History of Wiltshire
The English conquest of the district now known as Wiltshire began in 552 AD with the victory of Saxon Cynric over the native Britons at Old Sarum, by which the way was opened to Salisbury Plain.
Four years later, pushing his way through the Vale of Pewsey, Cynric extended the limits of the West Saxon kingdom to the Marlborough Downs by a victory at Barbury Hill.
[1] With the redistribution of estates after the Norman Conquest more than two-fifths of the county fell into the hands of the church; the possessions of the Crown covered one-fifth; while among the chief lay proprietors were Edward of Salisbury, William, Count of Eu, Ralf de Mortimer, Aubrey de Vere II, Robert Fitzgerald, Miles Crispin, Robert d'Oily and Osbern Giffard.
[1] The Benedictine foundations at Wilton, Malmesbury and Amesbury existed before the Conquest; the Augustinian Bradenstoke Priory was founded by Walter d'Évreux in 1142; that at Lacock by Ela, countess of Salisbury, in 1232; that at Longleat by Sir John Vernon before 1272.
[1] A noticeable feature in the 14th century is the aggregation of church manors into distinct hundreds, at the court of which their ecclesiastical owners required their tenants to do suit and service.
The efforts of the Marquess of Hertford and of Lord Seymour to raise a party for the king met with vigorous resistance from the inhabitants.
However, the Royalists made some progress in the early stage of the struggle against the Roundheads, with Marlborough being captured for the king in 1642, while in 1643 the forces of the Earl of Essex were routed by Charles I and Prince Rupert at the Battle of Aldbourne Chase.
[1] In 1645, the Clubmen of Dorset and Wiltshire, whose sole object was peace, systematically punished any member of either party discovered in acts of plunder.
His commander in chief, the Earl of Feversham, advised retreat on 23 November, and the next day John Churchill deserted to William.
[6] At the time of the Domesday Survey the industrial pursuits of Wiltshire were almost exclusively agricultural; 390 mills are mentioned, and vineyards at Tollard Royal and Lacock.
Wiltshire at this time was already reckoned among the chief of the clothing counties, the principal centres of the industry being Bradford-upon-Avon, Malmesbury, Trowbridge, Devizes and Chippenham.
Hindon, Heytesbury and Wootton Bassett were enfranchised in the 15th century, and at the time of the Reform Act 1832 the county with sixteen boroughs returned a total of thirty-four members.
Under the latter act Great Bedwyn, Downton, Heytesbury, Hindon, Ludgershall, Old Sarum and Wootton Bassett were disfranchised, and Calne, Malmesbury, Westbury and Wilton lost one member each.
Among the most remarkable are Vespasian's Camp, near Amesbury; Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Europe, near Avebury; the mounds of Marlborough and Old Sarum; the "camps" of Battlesbury and Scratchbury, near Warminster; Yarnbury, to the north of Wylye, in good preservation; Casterley, on a ridgeway near Devizes; White Sheet hill; Chisbury, near Savernake; Sidbury, near Ludgershall; and Figsbury Ring, northeast of Salisbury.
Bokerley Dyke, which forms a part of the boundary between Wiltshire and Dorset, is the largest among several similar entrenchments, and has also a ditch north of the rampart.
[9] In April 2022, metal detectorists announced the discovery of two 4000 year-old Bronze Age axe heads on land owned by a farmer.
Monkton Farleigh had its Cluniac priory, founded as a cell of Lewes in the 13th century, and represented by some outbuildings of the manor house.
[9] The finest churches of Wiltshire, generally Perpendicular in style, were built in the districts where good stone could be obtained, while the architecture is simpler in the chalk region where flint was used.
Early English architecture is illustrated by Salisbury Cathedral, its purest and most beautiful example; and, on a smaller scale, at Amesbury, Bishops Cannings, Boyton, Collingbourne Kingston, Downton and Potterne.
[9] Bishopstone has the finest Decorated church in the county, with a curious external cloister and unique south chancel doorway, recessed beneath a stone canopy.
The ruins of Wardour castle, standing in a richly wooded park near Tisbury, date from the 14th century, and consist of a hexagonal outer wall of great height, enclosing an open court; two towers overlook the entrance.
Few parishes, especially in the north west of the county, are without their old manor house, usually converted into a farm, but preserving its flagged floor, stone-mullioned windows, gabled front, sometimes two-storeyed porch and oak-panelled interior.
