SOMBOURN (KING'S), a parish in the hundred of KING'S-SOMBOURN, Andover division of the county of SOUTHAMPTON, 3 miles (S.) from Stockbridge, containing 991 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, with the perpetual curacies of Little Sombourn and Stockbridge annexed, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Winchester, rated in the king's books at £21. 1. 10., and in the patronage of Sir Charles Mill, Bart. The church, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is an ancient structure, containing, in a recess enriched with the trefoil ornament, the effigy of an ecclesiastic in robes. There was formerly a chapel of ease at Cpmpton, but it has long since gone to decay. The Andover canal passes through the parish, and is crossed by Horse bridge, at a place so called, on the line of the old Roman road-from Winchester to Old Sarum. Courts leet and baron are annually held here, the former on the Thursday in Easter week, at which two constables, tythingmen, and other officers for the hundred are appointed. Considerable quantities of chalk are sent hence to Redbridge, for the improvement of the strong clay soil in the New Forest. The spinning of silk for the Winchester manufacturers affords employment to about fifty women and children of the village. A Sunday school is attended by about two hundred boys and girls. This place, before the Conquest, was held in royal demesne, and now forms part of the duchy of Lancaster. John of Gaunt had a palace here, of which there are still some slight remains, and what is supposed were the stables, &c., have been converted into a farm-house. The ancient gardens and pleasure grounds may still be traced, as well as the park, the fish-ponds, and an extensive bowling-green, encompassed by an earthwork about three feet high. On a commanding eminence, three miles to the northward of the church, are the remains of a Roman, or Danish, fortification, called the Ring, with a deep intrenchment enclosing an area of about twenty-one acres; and on the adjoining down are some of smaller dimensions, apparently subordinate to the former, but within the parish of Stockbridge.