Enford (All Saints)

ENFORD (All Saints), a parish, in the union of Pewsey, hundred of Elstub and Everley, Everley, Pewsey, and S. divisions of Wilts, 6 miles (N.) from Amesbury; comprising the tythings of Chisenbury, Compton, Coombe, Enford, Fifield, Littlecott, LongStreet, and Newtown; and containing 797 inhabitants, of whom 187 are in the tything of Enford. This place, called in the Domesday survey Enedford, of which its present name is a contraction, is supposed from its situation near a ford across the river Avon, which connects the line of road from Warminster to Everley, to have derived that appellation from Avon-ford. The parish is on the border of Salisbury Plain, and comprises 7050 acres of good arable and pasture land; the soil is generally a light loam mingled with flints, and resting upon a deep stratum of pure solid chalk, which is used for building and for burning into lime. The village is pleasantly seated on the Avon, which abounds with trout, and, receiving various streams in its course towards Salisbury, falls into the Channel at Christchurch. The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £19. 4. 9½.; patrons and impropriators, the Governors of Christ's Hospital, London; income, £400, derived from allotments of land under successive inclosure acts, amounting to 360 acres. The church, a venerable structure in the early English style, with a lofty spire that was visible for 20 miles across the downs, and noticed by Addison in one of his poems, was nearly destroyed in 1817, by the fall of the spire, which was struck by lightning: with the exception of the spire, the building was restored in 1831, at an expense of £2300. There are several barrows, in which pieces of ancient armour, and earthen vessels, have been discovered.