Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for BEDWIN, or Bedwyn (Great)

BEDWIN, or Bedwyn (Great), a small old town and a parish in the district of Hungerford and county of Wilts. The town stands on the Kennet and Avon canal, Adjacent to the Hungerford and Devizes railway, near Wans Dyke, 5 miles SW of Hungerford; and has a station on the railway. It is supposed to have been the Leucomagus of the Romans; and it was the Bedgwyn or Bedewind of the Saxons. It was the residence of Cissa, the Saxon viceroy of Wilts and Berks; and the scene, in 675, of a desperate battle between the forces of W essex and those of Mercia. It enjoyed the privileges of a city under the Saxons; and retained them after the Conquest. It was a borough by prescription; and sent two members to parliament from the time of Edward I. till disfranchised by the act of 1832. It has an old-fashioned market house, which has ceased to be used, an ancient church, and a dissenting chapel. The church is cruciform, mixedly Norman and English, and built of flint; was restored in 1854; has a fine central tower; shows curious sculpturings on its round pillars, and rich Norman decorations on its obtusely-pointed arches; and contains interesting monuments of the Stokes and the Seymours. The town has a post office under Hungerford, and fairs on 23 April and 26 July. Dr. Willis, a physician of the 17th century, who founded a philosophical society at Oxford, the germ of the Royal Society of London, was a native.—The parish includes also the tythings of Crofton and Wolfhall, East and West Grafton, Martin, Wexcombe, and Wilton. Acres, 10,420. Real property, £10,965. Pop., 2,263. Houses, 435. The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged once to the Earl of Clare, and belongs now to the Marquis of Ailesbury. Castle Hill, about a mile S of the town, takes name from an ancient entrenchment in which large quantities of Roman bricks and tiles have been found. Chisbury, on Wans Dyke, 1 ¼. mile N by E of the town, is a very fine Saxon camp of 15 acres, with rampart 45 feet high; and encloses an ancient chapel, in decorated English, now used as a barn. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; and, till 1864, was united with another charge. Value, £212. Patron, the Marquis of Ailesbury. The vicarages of East Grafton and Savernake-Forest are separate benefices. There is a Wesleyan chapel at Wilton. Charities, £37.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small old town and a parish"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Great Bedwyn AP/CP       Wiltshire AncC
Place names: BEDWIN     |     BEDWIN GREAT     |     BEDWIN OR BEDWYN GREAT     |     BEDWYN     |     BEDWYN GREAT     |     GREAT BEDWIN     |     GREAT BEDWYN
Place: Great Bedwyn

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