Downton, Wiltshire

Coordinates: 50°59′35″N 1°44′35″W / 50.993°N 1.743°W / 50.993; -1.743

Downton is a village and civil parish on the River Avon in Wiltshire, England. It is about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of Salisbury and close to the New Forest. The parish includes the hamlets of Wick and Charlton-All-Saints, and the small ancient settlements of Witherington and Standlynch.

History

Downton can trace its ancient inhabitants to the Iron Age, Roman and Saxon times. In 1953 the site of a Roman villa was discovered at Downton. Excavations in advance of housing development revealed a villa with tessellated floors, at least two featuring mosaics, a hypocaust and bath house. Roman features were found over an area of about 12 acres. The villa is no longer visible, but the finds, including one of the mosaics, are displayed in Salisbury Museum.

There are also remains of a Norman motte and bailey castle. It now is the location of the Moot Garden, an 18th-century ornamental garden overlooking the river. It contains an ancient monument known as the Moot, which commemorates the meeting place of Wiltshire Saxons. It is one of the oldest of English moots or local parliaments, a legacy of the period when the Bishop of Winchester owned lands of Downton.

Wick

Wick may refer to:

Places and placenames

England

Scotland

United States

-wich town

A "-wich town" is a settlement in Anglo-Saxon England characterised by extensive artisanal activity and trade – an "emporium" – and supplied from outside the protected community. The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon suffix -wīc, signifying "a dwelling or fortified place". Such settlements were usually coastal and many have left material traces found during excavation.

Eilert Ekwall wrote: "OE wīc, an early loan-word from Lat vicus, means ‘dwelling, dwelling-place; village, hamlet, town; street in a town; farm, esp. a dairy-farm’. . . . It is impossible to distinguish neatly between the various senses. Probably the most common meaning is ‘dairy-farm’. . . . In names of salt-working towns . . . wīc originally denoted the buildings connected with a salt-pit or even the town that grew up around it. But a special meaning ‘salt-works’, found already in DB, developed."

As well as -wich, -wīc was the origin of the endings -wyck and -wick, as, for example, in Papplewick, Nottinghamshire.

Wick (surname)

An English topographic name for someone who lived in an outlying farm; it is a modern variation of the Anglo-Saxon wic.

People

See also