Downton, Wiltshire

Description
Downton, a small town, a parish, and a hundred in Wilts. The town stands on the river Avon, with a station on the L. & S.W.R., 90 miles from London, and 6^ SSE of Salisbury, under which it has a post, money order, and telegraph office. It carries on brick-making, malting, tanning, paper-making, basket-making, and wool-sorting, has fairs on 23 April and 2 Oct., and was formerly a market-town. It is a borough by prescription, and it sent two members to Parliament till disfranchised by the Reform Act of 1832. It was a royal manor, bestowed by Kenwalch in 650 upon his new church at Winchester. The Bishops of Winchester were lords of the manor until recent times, when it passed by purchase to the Earl of Radnor. It possessed importance in the Saxon times, and contains a grand antiquity called the Moot. This includes extensive earthworks of singular struc-tnre, originally a British defensive work: a large central conical mound, terraced to form a place where Saxon parliaments or courts of justice were held, whence its name "Moot" is derived. It is maintained in good preservation and is surrounded by an old-fashioned garden. Downton has an ancient stone cross called the Borough Cross, also three bridges, a, fine old church, and five dissenting chapels. The seat of the bishops stood at a place called Old Court, and was thrice visited by King John. The church is cruciform, has a fine chancel and a central tower, dates partly from the time of Henry I., underwent restoration in I860, and contains a very ancient font and interesting monuments of the Dun-combes, the Fevershams, and others. The old parsonage, a. structure of the time of Elizabeth or of James I., was long the residence of the Raleighs, and was the birthplace of Dean Raleigh, the nephew of Sir Walter, and that also of Admiral Sir Roger Curtis, the hero of Gibraltar. The parish includes the tithings of Charlton, Wick and Walton, Borough, Church, East Downton, and Hamptworth, and comprises an area of 12,494 acres ; population of the civil parish, 3430; of the ecclesiastical, 2151. The Moot House was the seat of the Shuckburghs. Barford, now pulled down, was the residence of the Lords Feversham, and passed by purchase to Earl Nelson. Trafalgar House, Earl Nelsons seat, is adjacent to Barford. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelry of Nunton, in the diocese of Salisbury; joint net value, £196. Patron, Winchester College. the vicarages of Charlton and Redlynch are separate benefices within the civil parish. Downton, East. See preceding article. Downton Hall, the seat of the Cockburn family, 1 mile E of New Radnor, in Radnorshire.