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Berwick St John
Berwick St John is a village and civil parish in southwest Wiltshire, England, about east of Shaftesbury in Dorset. The parish includes the Ashcombe Park estate, part of the Ferne Park estate, and most of Rushmore Park (since 1939 the home of Sandroyd School). Geography The parish is at the head of the Ebble valley, in the Cranborne Chase Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village lies on a minor road between Donhead St Mary and Alvediston. The Ox Drove, a medieval drovers' road from Dorset to Salisbury, crosses the parish from west to east about a mile south of the village; most of its route survives as a track. Winklebury Hill overlooks the village. In the extreme west of the parish, Win Green hill, at , is the highest point of Cranborne Chase. The southern part of the parish is forested and includes a golf course. Demography The parish population at the 2021 census was 426. In 1861 residents numbered a maximal 499 but this had fallen to a low of 258 at the 1971 c ...
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Wiltshire Council
Wiltshire Council, known between 1889 and 2009 as Wiltshire County Council, is the Local government in England, local authority for the non-metropolitan county of Wiltshire (district), Wiltshire in South West England, and has its headquarters at County Hall, Trowbridge, County Hall in Trowbridge. Since 2009 it has been a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority, being a county council which also performs the functions of a non-metropolitan district, district council. The non-metropolitan county is smaller than the ceremonial county, the latter additionally including Borough of Swindon, Swindon. The council went under no overall control in May 2025, after being controlled by the Conservative Party (UK), Conservative Party since 2000. History Elected county councils were established in 1889 under the Local Government Act 1888, taking over administrative functions previously carried out by unelected magistrates at the quarter sessions.John Edwards, 'County' in ''Chambe ...
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Bronze Age Britain
Bronze Age Britain is an era of British history that spanned from until . Lasting for approximately 1,700 years, it was preceded by the era of Neolithic Britain and was in turn followed by the period of Iron Age Britain. Being categorised as the Bronze Age, it was marked by the use of copper and then bronze by the prehistoric Britons, who used such metals to fashion tools. Great Britain in the Bronze Age also saw the widespread adoption of agriculture. During the British Bronze Age, large megalithic monuments similar to those from the Late Neolithic continued to be constructed or modified, including such sites as Avebury, Stonehenge, Silbury Hill and Must Farm. That has been described as a time "when elaborate ceremonial practices emerged among some communities of subsistence agriculturalists of western Europe". History Early Bronze Age (EBA), c. 2500–1500 BC There is no clear consensus on the date for the beginning of the Bronze Age in Great Britain and Ireland. Some ...
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Augustus Henry Lane-Fox
Lieutenant General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers (14 April 18274 May 1900) was an English officer in the British Army, ethnologist, and archaeologist. He was noted for innovations in archaeological methodology, and in the museum display of archaeological and ethnological collections. His international collection of about 22,000 objects was the founding collection of the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford, while his collection of English archaeology from the area around Stonehenge forms the basis of the collection at The Salisbury Museum in Wiltshire. Throughout most of his life he used the surname Lane Fox, under which his early archaeological reports are published. In 1880 he adopted the Pitt Rivers name on inheriting from Lord Rivers (a cousin) an estate of more than 32,000 acres in Cranborne Chase. His family name is often spelled as "Pitt-Rivers".Spelling as "Pitt-Rivers" e.g. in , "RPR"
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Horace Pitt-Rivers, 6th Baron Rivers
Horace Pitt-Rivers, 6th Baron Rivers (12 April 1814 – 3 March 1880), known as Horace Beckford until 1828 and Hon. Horace Pitt from 1828 until 1867, was a British peer and army officer. He was born on 12 April 1814 in London, the younger son of Horace Beckford and his wife Frances, and was baptised on 11 May at St George's, Hanover Square. Beckford, as he then was, was educated at Harrow School from 1824 to 1826 and then at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. In 1828, his father inherited the Pitt estates and the title of Baron Rivers by a special remainder, and adopted the surname of Pitt for his younger son. On 27 February 1830, Pitt (as he now was) bought a cornetcy in the Royal Horse Guards vacated by Viscount Fordwich. On 6 July 1832, he bought a lieutenancy vacated by George Weld-Forester and on 11 November 1836, a captaincy vacated by Lord Elphinstone. On 10 April 1845, at Brighton, he married Eleanor Sutor. No children were born of the marriage. She was a courtesan ...
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George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers
George Pitt, 1st Baron Rivers (1 May 1721 – 7 May 1803) was a British politician, militia officer and diplomat who served as the British ambassador to Spain from 1770 to 1771. Background and education He was born in Geneva, the eldest son of George Pitt of Stratfieldsaye (today rendered Stratfield Saye), Hampshire, and his wife Mary Louise Bernier from Strasbourg. General Sir William Augustus Pitt was his younger brother. He was educated at Winchester, with attendance recorded in 1731, and matriculated on 26 September 1737 at Magdalen College, Oxford, being awarded an MA on 13 March 1739 and a DCL on 21 August 1745. He travelled on the continent from 1740 to 1742 and succeeded his father in 1745. He inherited Stratfield Saye House in Hampshire, making extensive alterations to the house and park. Politics Soon after returning from Europe, he was elected Member of Parliament at a by-election for Shaftesbury that followed the death of Charles Ewer, and sat as a Tory. He ...
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Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 5th Earl Of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 5th Earl of Shaftesbury DL FRS (17 September 1761 – 14 May 1811), was a British peer. Biography Ashley-Cooper was the son of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 4th Earl of Shaftesbury, and Mary Pleydell-Bouverie. He was educated at Winchester and served as Deputy Lieutenant of Dorset. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1785. Lord Shaftesbury married Barbara Webb, daughter of Sir John Webb, 5th Baronet, and Mary Salvain, of Odstock House, Wiltshire, on 17 July 1786. His only child, a daughter, was Lady Barbara Ashley-Cooper (19 October 1788 – 5 June 1844),Mosley, Charles, editor. ''Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage'', 107th edition, 3 volumes. Wilmington, Delaware, U.S.A.: Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, 2003. who married the 1st Baron de Mauley. Lord Shaftesbury died on 14 May 1811 at age 49 and was buried at St Giles' parish church in Wimborne St Giles Wimborne St Giles is a village and civil parish in ea ...
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Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl Of Shaftesbury
Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury PC, FRS (22 July 1621 – 21 January 1683), was an English statesman and peer. He held senior political office under both the Commonwealth of England and Charles II, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1661 to 1672 and Lord Chancellor from 1672 to 1673. During the Exclusion Crisis, Shaftesbury headed the movement to bar the Catholic heir, James II, from the royal succession, which is often seen as the origin of the Whig party. He was also a patron of the political philosopher John Locke, with whom Shaftesbury collaborated with in writing the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina in 1669. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Shaftesbury initially supported the Royalists, before switching to the Parliamentarians in 1644. He served on the English Council of State under the Commonwealth, although he opposed Oliver Cromwell's attempt to rule without Parliament during the Rule of the Major-Generals (1655–1657). He ba ...
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Robert Cecil, 1st Earl Of Salisbury
Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, (1 June 156324 May 1612) was an English statesman noted for his direction of the government during the Union of the Crowns, as Tudor England gave way to Stuart period, Stuart rule (1603). Lord Salisbury served as the Secretary of State (England), Secretary of State of England (1596–1612) and Lord High Treasurer (1608–1612), succeeding his William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, father as Queen Elizabeth I's Lord Privy Seal and remaining in power during the first nine years of King James VI and I, James I's reign until his own death. The principal discoverer of the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, Robert Cecil remains a controversial historic figure as it is still debated at what point he first learned of the plot and to what extent he acted as an ''agent provocateur''. Early life and family Cecil (created Earl of Salisbury in 1605) was the younger son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley by his second wife, Mildred Cooke, eldest daughter of Sir Anth ...
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William Herbert, 1st Earl Of Pembroke (died 1570)
William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, 1st Baron Herbert of Cardiff ( 150117 March 1570) was a Welsh Tudor period nobleman, politician, and courtier. Herbert was the son of Sir Richard Herbert and Margaret Cradock.John Bernard Burke. ''A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the peerage and baronetage of the British Empire'', 14th Edition, Colburn, 1852. pg 783''Google eBook''/ref> His father was an illegitimate son of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke of the eighth creation (1468), by his mistress, Maud, daughter of Adam ap Howell Graunt. Early life William Herbert's early life was distinguished by intense ambition coupled with an equally fierce temper and hot-headed nature. Described by John Aubrey as a "mad fighting fellow", the young Herbert began his career as a gentleman servant to the earl of Worcester. However, when a mercer called Vaughan was killed by Herbert, after an affray between some Welshmen and the watchmen for unknown reasons in Bristol, he fled ...
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Wilton Abbey
Wilton Abbey was a Benedictine convent in Wiltshire, England, three miles west of 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 recorded in the 930s, but a 15th-century poem dates its foundation to the late 8th century by Weohstan, ealdorman of Wiltshire, and his widow Alburga is said to have been its abbess. This claim has been accepted by some historians, but it is rejected by the ecclesiastical historian, Sarah Foot, who describes it as a new foundation in the tenth century. The story is also dismissed by the historian Elizabeth Crittall. Alburga (or Æthelburh) is said to have been the half-sister of King Ecgberht of Wessex, but she is not mentioned in biographies of Ecgberht. Anglo Saxon era The community was to number 26 nuns. It was attached to St Mary's Church. Two daughters of king Edward the Elder and Ælfflæd, Eadflæd and Æthelhild, probably joine ...
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Rotherley Down Settlement
Rotherley Down Settlement is an archaeological site of the late Iron Age and Romano-British period on Cranborne Chase, England. It is about south of Berwick St John, and north of Tollard Royal, in Wiltshire, near the boundary with Dorset. It is a scheduled monument. Description The site, on the brow of a hill at Rotherley Down, has an area of about . Augustus Pitt Rivers, inheritor of the Rushmore Estate, where he was resident from 1880, investigated many prehistoric monuments on his estate. He excavated the site at Rotherley Down from 1885 to 1886; what is seen today is his partial reconstruction. He erected a stone monument at the centre of the site, on which his findings are described. The site was found to be similar to Woodcutts Settlement, which he had excavated earlier. It was occupied from the first century BC to the third century AD. There is a large circular enclosure within a bank and ditch, with storage pits inside. Nearby are banks and ditches, indicating the re ...
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