Collingbourne Kingston

Collingbourne Kingston is a village and civil parish about 8 miles (13 km) south of the market town of Marlborough in Wiltshire, England.

It is in the area of Wiltshire Council unitary authority, which performs most significant local government functions.

The parish originally contained Collingbourne Kingston, Aughton, Brunton, Sunton, and part of Cadley hamlet.

The 13th and 14th centuries gave the church its ornate chancel arch, with four depths of moulded spandrels and foliage capitals set on Purbeck marble piers.

An engraving of the church in 1806 shows the original lower ridge of the nave roof, giving a better proportion to its relationship with the fine tower with its carved pinnacles and strange gargoyles.

At that time there were only four round clerestory windows on each side of the north and south walls of the nave.

In the 1860s the roof was raised and the clerestory windows increased to six on each side;[6] Pevsner writes "The clerestory windows, however, are Victorian, of an oddly playful kind, quite out of keeping with the church or Wiltshire – pentagon and hexagon surrounds and cinquefoils and sexfoils".

[6] The church is a Grade II* listed building[8] and today forms part of the Savenake grouping of parishes.

[10] In 1943 a Spitfire aircraft crashed in the village, destroying the roof of a thatched cottage.

The American pilot serving with the Air Transport Auxiliary, Hazel Jane Raines, was injured.