LEIGH-de-la-MERE, a parish in the hundred of
CHIPPENHAM, county of WILTS, 4 miles (N. N. W.)
from Chippenham, containing 125 inhabitants. The
living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Wilts, and
diocese of Salisbury, rated in the king's books at £8.
H. C. Vince, Esq. was patron in 1786. The church is
dedicated to St. Margaret. At this place Alfred encamped
on the night before his attack upon the Danes
at Edindon; and on Clay hill, in the neighbourhood, is a
circular double-intrenched camp, to which the Danes
fled, and there withstood a siege of fourteen days. Near
a field, called Courtfield, is a garden surrounded by a
moat, supposed to be the site of a palace of one of the
Saxon kings.