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Purton F
Purton is a large village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about northwest of the centre of Swindon. The parish includes the village of Purton Stoke and the hamlets of Bentham, Hayes Knoll, Purton Common, Restrop, The Fox and Widham. The River Key, a tributary of the Thames, crosses the parish near Purton Stoke. The village is a linear settlement along the old road between the historic market towns of Cricklade, to the north, and Royal Wootton Bassett, to the south. It is now on a minor road, from junction 16 of the M4 motorway. The village is on the brow of a hill, with views across to Cricklade and the Thames floodplain. Nearby, Bradon Forest stretches out to Minety in the west. The Church of England parish church of Saint Mary the Virgin is unusual in having two towers, one with a spire. History The toponym Purton is derived from the Old English ''pirige'' for "pear" and ''tun'' for "enclosure" or "homestead". Early history Ringsbury Camp has evidence of se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
St Mary's Church, Purton
St Mary's Church is in the village of Purton in north Wiltshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Bristol. It is one of only three churches in England to have both a western tower and a central spire. It has been designated a Grade I listed building by English Heritage. History There was a church at Purton no later than the 12th century; a capital from that time still exists in the wall of the nave, which was built in the early 13th century. The chancel dates from the late 13th century. The central tower, transept and a chapel south of the chancel were added in the 14th century. Restoration was carried out in 1872 by William Butterfield, when three walls of the chancel were rebuilt. At this time a skeleton was discovered in a wall of the north transept. Nevil Maskelyne FRS (1732-1811), the fifth British Astronomer Royal, is buried in the churchyard. Architecture Exterior The church is constructed of coursed rubble limestone, with roofs of slate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spire
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are typically made of stonework or brickwork, or else of timber structures with Cladding (construction), metal cladding, ceramic tile, ceramic tiling, roof shingles, or Slate roof, slates on the exterior. Since towers supporting spires are usually square, square-plan spires emerge directly from the tower's walls, but octagonal spires are either built for a pyramidal transition section called a ''Broach spire, broach'' at the spire's base, or else freed spaces around the tower's summit for decorative elements like pinnacles. The former solution is known as a ''broach spire''. Small or short spires are known as ''spikes'', ''spirelets'', or ''flèche (architecture), flèches''. Etymology This sense of the word spire is attested in English since ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forest Of Braydon
The Forest of Braydon (anciently Bradon) is an historic royal hunting forest in Wiltshire, England, the remnant of which lies about 6 miles north-west of Swindon. In medieval times it encompassed about 30,000 acres. History In the year 688 Caedwalla, king of the West Saxons, granted to Abbot Aldhelm of Malmesbury Abbey in Wiltshire, thirty hides on the eastern side of Braydon Wood (''de orientali parte silve Bradon''). At its greatest extent Braydon Forest covered about a third of the area of the county of Wiltshire, but over the centuries most of it was gradually cleared. Keepers Persons holding the office of "Keeper of the Forest of Bradon" include: *1293: Roger de Moels (c. 1232–1295), father of John de Moels, 1st Baron Moels (d. 1310).Cokayne, ''The Complete Peerage'', new edition, Vol. IX, p. 5, quoting Calendar of Patent Rolls The patent rolls (Latin: ''Rotuli litterarum patentium'') are a series of administrative records compiled in the English, British and United ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
History Of England
England became inhabited more than 800,000 years ago, as the discovery of stone tools and footprints at Happisburgh in Norfolk have indicated.; "Earliest footprints outside Africa discovered in Norfolk" (2014). BBC News. Retrieved 7 February 2014. The earliest evidence for early modern humans in Northwestern Europe, a jawbone discovered in Devon at Kents Cavern in 1927, was re-dated in 2011 to between 41,000 and 44,000 years old. Continuous human habitation in England dates to around 13,000 years ago (see Creswellian), at the end of the Last Glacial Period. The region has numerous remains from the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. In the Iron Age, all of Britain south of the Firth of Forth, was inhabited by the Celtic people known as the Britons, including some Belgic tribes (e.g. the Atrebates, the Catuvellauni, the Trinovantes, etc.) in the south east. In AD 43 the Roman conquest of Britain began; the Romans maintained control of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Malmesbury Abbey
Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle, Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteries. Monastic history In the later seventh century, the site of the Abbey was chosen by Maildubh, an Irish monasticism, Irish monk who established a hermitage, teaching local children. Toward the end of his life, in the late seventh century, the area was conquered by the Anglo-Saxons, Saxons.''Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England'', p. 209. Malmesbury Abbey was founded as a Benedictine monastery around 676 by the scholar-poet Aldhelm, a nephew of King Ine of Wessex. The town of Malmesbury grew around the expanding Abbey and under Alfred the Great was made a burh, with an assessment of 12 hides. In AD 941, King Æthelstan was buried in the Abbey. Æthelstan had died in Gloucester in October 939. The choice of Malme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Order Of Saint Benedict
The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict ( la, Ordo Sancti Benedicti, abbreviated as OSB), are a Christian monasticism, monastic Religious order (Catholic), religious order of the Catholic Church following the Rule of Saint Benedict. They are also sometimes called the Black Monks, in reference to the colour of their religious habits. They were founded by Benedict of Nursia, a 6th-century monk who laid the foundations of Benedictine monasticism through the formulation of his Rule of Saint Benedict. Despite being called an order, the Benedictines do not operate under a single hierarchy but are instead organised as a collection of autonomous monasteries. The order is represented internationally by the Benedictine Confederation, an organisation set up in 1893 to represent the order's shared interests. They do not have a superior general or motherhouse with universal jurisdiction, but elect an Abbot Primate to represent themselves to the Holy See, Vatican and to the worl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hide (unit)
The hide was an English unit of land measurement originally intended to represent the amount of land sufficient to support a household. It was traditionally taken to be , but was in fact a measure of value and tax assessment, including obligations for food-rent ('), maintenance and repair of bridges and fortifications, manpower for the army ('), and (eventually) the ' land tax. The hide's method of calculation is now obscure: different properties with the same hidage could vary greatly in extent even in the same county. Following the Norman Conquest of England, the hidage assessments were recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, and there was a tendency for land producing £1 of income per year to be assessed at 1 hide. The Norman kings continued to use the unit for their tax assessments until the end of the 12th century. The hide was divided into 4 yardlands or virgates. It was hence nominally equivalent in area to a carucate, a unit used in the Danelaw. Original meaning The An ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ecgfrith Of Mercia
Ecgfrith was king of Mercia from 29 July to December 796. He was the son of Offa, one of the most powerful kings of Mercia, and Cynethryth, his wife. In 787, Ecgfrith was consecrated king, the first known consecration of an English king, probably arranged by Offa in imitation of the consecration of Charlemagne's sons by the pope in 781. Around 789, Offa seems to have intended that Ecgfrith marry the Frankish king Charlemagne's daughter Bertha, but Charlemagne was outraged by the request and the proposal never went forward.Stenton, ''Anglo-Saxon England'', p. 220. According to the Croyland Chronicle "he (Ecgfrith) was seized with a malady, and departed this life." His reign lasted 141 days.Swanton, ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', p. 50. Ecgfrith was succeeded by a distant relative, Coenwulf, presumably because Offa had arranged the murder of nearer relatives in order to eliminate dynastic rivals. According to a contemporary letter from Alcuin of York, an English deacon an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anglo-Saxon Paganism
Anglo-Saxon paganism, sometimes termed Anglo-Saxon heathenism, Anglo-Saxon pre-Christian religion, or Anglo-Saxon traditional religion, refers to the religious beliefs and practices followed by the Anglo-Saxons between the 5th and 8th centuries AD, during the initial period of Early Medieval England. A variant of Germanic paganism found across much of north-western Europe, it encompassed a heterogeneous variety of beliefs and cultic practices, with much regional variation. Developing from the earlier Iron Age religion of continental northern Europe, it was introduced to Britain following the Anglo-Saxon migration in the mid 5th century, and remained the dominant belief system in England until the Christianisation of its kingdoms between the 7th and 8th centuries, with some aspects gradually blending into folklore. The pejorative terms ''paganism'' and ''heathenism'' were first applied to this religion by Christian Anglo-Saxons, and it does not appear that these pagans had a nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roman Villa
A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas near Rome: the ''villa urbana'', a country seat that could easily be reached from Rome (or another city) for a night or two; and the ''villa rustica'', the farmhouse estate permanently occupied by the servants who generally had charge of the estate. The Roman Empire contained many kinds of villas, not all of them lavishly appointed with mosaic floors and frescoes. In the provinces, any country house with some decorative features in the Roman style may be called a "villa" by modern scholars. Some were pleasure houses, like Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, that were sited in the cool hills within easy reach of Rome or, like the Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum, on picturesque sites overlooking the Bay of Naples. Some villas were more like the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hill Fort
A hillfort is a type of earthwork used as a fortified refuge or defended settlement, located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typically European and of the Bronze Age or Iron Age. Some were used in the post-Roman period. The fortification usually follows the contours of a hill and consists of one or more lines of earthworks, with stockades or defensive walls, and external ditches. Hillforts developed in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age, roughly the start of the first millennium BC, and were used in many Celtic areas of central and western Europe until the Roman conquest. Nomenclature The spellings "hill fort", "hill-fort" and "hillfort" are all used in the archaeological literature. The ''Monument Type Thesaurus'' published by the Forum on Information Standards in Heritage lists ''hillfort'' as the preferred term. They all refer to an elevated site with one or more ramparts made of earth, stone and/or wood, with an external ditch. M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ringsbury Camp
Ringsbury Camp is an Iron Age hill fort, thought to date from approximately the year 50 BC, in the civil parish of Purton in Wiltshire, England. The site is a scheduled monument. Structure Ringsbury is a multivallate fort, as it has a double-banked structure. In all about are enclosed by the surrounding walls. The inner bank is up to 5m high and is surrounded by a 3m deep ditch; the outer bank is 2m high and there are traces of an outer ditch. The fort stands on the brow of an outcrop of Corallian stone, overlooking Braydon Forest to the west and with excellent views to the south and north; there is less of an incline towards the east. It is believed that to ensure visibility was not impeded the builders cleared all areas, and certainly the land towards the west, from trees. The banks are made from limestone rubble. These are not local rocks, suggesting material was transported to the camp from further afield. The stones from the banks are very light, and are known as ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
