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Tilshead (St. Thomas à Becket)

TILSHEAD (St. Thomas à Becket), a parish, in the union of Amesbury, hundred of Branch and Dole, Devizes and S. divisions of Wilts, 10 miles (S. by E.) from Devizes; containing 426 inhabitants. It is situated on the road from Devizes to Salisbury, and comprises 3751a. 3r. 31p., of which about 2377 acres are arable, 1247 pasture, and 90 in plantations; the soil is light and chalky. The parish forms part of Salisbury Plain. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £7. 16., and in the patronage of the Crown; net income, £216; impropriator, G. W.Taylor, Esq. The great tithes of the new inclosures, and all the vicarial tithes, those on mills excepted, were commuted for land in 1811. The church, which is very ancient, contains 400 sittings. The downs near the village were celebrated for great numbers of bustards, the last of which, taken alive in 1801 after having attacked a man on horseback, weighed upwards of 20 pounds, and measured 5 feet from the extremities of its wings. Fossil sponge is found in the neighbourhood, and madrepores are largely collected in flint-stones.

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

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