Little Langford is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

, England. Its nearest town is Wilton, about to the southeast. It is in the Wylye valley, to the south of the river; the grass fields adjacent to the river were traditionally flood meadows. In 1086, the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

survey recorded estates held by

Wilton Abbey Wilton Abbey was a Benedictine convent in Wiltshire, England, three miles from Salisbury, probably on the site now occupied by Wilton House. It was active from the early tenth century until 1539. History Foundation Wilton Abbey is first reco ...

Glastonbury Abbey Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction. The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It wa ...

and

Edward of Salisbury Edward of Salisbury was a nobleman and courtier (''curialis''), probably part Anglo-Saxon, who served as High Sheriff of Wiltshire during the reigns of William I, William II and Henry I. The ''Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis'' (1293) names him as ...

. The civil parish was added to

Steeple Langford Steeple Langford is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, northwest of Wilton, Wiltshire, Wilton. It has also been called Great Langford or Langford Magna. The village lies on the north bank o ...

parish in 1934. In 1990, the Wilton estate owned nearly all of the land in the former parish.

Notable sights

The

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

Church of St Nicholas of Mira is

Grade II* listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It dates from the 12th century and was rebuilt in 1864 by

T.H. Wyatt Thomas Henry Wyatt (9 May 1807 – 5 August 1880) was an Anglo-Irish architect. He had a prolific and distinguished career, being elected President of the Royal Institute of British Architects 1870–73 and being awarded its Royal Gold Medal for A ...

, reusing a 12th-century doorway on the south side of the nave. Alexander Hyde, later Bishop of Salisbury, was rector from 1634. Little Langford farmhouse (c.1858) has a

Victorian Gothic Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

entrance tower, lancet windows and crenellations. Just to the south of the village lies the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

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-Roma ...

Grovely Castle Grovely Castle is the site of an Iron Age univallate hill fort in the parish of Steeple Langford, in Wiltshire. The remaining ramparts stand approximately high, with deep ditches, although ploughing has damaged the earthworks in some parts of t ...

References

External links

*
Little Langford
at genuki.org.uk * {{Commons category-inline Hamlets in Wiltshire Former civil parishes in Wiltshire