A History of Wiltshire

Volume XI contains the histories of two scat-tered hundreds. The parishes of Downton hundred are ranged along the southern county boundary, and those of Elstub and Everleigh hundred are centred on Enford in the Avon valley but have outliers throughout Wiltshire. Downton hundred represents the Wiltshire lands of the see of Winchester, Elstub and Everleigh the estates administered by the cathedral priory of St. Swithun, Winchester. Though lacking geographical cohesion, both hundreds are characterized by open downland and chalk streams. Much downland on either side of the Avon valley is now in Ministry of Defence ownership and Everleigh Manor is an army research laboratory. The downs and rivers have always afforded good sport. Cours-ing was formerly popular at Netheravon and Everleigh. Racehorses are still trained at Wroughton. Downton and Hindon, a 'new town' of the early 13th century, were local market centres. Both were parliamentary boroughs until 1832-. Some industries have been of more than local importance. At Westwood on the Somerset border limestone was quarried and woollen cloth and other textiles were made from the Middle Ages until the Second World War. Old Court at Avoncliff, later used as a work-house, was built to house textile workers c.1792. Sarsens cut at Overton in the Kennet valley were supplied to a wide market from the mid 19th century to the mid 20th. Tanning has flourished at Downton since the 17th century. Watercress for London, Bristol, and Plymouth has been grown in Bishopstone since 1890. Country houses include Standlynch, renamed Trafalgar, House, the nation's gift to Nelson's heirs in 1815, and Ham Spray House on the Berkshire border, the home of Lytton Strachey and the painter Dora Carrington in the 1920s.