EDINGTON, a parish in the hundred of WHORWELSDOWN,
county of WILTS, comprising the tythings
of Baynton with West Coulston, Edington, and Tinhead,
and containing 1099 inhabitants, of which number,
549 are in the tything of Edington, 3 miles
(E.N.E.) from Westbury. The living is a perpetual
curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Salisbury,
endowed with £200 royal bounty, and £1200 parliamentary
grant. G. W. Taylor, Esq. was patron in
1826. The church, dedicated to All Saints, is a handsome
cruciform structure with a tower rising from the
intersection. William de Edington, a native of this
place, and successively Bishop of Winchester, Lord High
Treasurer, Chancellor of the Order of the Garter, and
Lord High Chancellor, in the reign of Edward III., besides
partly rebuilding the church, founded, about 1347,
in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Catherine,
and All Saints, a college, consisting of a dean and
twelve ministers, of whom some were prebendaries;
for these were substituted, at the desire of the Black
Prince, in 1358, a reformed order of Augustine friars,
called Bonhommes, under the government of a rector;
its yearly revenue at the suppression was estimated at
£521. 12. 5. The bishops of Salisbury had a palace
here, which was plundered and destroyed during the
rebellion of Jack Cade, in 1450, when Bishop Ayscough
was dragged from the altar of his chapel, where he was
officiating at mass, and stoned to death on a neighbouring
hill. On an eminence about two miles from
the village is a strong irregular intrenchment, called
Bratton Castle, enclosing an area of twenty-three acres;
and on the south-western declivity of the same hill, a
remarkable figure of a white horse, in a walking posture,
is cut out, measuring one hundred feet both in length
and height.