Baydon

Coordinates: 51°30′00″N 1°35′49″W / 51.500°N 01.597°W / 51.500; -01.597

Baydon is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England about 10 miles (16 km) south-east of Swindon. The eastern boundary of the parish forms part of the county boundary with Berkshire and the village is about 7 miles (11 km) north-west of the West Berkshire market town of Hungerford.

History

Baydon is close to the Ridgeway, a pre-Roman road. The settlement is on the course of Ermin Way, a Roman Road between Corinium Dobunnorum (Cirencester) and Calleva Atrebatum (Silchester). The earliest reference to Baydon as a place name is in 1196.

Sir Isaac Newton bought an estate in Baydon which he settled on three of his grand-nephews and nieces days before his death in 1727. He later admitted that he had overpaid for it.

Until the 1790s, when it became an independent ecclesiastical parish, Baydon was a chapelry of Ramsbury parish.

The M4 motorway which passes just north of the village was opened on 22 December 1971.

Religious sites