LITTLECOT, a chapelry in the parish of CHILTONFOLIATT,
hundred of KINWARDSTONE, county of WILTS,
3 miles (W. by N.) from Hungerford. The population
is returned with the parish. A curious tesselated pavement,
the largest ever found in England, was discovered
in Littlecot park, in 1730, but, unfortunately,
soon destroyed: it was forty-one feet by twentyeight
in dimensions, and is supposed to have been the
floor of a temple, from the two parts, the Templum
and the Sacrarium, into which it was divisible. It
was decorated with various devices; in the centre was
a figure of Apollo with his harp, surrounded by four
female figures, to represent the four seasons, with appropriate
accompaniments: an accurate drawing was made
of it by Mr. William George, steward to Edward Popham,
Esq., who discovered it; and his widow worked a
beautiful carpet, on a reduced scale, from which it was
finally engrared, at the.expense of the Antiquarian So-
ciety. Pickedfield, formerly part of Littlecot domain,
was purchased by government, in 1S03, for the purpose
of establishing a dep&t for the interior of the county;
it includes about forty acres of ground, on which were
erected three magazines, capable of containing near
eleven thousand barrels of gunpowder; also a mixinghouse
for the powder, storehouses, apartments for the
labourers employed upon the establishment, barracks
for a military detachment, and houses for a store-keeper
and clerk of the cheque. At Knyghton, a small hamlet
on the north bank of the Kennet, near Littlecot park, is
an ancient encampment.