Teffont Evias is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Teffont, on the Nadder valley in the south of Wiltshire, England. Edric Holmes described the village as "most delightfully situated",Wanderings in Wessex. An Exploration of the Southern Realm from Itchen to Otter p249. London: Robert Scott. 1922, no ISBN. Accessed 1 May 2020 via Project Gutenberg and Maurice Hewlett included Teffont in his list of the half dozen most beautiful villages in England. The present buildings are mostly of local stone, and several are thatched.
The civil parish was combined in 1934 with neighbouring Teffont Magna to form a united Teffont parish.
Location Teffont Evias lies northeast of the large village of Tisbury and west of Wilton. The southern boundary of both the former Teffont Evias parish, and the modern Teffont parish, is the River Nadder. The village street follows the perennial stream, which rises at Spring Head at the north end of Teffont Magna, and flows some 2.5 km south to its debouchement into the River Nadder.
Geology
Purbeck limestone underlies almost all of the parish, with a ridge of Cretaceous Upper Greensand. Teffont Evias Quarry and Lane Cutting is protected as a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest, where fossils include some of the best Purbeck fish, with crocodile, turtle, and insect remains.Needham John E. (2011) Forests of the Dinosaurs. Wiltshire's Jurassic Finale. s.v. Teffont. , Hobnob Press, East Knoyle The Chilmark Quarries extend under Teffont and some of the disused entrances are within Teffont parish.
In the 13th century, Teffont Evias's quarries of Purbeck limestone at the southern end of the former parish were the source of much of the freestone used in the building of Salisbury Cathedral.Sylvanus Urban, wd., The Gentleman's Magazine, and Historical Chronicle (1830), p. 105 online at books.google.com
History
A silver stater of the pre-Roman Durotriges tribe has been found in Teffont which may have been near the boundary of Durotrigian territory.
There is an extensive sacred site and settlement, with much Roman-period material but possibly started well before the Roman arrival, on the ridge to the west of the village.https://teffontarchaeology.com/
At least two Roman cists were found in the quarry in Blackfurlong wood, some 200 metres west of the church. Their whereabouts are now unknown.Roman Cist Found At Teffont Quarry. Date: 1950s Location: Teffont, Wiltshire. Reference: P35140. Type: Photograph (Print) https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/P35140 Date: 1940. Location: Teffont, Wiltshire. Reference: P35139. Type: Photograph (Print) https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/item/P35139
The modern name derives from "Teo", an old Germanic word meaning a boundary, and the Late Latin word "fontana", meaning a spring of water.
Early Saxon remains have not been found to the west of the stream, and the original boundary may have separated the Romano-British from the Anglo-Saxons.Bruce Eagles, in Roman Wiltshire and After: Papers in Honour of Ken Annable, ed. Peter Ellis. Publisher: Wiltshire Archaeological & Natural History Society. Date September 2001. , The "Ewyas" element derives from Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire's Golden Valley, the main seat of Alfred of Marlborough, lord of Tefonte at the time of Domesday Book. From Saxon times the village has been generally on the valley bottom along the course of the stream.
For administration, including punishment of misconduct, the village formed part of Dunworth hundred; in 1502 its tithingman was presented to the hundred court for not carrying a staff as precedent required.
According to Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–1872): The civil parishes of Teffont Magna and Teffont Evias were combined on 1 April 1934 to form Teffont parish. The population of Teffont Evias in 1931 had been 98.
Buildings
These are scattered along the valley of the south-flowing stream and the road, in irregular clumps giving views of the woods and fields. There are several workers' cottages in vernacular styles, some with carved dates in the 1600s. The house known as Bridges, built in the 18th century and extended and altered in 1842, was the rectory until 1939. William and Emily Fane de Salis paid for the building of a small school in the 1860s (closed in 1876 after Teffont Magna school opened) and opposite it, in 1883, a pair of almshouses that now form Acacia Cottage.
Teffont House This Grade II listed dower house links the cottages with the manor house and church.https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1146271?section=official-list-entry A plaque gives the initials of Augustine E Hayter, and the date 1623. In 1837–8 John Thomas Mayne extended the house and gave it its roof in the style of a Swiss chalet, with wide eaves supported by brackets; it was called the Swiss Cottage until 1947. Mrs Howard ran a guest house there in the 1920s and 1930s, it was a private residence named Howards House until 1969, and a hotel from 1972.Jane Freeman, Janet H Stevenson, 'Parishes: Teffont Evias', in A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 13, South-West Wiltshire: Chalke and Dunworth Hundreds, ed. D A Crowley (London, 1987), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/wilts/vol13/pp185-195 [accessed 27 June 2026]. In 2026 it reopened as Teffont House Hotel.Hurrah! A stylish UK hotel where rooms are absurdly good value. Susan d’Arcy, Friday June 26 2026. The Sunday Times. https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/uk-travel/england/teffont-house-salisbury-wiltshire-hotel-review-zftqfbpcl/
Manor house The manor house and its adjoining church date largely from the 15th century, with significant embellishments and extensions especially in the 19th century. For two years, about 1839-1840, the Manor house was rented to Grantley Berkeley, who described it asBerkeley F. Grantley. Reminiscences of a huntsman. By the Honourable Grantley F. Berkeley. With illustrations by Leech. Chapter 10, pages 195-196. 1854 London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman. https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesofh00berk/page/194/mode/2up accessed 26 Jan 2025. He also reported that the rest of the village at the time had "no place fit to put a decently-nurtured dog in".Berkeley F. Grantley. Reminiscences of a huntsman. By the Honourable Grantley F. Berkeley. With illustrations by Leech. Chapter 10, pages 195-196. 1854 London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman. https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesofh00berk/page/205/mode/2up accessed 26 Jan 2025.
To the east of the manor house a former lodge from early in the 19th century is in rubble stone under a thatched roof.
Church
The Anglican Church of St Michael and All Angels is Grade II* listed. The present building, in local rubble stone and ashlar with a tiled roof, is largely a rebuilding of 1824–26 to designs of Charles Fowler, at the expense of John Mayne. A church is first mentioned in the 12th century but the structure prior to the rebuilding was from the 16th and 17th; the Ley family's north chapel of 1630 was retained while the chancel and nave were rebuilt with higher walls, a north aisle was added, and the northwest tower was built. The buttressed tower has three stages and a parapet with four spirelets; between 1830 and 1843 a tall recessed spire was added.
Pevsner writes: "It is an impressive steeple, and indeed an impressive church, rising on the lawn of the Manor House".
Interior Inside are effigies and tombs of Henry Ley (d. 1574) and his two sons, and an early 19th-century reredos. Sir Walter Raleigh mentions the church of "Tevont Evias" in his Discoverie of Guiana (1596), in connection with the Ley family.Joyce Lorimer, ed., Sir Walter Ralegh's Discoverie of Guiana, p. 308 online at books.google.com Windows have pieces of medieval glass and 17th-century roundels. The three bells were cast in the 17th century. A royal heraldic achievement, dating from 1675, painted on wooden boards, is displayed facing the main entrance.https://archive.org/details/wiltshirearchaeo48hage/page/116/mode/2up The royal heraldic achievements in the churches of Wiltshire. By Professor Edward Fawcett, F.R.S., M.D. Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine. Published by C. H. Woodward, Exchange Buildings, Station Road, Devizes. Volume XLVIII page 116.
There is also a marble tarsia panel by Henri de Triqueti, who went on to work in the Albert Memorial Chapel at Windsor Castle. Installed in 1863, the panel was commissioned by Emily Fane de Salis and depicts the choir of angels.
Parish The rectory was united in 1922 with the newly created benefice of Teffont Magna (until then a chapelry of Dinton), retaining the rectory house at Teffont Evias. The benefice was held in plurality with Dinton from 1952. In 1979 the benefice became part of a group ministry, today called the Nadder Valley team and covering fourteen parishes with sixteen churches. The church's parish registers survive in the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre for the following dates: christenings 1684–1991, marriages 1701–1994, and burials 1683–1991.Teffont Evias at genuki.org.uk. Retrieved 9 November 2010.
In 1914, the Reverend Sir Douglas Edward Scott, 7th Baronet, was appointed as the parish's rector. Shortly afterwards he was declared bankrupt and his rectorship terminated; four years later, he was convicted of bigamy and imprisoned.
Governance Teffont Evias is now part of the parish of Teffont, which has a parish council and is in the area of the Wiltshire Council, a unitary authority which is responsible for almost all significant local government functions. For Westminster elections, it falls within the Salisbury constituency.
Proprietors of the manor Thomas Hungerford (d.1397) bought a 114-acre estate at Teffont Evias in 1377–8. The estate continued in the Hungerford family but after the attainder in 1461 of Robert Hungerford, 3rd Baron Hungerford it was granted to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later Richard III. The attainder was reversed in 1485 and the manor was restored to Walter Hungerford of Farleigh (d.1516). His grandson Walter, later 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, inherited in 1522 but in 1540 he was attainted by an act of Parliament (32 Hen. 8. c. 61 ) and executed for treason, sorcery, and offences forbidden by the Buggery Act 1533 (25 Hen. 8. c. 6), with his estate forfeited to the Crown.Parliament Roll, 31 & 32 Henry VIII, m. 42. In Harrison, William Jerome (1891). "Hungerford, Walter (1503–1540)". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography 28. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 259–261.
The Crown granted the manor to Henry Ley (d.1574), whose descendant James – created Earl of Marlborough in 1626 – sold it to John Ashe in 1652. In 1665 Ashe made "a pretty vineyard of about six acres" in Teffont.The natural history of Wiltshire : written between 1656 and 1691. Edited, and elucidated by notes, by John Britton, F.S.A. Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society, 1847 p. 104 https://archive.org/details/naturalhistoryof00aubruoft/page/104/mode/2up accessed 27 Jan 2025 His grandson sold the estate to Christopher Mayne in 1692, and ownership continued in the Mayne family until 1907.