Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for ASHTON (Steeple)

ASHTON (Steeple), a village and a tything in Westbury district, and a parish in Westbury and Melksham districts, Wilts. The village stands 2½ miles S of the Kennet and Avon canal, and 3¾ E of the Great Western railway at Trowbridge. It takes its distinctive name from a tall steeple which was destroyed by lightning in 1670. It formerly was a market-town, and still has a fair on 19 Sept.; and it is a seat of petty sessions, and has a post office under Trowbridge.-The tything comprises 2,808 acres. Real property, £5,846. Pop., 776. Houses, 177.—The parish includes also the tythings of Great Hinton, West Ashton, and Littleton, and the chapelry of Semington. Acres, 6,789. Real property, £14,474. Pop., 1,767. Houses, 359. A considerable extent of the land was formerly com mon and recently enclosed. Rood-Ashton House, the seat of the Long family, is about a mile SW of the village. Very numerous fossils have been found; and an ancient pavement, thought to have been Roman, but of different character from other Roman pavements, has been dug up. The living is a vicarage, united with the curacy of Semington, in the diocese of Salisbury. Value, £852. Patron, the Master of Magdalene college, Cambridge. The church is large and later English, with a four-spired tower; and was built, toward the end of the 15th century, chiefly by Robert Long, a clothier. The vicarage of West Ashton is a separate charge.


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

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a village and a tything"   (ADL Feature Type: "populated places")
Administrative units: Wiltshire AncC
Place names: ASHTON     |     ASHTON STEEPLE     |     STEEPLE ASHTON
Place: Steeple Ashton

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