roundway
village consider that they live in the town of Devizes. The parish looks
as though it was created by a bureaucrat who was having a very bad day.
The village is about one mile to the north east of Devizes and is remarkable in having had no church or chapel of ease, no school and having lost its manor house. There are however a complex of roads that led to Bromham, Heddington, Rowde, Devizes and Potterne and it is this complex that suggests the village was once larger than it is today. In the parish itself the highest ground is in the north-east, Roundway Hill at 242 metres and the lowest in the south, at about 116 metres. Roundway Park lies between the village and Devizes, which are connected by Quaker’s Walk passing through the grounds. Mother Anthony’s Well lies at the foot of Roundway Hill, close to Roman settlement in Bromham parish while Drew’s Pond in the south is now part of Devizes, being in the area of Wick that Roundway lost in the late 20th century. |
Earliest indications of inhabitants are the Neolithic round barrows
associated with the Beaker People on Roundway Down. There are also bowl
barrows and the Iron Age hill fort of Oliver’s Camp that is just in Bromham
parish. At first a promontory fort it was later changed to a rectangular
univallate one. A recently discovered Iron Age farmstead near Brickley
Lane became a Roman settlement, possibly with a temple and likely to have
been associated with a villa at Wick Green or Pans Lane. In the Domesday
Book Roundway is included in the large estate of Bishops Cannings and it
is impossible to know what, if any, settlement there was in the modern
parish.
From the late 13th century an estate at Roundway was held by the senior
branch of the Wiltshire Nicholas family. William Nicholas was alive at
the end of the 13th century and the family held the estate until the 18th
century. They built a house, Nicholas Place, which from earthworks shown
on an 18th century map was probably at the north eastern end of Quakers
Walk. The family’s land was in small strips in the open field system, which,
in 1597, comprised East, North and South fields containing many strips
of half an acre or less. In 1634 a survey undertaken by the steward of
the Bishop of Salisbury found that among the tenants there were five freeholders,
two leaseholders and six copyholders. There were also three freeholders
at New Park.
The reason why Roundway has a place in national history occurred during
the Civil War when William Waller’s Parliamentary forces were defeated
on the downs by the Royalists under Lord Wilmot. Waller and Hopton had
fought an inconclusive battle at Lansdown Hill, near Bath, on 5 July 1643
after which Hopton found himself trapped by Waller in Devizes when he was
trying to reach the King’s headquarters at Oxford. With insufficient cavalry
to continue their journey some horsemen succeeded in breaking out of Devizes
to summon help from Oxford. On 11 July a relief force of 1800 cavalry under
Prince Maurice and Lord Wilmot rode for Devizes. When informed of their
approach Waller withdrew his army (1800 – 2500 infantry, 2000 cavalry and
500 dragoons and put them in battle order near the eastern end of Roundway
Down. The Royalists engaged the Parliamentary cavalry before their army
could bring their guns and infantry into the battle and put them to flight.
Many were killed in the deep ditch below the misnamed Oliver’s Castle.
The Parliamentary infantry were demoralised by the flight of their cavalry
and threw down their weapons when Hopton’s infantry marched out of Devizes
through Roundway village. As a result of this battle the port of Bristol
fell to the Royalists a few days later. Quite what the villagers thought
of this is unknown but is to be hoped that they kept themselves well out
of the way; probably cursing both sided impartially for ruining crops and
scattering livestock.
In the first part of the 18th century the Nicolas family vacated their
old manor and moved to New Park, building a house that was to become the
kitchen block of the later New Park. They sold their estate after 1770
to Edward Richmond, whose family were succeeded there by the Willeys, Suttons
and Escourts. In 1780 James Sutton began to rebuild Nicholas House with
the architect James Wyatt. There was a fire in 1792 that seems to have
left no permanent damage and when John Britton wrote about it in 1801 it
was a fine house with landscaped grounds that had been designed by Humphrey
Repton. In 1840 New Park estate was bought by E. F. Colston and it then
became known as Roundway Park. He started to enclose land and caused local
resentment by enclosing Sheep Wash Dell in 1842. A deer park was created,
which in 1892 consisted of 120 acres enclosed by iron fencing containing
about 200 fallow deer.
Most of the parish had been enclosed by an Act of 1794, which was put
into practice in 1812. Thomas Griniston Estcourt of New Place had received
704 acres, leased of the Bishop of Salisbury. One slight puzzle is that
part of the eastern end of Roundway Hill was still known as Windmill Knowl
in 1811 (there had also been windmills in Devizes) but on Andrews’ and
Dury’s map of Wiltshire (1773) there is a Roundway Mill shown on a small
stream to the north of New Place. One cannot feel that the water mill could
have been very effective but it may have succeeded the earlier windmill.
In 1845 apprentice shoemakers from Devizes cut a white horse on Roundway
Down, to the south of Oliver’s Camp; it was known as Snob’s Horse as snob
was the local name for a shoemaker. It later became overgrown and attempts
to restore it in the 20th century failed. A more permanent feature was
established in 1851 when the Wilts County Lunatic Asylum (later Roundway
Hospital) opened. Building had started in the summer of 1849 with stone
from Murhill quarries, near Winsley and slates from Wales; both materials
being transported on the Kennet and Avon Canal which had opened through
the parish in 1810. The building was designed by T. H. Wyatt in the Italian
style, cost £19,594, with a further £1,069 for ironwork, and
the first patients were admitted on 19 September 1851. The well respected
and liberally advanced Dr. Thurnam had been appointed as Medical Superintendent
in March 1849 and he oversaw construction. Owing to a disinclination on
the part of the county authorities to spend too much money the asylum was
too small from the time it was built, and there were extensions and new
buildings in just about every decade except the 1940s. There were 350 patients
by 1860, 449 by 1870 and 976 in 1910. John Thurman, who was also a noted
local archaeologist, died in 1873 but he had set the pattern for compassionate
care and also recognised that many people sent by parish authorities were
not insane but had other problems.
By 1878 the Le Marchant Barracks were completed alongside the main
Devizes to Beckhampton road. They were named after Sir John Gaspard Le
Marchant, who commanded the 99th Regiment of Foot in 1839; with the 62nd
Foot this regiment formed the Wiltshire Regiment in 1881. The Barracks
was the regimental headquarters until 1959 and then became a regimental
museum until this moved to The Close in Salisbury. In 1890 the North Wiltshire
Golf Club laid out its first course on Roundway Hill using a railway coach
as their first club house. The civil parish of Roundway was created in
1894 and comprised part of Bishops Cannings parish and part of the chapelry
of St. James, Southbroom.
The Colstons remained at Roundway Park until 1948 and in 1916 C. E.
H. A. Colston was created the 1st Lord Roundway. A Reading Room of timber
and corrugated iron on a brick foundation was erected by Edward Coward.
From 1937 church services were held here, possibly the first to be held
in the village in its known history. In 1938 the entire village contained
only 30 households plus Roundway Park although the population of the parish
was over 2,600. The population increased further after 1939 with the building
of the Prince Maurice Barracks, mainly wooden huts to the north of Le Marchant
Barracks.
After the war and substantial military activity in the parish, the
2nd Lord Roundway sold Roundway Park. The house, pleasure gardens, kitchen
garden and a paddock were bought by Wiltshire County Council, who used
part of the house for Civil Defence purposes. The land, 1,584 acres, was
sold to the Bristol Merchant Ventures as the trustees of H. H. Wills chantry
for Chronic and Incurable Sufferers. Roundway House was demolished in 1955.
After the war a flax factory was operating on the Devizes road and this
was a forerunner of the business to come in the Hopton Industrial estate
and Garden Industrial estate as the old barracks were cleared in the 1970s
and 1980s. Although the parish boundaries were redrawn in the late 20th
century, taking Southbroom and Wick from Roundway and placing them in Devizes,
new houses were built in other parts of the parish close to Devizes and
the Devizes Marina was created on the canal.
A decision to close Roundway Hospital was taken in 1989 and in 1990
a modern Green Lane Hospital was built in the grounds. The hospital was
finally closed in 1995 and remaining patients accommodated in Green Lane.
The Devizes Millennium project was the cutting of a white horse on Roundway
Hill. Land was made available by farmer Chris Combe and owners the Crown
Commissioners and the work carried out by commercial and voluntary bodies.
The horse measuring about 45 x 45 metres was completed 29 September 1999.