A small persistent stream runs through it approximately northwest to southeast, from the dip slope of the Cotswolds to join the river near the southern parish boundary.

There is also road access from Holt to Great Chalfield, Broughton Gifford, Bradford Leigh, and South Wraxall.

The wood was formerly part of The Hall Estate, owned by the inventor and bicycle designer Alex Moulton.

[5] Although there are no major prehistoric or neolithic finds in the parish, there is evidence to suggest that human habitation has persisted in Holt since the Bronze and Iron Ages.

[6][4] From about 1001 AD, Holt was a tithing in the manor of Bradford, given by Æthelred the Unready to the Abbess of Shaftesbury by a charter now in the British Museum where it is probably the place referred to as Wrindesholt.

At least four wells – The Old, The New, The Great Nose, and Harris's – were sunk, and under the guidance of the local nobility and clergy, the operation became a commercial enterprise from 1723.

[citation needed] The proprietor, Henry Eyre, claimed in 1731 that the waters had the ability to cure King’s Evil, ulcers, leprosy, scrophula, piles, itching of the skin, colic, giddiness of the head and other ailments.

A pair of Tuscan columns from the Spa House entrance and a well pump were saved from demolition and incorporated in the new factory building.

[12] This memorial, together with a marble tablet dedicated to Lady Lisle and the Reverend John Lewis, whose patronage made the wells famous from 1720, are all that remain of the spa.

This had expanded under new ownership by the end of the eighteenth century to become a five-story factory with a large water wheel and steam engine.

[16] The factory expanded further but was a casualty of the collapse of the English woollen industry in the nineteenth century and was demolished in 1890.

[17][18] During the Second World War, the Beavens held contracts to produce linings for flying jackets and gloves for the RAF.

Since 1995, the company has existed as an Anglo-European wholesaler of car care products, including chamois leather, but manufacturing in Holt ended in 1990.

In the 1830s, the Sawtell family, feather merchants by trade, established a bedding factory in the village, on the site of the old spa.

In 1848, the Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway Company opened their line southward from Thingley Junction near Chippenham, at first only as far as Westbury.

Holt Junction station opened to passengers in 1874, although the only access from the village was by footpath; in 1877 a road connection was made and a goods shed was added, from which the wares of Beavens and Sawtells were exported.

Holt formed part of the ancient hundred of Bradford,[23] which was divided into civil parishes in 1894.

[32] Today the church is part of the benefice of Broughton Gifford, Great Chalfield and Holt.

[33] A small non-conformist chapel was built in 1813 and enlarged in 1846, creating a two-storey building with a schoolroom on the ground floor.

A new larger building, in stone and with a tower, was begun in 1880 on the same site; the older chapel continued in use as a school until 1962 and later became a church hall.

It was later held by the Baron St Amend, and then the de Lisle family[40] until it was sold to Simon Burton, Royal Physician in Ordinary to the King, in the 1740s.

[43] In the centre of the village is The Courts, a Grade II* listed country house from the early 18th century.

Other features in The Courts include the Sundial Lawn, another disused village pump and a folly temple.