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Aldbourn (St. Michael)

ALDBOURN (St. Michael), a parish, and formerly a market-town, in the union of Hungerford, hundred of Selkley, Marlborough and Ramsbury, and N. divisions of Wilts, 6 miles (N. E.) from Marlborough; containing 1556 inhabitants. The name is compounded of the Saxon terms Ald, old, and bourne, a brook. Aidbourn anciently gave name to a royal chase, granted by Henry VIII. to Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and which for a long period served only as a rabbit-warren, but is now inclosed and cultivated. Previously to the battle of Newbury, in the reign of Charles I., a sharp skirmish took place here between the parliamentarian forces and the royalists. In 1760, a fire consumed seventy-two houses; and in 1817, twenty were destroyed by a similar calamity. The parish comprises 8495a. 3r. 19p., of which 5037 acres are arable, 839 meadow and pasture, and 226 woodland; the surface generally is undulated, and the quality of the soil is various, presenting a sand-gritty substance together with red clayey gravel and black turfy mould, and in some places chalk and flint. The town is situated in a fertile valley; it has a willow-factory for bonnet frames, in which about 100 females are employed. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £26. 6. 3.; patron, the Bishop of Salisbury; appropriators, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester. The great tithes have been commuted for £1475, and the small tithes for £210: the rectorial glebe comprises about 120 acres; the vicarial consists chiefly of allotments made under an act of parliament, and is valued at £262 per annum. The church, an ancient structure exhibiting portions in the Norman style, has a tower erected at the cost of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and the southern part of the vicarage-house is supposed to be the remains of a hunting seat which belonged to him. There is a place of worship for Wesleyans. Near a farmhouse called Pierce's Lodge, are vestiges of a British encampment; and in the neighbourhood may be seen various artificial mounds of earth.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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