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Bedwin (Great) in Wilts County England History and GeographyBEDWIN (GREAT), a borough and parish, formerly a market town, in the hundred of KINWARDSTONE, county of WILTS, 5½ miles (S.W. by W.) from Hungerford, 23 (N.) from Salisbury, and 70½ (W. by S.) from London, containing, with the tythings of Crofton, Martin, Wilton, Wixcombe and Wolfhall, 1928 inhabitants. This place, supposed by Dr. Stukeley to be the Leucomagus of Ravennas, derives its present name from the Saxon Beeguyn, or Bedgwyn, expressive of its situation on an eminence in a chalky soil. It was anciently a city of great extent, having been the metropolis of Cissa, one of the three sons of ?lla, the Saxon chieftain who invaded Britain in 477. Cissa, when viceroy of Wiltshire and part of Berkshire, is said to have enlarged and strengthened Chisbury Castle, now a noble relic of Saxon earth-work, about a mile to the north-east of the town. In 674, a battle was fought here between Wulfhere, King of Mercia, and Oscuin, a nobleman in the service of Saxburga, Queen of Wessex, in which, after a desperate struggle, the latter was victorious. The soil of Great Bedwin is good, and the general aspect of the country luxuriant. The Kennet and Avon canal passes through the parish, and affords a medium for the conveyance of excellent coal. The market-house is an ancient building, situated in the principal street, but the market has long been disused: fair'' are held, April 23d and July 26th. The town is within the jurisdiction of the county magistrates: a portreeve, who is customarily called mayor, a bailiff, and other officers for its internal regulation, are annually chosen at the court leet of the lord of the manor. This borough sent representatives to all the parliaments of Edward I., from the close of whose reign, to the 9th of Henry V., there were frequent intermissions; but since then it has constantly returned two members. The right of election is vested in the freeholders and inhabitants of the ancient burgage messuages, in number about eighty: the portreeve is the returning officer; and the parliamentary influence is possessed by the Marquis of Aylesbury. The living is a vicarage, in the peculiar jurisdiction of the Dean of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £8. 10. 10., endowed with £400 private benefaction, and £600 parliamentary grant. The Marquis of Aylesbury was patron in 1826. St. Mary's church (the only remaining one of seven which are said to have adorned this ancient city,) appears to have been crected at various times, and exhibits good specimens of all the styles of architecture, from the Norman, to that which prevailed in the time of Henry VIII.: it is a cruciform structure, with a fine embattled tower rising from the intcrsection. Within the mounds of Chisbury Castle, comprising an area of fiftcen acres, are the remains of an ancient chapel, now used as a barn. Half a mile to the south-west, there are some vestiges of a Roman building, but they are now scarcely discoverable. A fine tesselated pavement was preserved here till within the last few years. Dr. Thomas Willis, a celebrated physician, was born here in 1621, and died in London, in 1675. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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