History of Wiltshire

This volume relates the history of the 15 parishes in Kinwardstone hundred in east Wiltshire. The hundred lay between two medieval royal forests, Savernake and Chute. It is generally fertile and was devoted to sheep-and-corn husbandry. Each of c. 45 villages and hamlets in it had its own set of open fields and its own common pasture, and there is evidence of colonization from some of the larger villages. Much of the common pasture was inclosed in the 17th century, most of the open fields were inclosed in the 18th. Outside the villages new farmsteads were built on downland in the 19th century, and in many of the villages in the later 10th century the sites of farmsteads were used for new housing. The largest villages are Great Bedwyn, which was an early borough and retains a small market square, Pewsey, which had a market in the 19th century and became a local shopping centre in the 20th, and Burbage. Only 12 parish churches stood in the hundred in the Middle Ages, when most of their revenues were taken by religious houses and prebendaries of Salisbury cathedral; their parishes were large and most villages lacked a church. Five new churches were built in the 19th century. A great estate in the hundred was accumulated by Protector Somerset, whose descendants built Tottenham House in parkland on the edge of Savernake forest. Notable among other secular buildings in the hundred is the red-brick almshouse for 50 widows which was built at Froxfield in the 1690s. Parishes include: Great Bedwyn (including Grafton), Little Bedwyn, Burbage, Buttermere, Chilton foliat, Chute, Chute forest, Collingbourne Kingston, Easton, Froxfield, Milton Lilbourne, Pewsey, Savernake, Tidcombe (and Fosbury), Wootton rivers.