RAMSBURY, a parish in the hundred of RAMSBURY,
county of WILTS, comprising the tythings of
Axford, Eastridge, and the Town tything, and containing
2335 inhabitants, of which number, 1653 are in
the town of Ramsbury, 5 miles (N.W. by W.) from
Hunger ford. The. living is a vicarage, in the peculiar
jurisdiction of the Dean of Salisbury, rated in the king's
books at £ 9. 13. 1., and in the patronage of the Crown.
The church, dedicated to the Holy Cross, is a large ancient
structure, with a massive tower supported by
strong buttresses, and is considered the mother church
to Salisbury cathedral; for, when Pleymund, Archbishop
of Canterbury, about 909, constituted Wiltshire a distinct
bishoprick, the two first bishops of that see fixed
their seats here, but the third removed it to Wilton.
Ramsbury church, however, is thought to have continued
to be the cathedral of the diocese after the Conquest,
and until the union of the bishopricks of Wiltshire
and Sherborne, and the establishment of the seat of
the new diocese at Sarum. The Wesleyan Methodists
have a place of worship here.