Preshute is a

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 authorit ...

immediately west and northwest of Marlborough in

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. Unusually for a Wiltshire parish, it does not take its name from any town or village. The population at the 2011 census was 193. The

River Kennet The Kennet is a tributary of the River Thames in Southern England. Most of the river is straddled by the North Wessex Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). The lower reaches have been made navigable as the Kennet Navigation, which � ...

and the

A4 road This is a list of roads designated A4. A4 is the name of several roads: * A004 road (Argentina), a road connecting Buenos Aires-La Plata highway with the Juan María Gutiérrez circle * A4 motorway (Austria), a road connecting Vienna and Nickels ...

cross the parish; the boundary between Marlborough and Preshute is beyond Manton, about along the A4 from the centre of Marlborough. The parish is almost entirely

downland Downland, chalkland, chalk downs or just downs are areas of open chalk hills, such as the North Downs. This term is used to describe the characteristic landscape in southern England where chalk is exposed at the surface. The name "downs" is deriv ...

and farmland. The settlements are Manton House (with Manton Stables, where racehorses are trained) and the hamlet of Clatford.

History

In the 12th or 13th century the boundary between Preshute and Marlborough was immediately west of

Marlborough Castle Marlborough Castle, locally known and recorded in historical documents as ''The Mound'', was an 11th-century royal castle located in the civil parish of Marlborough, a market town in the English county of Wiltshire, on the Old Bath Road, the ol ...

and the parish included the villages of Manton and Clatford. In 1925 an eastern section, including Preshute church. was transferred to Marlborough and in 1934 the Marlborough boundary moved further west to include Manton.

Church

The Anglican Church of St George is at about west of the centre of Marlborough, beyond Marlborough College and just south of the Kennet. It has a 15th-century tower and was restored in 1854 by T.H. Wyatt; it is Grade II* listed and forms part of the

Marlborough Benefice The Marlborough Anglican Team is a group of parishes in and around the town of Marlborough, Wiltshire, England. It consists of the parishes of St Mary within the town, St George Preshute (which also serves Manton) to the west, and St John the Ba ...

. This area was identified as Preshute as recently as the 1961 (7th series) Ordnance Survey map but on current maps and road signs it is part of Manton.

History

Church

School

See also

References

External links