The hamlet is about 1.9 miles (3 km) from the centre of Calne, dispersed around a crossroads; one minor road leads east to Calstone Wellington, another south over higher ground to Bishops Cannings and Devizes.

[4] In the late 12th century the manor was held by Richard de Canville, governor of Cyprus, who died in 1191 during the Third Crusade at the Siege of Acre.

His son Gerard (d. 1214) married Nicola de la Haie (c.1150–1230) who brought Lincolnshire estates to the family.

The Wiltshire Victoria County History traces the later owners, including Thomas Maundrell, who built Blackland House in the 1760s.

[2] The present substantial structure is a rebuilding of 1800-1810 in red brick with stone windows, and retains its iron waterwheel.

The formal north and south fronts have five windows; the north has a centre bay with pediment and lunette, and 1858 additions to the ground floor; on the south (garden) side the central doorway has a pair of Doric columns, and the house overlooks a small lake made by damming the Marden.

[14] The present owners, who run a floristry business from the former coach house,[15] restored two walled gardens and planted 15,000 tulips.

[17] Just east of the house is a two-storey stable block with a large central dovecote, built in rubble stone in the mid-18th-century.

[18] A lodge at the north-west entrance to the grounds, on the London-Bath road, was built in squared ashlar in the mid to late 19th century.

The work included buttressing the addition, remodelling it as an aisle and moving the porch to that side, as well as changes to the nave windows and re-fronting of the west gallery.

[21] Today the parish is part of the Marden Vale benefice, alongside St Mary and Holy Trinity at Calne, and the churches of Bremhill, Derry Hill and Foxham.