17th century, partly owing to the constant outbreaks of plague. Linen, cotton, gloves and cutlery were also manufactured in the county, silk at Malmesbury and carpets at Wilton.
In 1295 Wiltshire was represented by no less than twenty-eight members in parliament, the shire returning two knights, and the boroughs of Bedwin, Bradford, Calne, Chippenham, Cricklade, Devizes, Downton, Ludgershall, Malmesbury, Marlborough, Old Sarum, Salisbury and Wilton, two burgesses each, but the boroughs for the most part made very irregular returns. Hindon, Heytesbury and Wootton Bassett were enfranchised in the 15th century, and at the time of the Reform Act of 1832 the county with sixteen boroughs returned a total of thirty-four members. Under the latter act Great Bedwin, Downton, Heytesbury, Hindon, Ludgershall, Old Sarum and Wootton Bassett were disfranchised, and Calne, Malmesbury, Westbury and Wilton lost one member each. Under the act of 1868 the county returned two members in two divisions, and Chippenham, Devizes and Marlborough lost one member each. Under the act of 1885 the county returned five members in five divisions; Cricklade, Calne, Chippenham, Devizes, Malmesbury, Marlborough, Westbury and Wilton were disfranchised, and Salisbury lost one member.
Antiquities.—Wiltshire is extraordinarily rich in prehistoric antiquities. The stone age is represented by a number of flint and stone implements, preserved in the unsurpassed collection at Salisbury Museum. Stonehenge, with its circles of giant stones, and Avebury, with its avenues of monoliths leading to what was once a stone circle, surrounded by an earthwork, and enclosing two lesser circles, are the largest and most famous megalithic works in England. A valley near Avebury is filled with immense sarsen blocks, resembling a river of stone, and perhaps laid there by prehistoric architects. There are also menhirs, dolmens and cromlechs. Surrounded as they were by forests and marshy hollows, it is clear that the downs were densely peopled at a very early period. Circles, formed by a ditch within a bank, are common, as are grave-mounds or barrows. These have been classified according to their shape as bell-barrows, bowl-barrows and long barrows. Bones, ashes, tools, weapons and ornaments have been dug up from such mounds, many of which contain kistvaens or chambers of stone. The “lynchets” or terraces which score some of the hillsides are said to be the work of primitive agriculturists. Ancient strongholds are scattered over the county. Among the most remarkable are Vespasian's Camp, near Amesbury; Silbury Hill, the largest artificial mound in Europe, near Avebury; the mounds of Marlborough and Old Sarum; the camps of Battlesbury and Scratchbury, near Warminster; Yarnbury, to the N. of Wylye, in very perfect preservation; Casterley, on a ridgeway about 7 m. E.S.E. of Devizes; Whitesheet and Winkelbury, overlooking the vale of Chalk; Chisbury, near Savernake; Sidbury, near Ludgershall; and Figbury Ring, 3 m. N.E. of Salisbury. Ogbury, 6 m. N. of Salisbury, is an undoubted British enclosure. Durrington Walls, N. of Amesbury are probably the remains of a British village, and there are vestiges of others on Salisbury Plain and Marlborough Downs.
There are many signs of the Roman rule. Wans Dyke or Woden's Dyke, one of the largest extant entrenchments, runs west for about 60 m. from a point east of Savernake, nearly as far as the Bristol Channel, and is almost unaltered for several miles along the Marlborough Downs. Its date is uncertain; but the work has been proved, wherever excavated, to be Roman or Romano-British. It consists of a bank, with a trench on the north side, and was clearly meant for defence, not as a boundary. Forts strengthened it at intervals. Bokerly Dyke, which forms a part of the boundary between Wilts and Dorset, is the largest among several similar entrenchments, and has also a ditch north of the rampart.
Chief among the few monastic buildings of which any vestiges remain are the ruined abbeys of Malmesbury and of Lacock near Melksham. There are some traces of the hospital for leprous women afterwards converted into an Austin priory at Maiden Bradley. Monkton Farleigh, farther north along the Somerset border, had its Cluniac priory, founded as a cell of Lewes in the 13th century, and represented by some outbuildings of the manor-house. A college for a dean and 12 prebendaries, afterwards a monastery of Bonhommes, was founded in 1347 at Edington. The church, Decorated and Perpendicular, resembles a cathedral in size and stately beauty. The 14th century buildings of Bradenstoke Priory or Cleck Abbey, founded near Chippenham for Austin canons, are incorporated in a farmhouse. The finest churches of Wiltshire, generally Perpendicular, were built in the districts where good stone could be obtained, while the architecture is more simple in the Chalk region, where flint was used perforce. Small wooden steeples and pyramidal bell-turrets are not uncommon; and the churches of Purton, 312 m. N.W. of Swindon, and Wanborough, 3 m. S.E., have each two steeples, one in the centre, one at the west end. St Lawrence's church at Bradford-on-Avon is one of the most perfect Saxon ecclesiastical buildings in England; and elsewhere there are fragments of Saxon work imbedded in later masonry. Such are three arches in the nave of Britford church, within a mile of Salisbury; the east end of the chancel at Burcombe, near Wilton; and parts of the churches at Bremhill, and at Manningford Bruce or Braose in the vale of Pewsey. St John's at Devizes retains its original Norman tower and has Norman masonry in its chancel; while the chancel of St Mary's, in the same town, is also Norman, and the porch has characteristic Norman mouldings. The churches of Preshute near Marlborough, Ditteridge or Ditcheridge, near Box, and Nether Avon, near Amesbury, preserve sundry Norman features. Early English is illustrated by Salisbury Cathedral, its purest and most beautiful example; and, on a smaller scale, at Amesbury, Bishops Cannings, Boyton in the vale of the Wylye, Collingbourne Kingston, east of Salisbury Plain, Downton and Potterne, near Devizes. Bishopstone, in the vale of Chalk, has the finest Decorated church in the county, with a curious external cloister, and unique south chancel doorway, recessed beneath a stone canopy. Mere, close to the borders of Dorset and Somerset, is interesting not only for its Perpendicular church, but for a medieval chantry, used as a schoolhouse by Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, and for its 14th century dwelling-houses.
The castles of Wiltshire have been almost entirely swept away. At Old Sarum, Marlborough and Devizes only a few vestiges are left in walls and vaults. Castle Combe and Trowbridge castle have long been demolished, and of Ludgershall castle only a small fragment survives. The ruins of Wardour castle, standing in a richly wooded park near Tisbury, date from the 14th century, and consist of a hexagonal outer wall of great height, enclosing an open court. Two towers overlook the entrance. The 18th-century castle, one mile distant, across the park, is noteworthy for its collection of paintings, and, among other curiosities, for the “Glastonbury Cup,“ said to be fashioned out of a branch of the celebrated thorn tree at Glastonbury. The number of old country houses is a marked feature in Wilts. Few parishes, especially in the N.W., are without their old manor-house, usually converted into a farm, but preserving its flagged roof, stone-mullioned windows, gabled front, two-storeyed porch and oak-panelled interior. Place House, in Tisbury, and Barton Farm, at Bradford, date from the 14th century. Fifteenth-century work is best exemplified in the manor-houses of Norrington, in the vale of Chalk; Teffont Evias, in the vale, of Nadder; Potterne; and Great Chaldfield. near Monkton Farleigh. At South Wraxall the hall of a very beautiful house of the same period is celebrated in local tradition as the spot where tobacco was first smoked in England by Sir Walter Raleigh and his host, Sir Walter Long. Later styles are represented by Longford Castle, near Salisbury, where the picture galleries are of great interest; by Heytesbury Park; by Wilton House at Wilton, Kingston House at Bradford, Bowood near Calne, Longleat near Warminster, Corsham Court, Littlecote near Ramsbury, Charlton House near Malmesbury, Compton Chamberlayne in the Nadder valley, Grittleton House and the modern Castle Combe, both near Chippenham and Stourhead, on the borders of Dorset and Somerset. Each of these is noteworthy for its architecture, its art treasures or the beauty of its surroundings.
See Victoria County History, Wiltshire; Sir R. C. Hoare, The Ancient History of Wiltshire (2 vols., London, 1812—1821), The History of Modern Wiltshire (14 pts., London, 1822—1844); Aubrey's Collections for Wiltshire, edited by Sir T. Phillipps, pts. 1, 2 (London, 1825); Leland's Journey through Wiltshire, A.D. 1540—1542, with notes by J. E. Jackson (Devizes, 1875); W. H. Jones, Domesday for Wiltshire (Bath, 1865); John Britton, The Beauties of Wiltshire (3 vols., London, 1801—1825); J. E. Jackson, The Sheriff's Tourn, Co. Wilts, A.D. 1439 (Devizes, 1872); see also Proceedings of the Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society.
WIMBLEDON, a municipal borough and western residential suburb of London, in the Wimbledon parliamentary division of Surrey, England, adjoining the metropolitan borough of Wandsworth, 8 m. S.W. of Charing Cross. Pop. (1891), 25,777; (1901) 41,652. Wimbledon Common, to the north-west of the district, forms a continuation of Putney Heath and a pleasant recreation ground. It was the meeting-place of the Rifle Association from its foundation in 1860 till 1888. The parish church of St Mary is supposed to date from Saxon times; but, after it had undergone various restorations and reconstructions, it was rebuilt in 1833 in the Perpendicular style. There are various other churches and chapels, all modern. A free library was established in 1887. Benevolent institutions are numerous. The corporation consists of a mayor, 6 aldermen, and 18 councillors. Area, 3221 acres.
Wimbledon (Wibbandune) is supposed to have been the scene of a battle in 568 between Ceawlin, king of Wessex, and Æthelberht, king of Kent, in which Æthelberht was defeated, and an earthwork which existed on the Common may have marked the site. At
