Barford St Martin is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about west of Wilton, around the junction of the A30 and the B3089. Barford is known as one of the Nadder Valley villages, named for the River Nadder which flows through the parish. Grovely Wood forms the northern section of the parish. History Prehistoric sites in the parish include the earthworks known as Ebsbury, an Iron Age settlement, field system and possible hillfort, and a Romano-British enclosed settlement, on a hilltop in the north of the parish which overlooks the Wylye valley. Grovely Ditch or Grim's Ditch, a pre-Roman earthwork, runs through Grovely Wood a little further south. A small settlement called Bereford, with nine households, was recorded in the Domesday Book compiled in 1085–1086. The St Martin suffix, from the dedication of the church, was added by 1304 to distinguish it from Barford manor in Downton parish. Amesbury Priory acquired 78 acres in 1197, and continued to hold that manor until the Dissolution in 1539. Grovely Wood, between Barford and Great Wishford, was an extra-parochial area. By 1839, the boundary of Barford parish had moved north to include almost all of the woodland. In 1884, the hamlet of Hurdcott – on the south side of the river upstream of Barford, with population 67 in 1891 – was transferred to Barford parish from Baverstock. Hurdcott is no longer a placename but the name lives on in Hurdcott Home Farm and Hurdcott House (not to be confused with the Hurdcott House near Winterbourne Earls). Greensand stone for use in buildings has long been quarried near Hurdcott, and the quarry (now operated by Lovell Stone Group) is one of the few remaining sources. Parish church The Church of England parish church of St Martin, in the centre of the village, is a cruciform building with a crossing tower, built mostly in greensand. It stands on a man-made earth bank above the Nadder water-meadows. The 13th-century chancel is the building's oldest part, although the narrowness of the later nave implies the presence of an earlier building. The nave roof is from the 16th century, and the tower (rebuilt in the 15th) carries evidence of a steeper earlier roof. The north transept was rebuilt in 1841 to provide a vestry, and in the 20th century a vestibule was added at the west entrance. The church was designated as Grade I listed in