A History of Wiltshire - 9780197227695

Oxford UP

A History of WiltshireVolume XIII: South-West Wiltshire: Chalke and Dunworth Hundreds\nAuthor(s): D.A. Crowley\nFormat: Hardback\nPublisher: Oxford University Press, United Kingdom\nImprint: Early English Text Society\nISBN-13: 9780197227695, 978-0197227695\nSynopsis\nChalke and Dunworth hundreds are in south-west Wiltshire on the Dorset border. The parishes of Chalke hundred were united by being part of Wilton abbey's estate before the Norman Conquest, but most of the hundred is homogeneous. Long and narrow parishes lie north and south across the river Ebble and are characterized by extensive chalk downs. Until farmsteads were built on the downs in the 19th cen-tury, nearly all settlement was in small riverside villages. From the Reformation to the 19th century the earls of Pembroke owned most of the eastern parishes. Sheep--and-corn husbandry and more recently arable and dairy farming was the pattern of agriculture in all the parishes except Semley where there is a remarkable survi.