Tidcombe

Botley Down (grid reference SU292598) is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire, notified in 1989.

Tidcombe and Fosbury is a civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Marlborough and 7 miles (11 km) south of Hungerford, Berkshire. It includes the three small settlements of Fosbury, Tidcombe, and Hippenscombe and lies on the eastern edge of the county, where Wiltshire meets Hampshire. The Iron Age hill fort of Fosbury Camp is in the south of the parish. The population of the parish peaked around the time of the 1861 census, when 274 were recorded; by 2001 numbers had declined to 93. Rather than a parish council it has a parish meeting, with all electors entitled to attend and vote at meetings. Anciently the lands of Tidcombe and Fosbury were separated by a tongue of Shalbourne parish, which until 1895 was in Berkshire. Hippenscombe, formerly an extra-parochial area southwest of Fosbury, was added to the parish in 1894, and at the same time the modern name of the parish was adopted; it had previously been named Tidcombe. In 1934 almost all of the tongue – 501 acres, with a population of 20 in 1931 – was transferred to Tidcombe and Fosbury. The parish was part of the former district of Kennet until April 2009. Most significant local government functions are carried out by the Wiltshire Council unitary authority. At the parliamentary level, the parish is part of the Devizes county constituency.

Fosbury House is a Grade II listed country house northwest of the village of Fosbury in Wiltshire, England, about 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Marlborough. The mansion was built about 1800, in limestone ashlar with a hipped tiled roof, and has three storeys. The three-bay front has a half-round Ionic portico and a pedimented gable. Lodges stand at the roadside entrances to the grounds: a two-storey building of c.1860 in flint and brick in the southwest, opposite the church; and a single-storey building in the northeast. The house was purchased in 1810 by Silvanus Bevan, then passed to his son David Bevan, then to his son Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, then to his son Francis Augustus Bevan, four generations of bankers. At some point between 1899 and 1903, it was sold to Alfred Henry Huth (1850–1910), the bibliophile, and it housed the Huth Library until its dispersal in a series of sales after his death. The house was recorded as Grade II listed in 1986, as was the brick and flint kitchen garden wall at the rear, which has piers with urn finials and cast-iron gates. The house, together with 300 acres, was bought in 1993 by Erskine Guinness, son of Bryan Guinness, the writer and part of the Guinness brewing family. In 2005, Robert Hesketh, son of Colonel Roger Fleetwood-Hesketh, Conservative MP for Southport, died from "a cocktail of alcohol, heroin and cocaine" at an 18th birthday party there.

Hippenscombe is a hamlet within the civil parish of Tidcombe and Fosbury, Wiltshire, in the southwest of England. Marked only on large-scale maps, it lies to the southwest of Oakhill Wood and the northwest of Conholt Park, about 8 miles (13 km) south of Hungerford, Berkshire. Hippenscombe has a long separate history of its own, having been an extra-parochial area. Much of the land was assigned in 1553 to Edward Seymour (1539–1621), later Earl of Hertford and the builder of Tottenham House in Savernake Forest, and was owned by his descendants until sold by Charles Brudenell-Bruce, 1st Marquess of Ailesbury in 1827. The area was severely affected by the Swing Riots of 1830. The population taken at 19th-century censuses was never more than 59, and by 1891 had declined to 35. John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–1872) said of Hippenscombe: HIPPENSCOMBE, an extra-parochial tract in the district of Hungerford and county of Wilts; adjacent to Hants and Berks, 4¼ miles NE of Ludgershall. Acres, 980. Real property, £545. Pop., 42. Houses, 11. Hippenscombe was added to Tidcombe ecclesiastical parish in 1879 and to Tidcombe and Fosbury civil parish in 1894.

The Wilton Windmill is a five-floor brick tower mill, standing on a chalk ridge between the villages of Wilton and Great Bedwyn in the southern English county of Wiltshire.

Chute is a civil parish in east Wiltshire, England, on the border with Hampshire. It includes the main village of Upper Chute and the smaller settlements of Lower Chute, Chute Standen, Chute Cadley and Mount Cowdown. The settlements are sometimes known collectively as "The Chutes". The nearest town is Andover, Hampshire, about 6 miles (10 km) to the southeast. Conholt House and Conholt Park are in the northeast of the parish.

Grafton is a civil parish in Wiltshire, England, in the Vale of Pewsey about 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Marlborough. Its main settlement is the village of East Grafton, on the A338 Burbage - Hungerford road; the parish includes the village of Wilton (not to be confused with the town of Wilton near Salisbury) and the hamlets of West Grafton, Marten and Wexcombe. The parish is within the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, while Marten lies under the northwest edge of the Hampshire Downs.

Fosbury is a small village in Wiltshire, England, on the eastern edge of the county, near Hampshire. It lies about 11 miles (18 km) southeast of Marlborough and 7 miles (11 km) south of Hungerford, Berkshire. With few inhabitants, it forms part of the civil parish of Tidcombe and Fosbury, which has a parish meeting.

Fosbury Camp, is the site of an Iron Age bivallate hillfort located in Wiltshire. The site is oval in shape, and approximately 26 acres in area The site is a scheduled national monument number WI162. The fort sits atop Knolls Down and is excellently defended to the south, south west, and east, from the very steeply sloped topology. To the north the land is less steep, and is mostly bounded by Oakhill Wood. To the west the ground rises to the true summit of Haydown Hill. In the eastern side of the camp there lies a pond, perhaps an original feature of the neolithic site.

Wilton Water (or Wide Waters) is a small reservoir, southwest of the village of Great Bedwyn in the English county of Wiltshire, which supplies the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon Canal with water. The reservoir lies in the parish of Grafton and collects rainfall from the eastern end of the Vale of Pewsey and the surrounding hills. It was created by John Blackwell in 1836, by damming a narrow branching valley, and is fed by natural springs. In addition to supplying water for the canal, which is pumped by Crofton Pumping Station, it provides a haven for wildlife. It has been stocked with rainbow trout. When the canal was built, there were no reliable water sources available to fill the summit by normal gravitational means. However, a set of usable springs were found adjacent to the canal route about one mile (2 km) east of the summit pound, and about 40 feet (12 m) below it. Arrangements were made for these springs to feed the pound below lock 60 at Crofton Locks. Some years later, the reservoir was created to enhance the supply to this pound. The reservoir outfall and sluices are designated as Grade II listed structures.

Crofton Pumping Station, near the village of Great Bedwyn in Wiltshire, England, supplies the summit pound of the Kennet and Avon Canal with water. The steam-powered pumping station is preserved and operates on selected weekends. It contains an operational Boulton & Watt steam engine dating from 1812, making it the oldest working beam engine in the world in its original engine house and capable of doing the job for which it was installed.

Shalbourne is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3 miles (4.8 km) southwest of Hungerford, Berkshire. The parish has a number of widely spaced small settlements including Bagshot and Stype, to the north, and Rivar and Oxenwood to the south. Before 1895, about half of the parish of Shalbourne (including its church) lay in Berkshire.