SHALBOURN, a parish partly in the hundred of
KINTBURY-EAGLE, county of BERKS, and partly in the
hundred of: KINWARDSTONE, county of WILTS, 4 miles
(S. S. w.)from Hungerford, containing, with the township
of West Shalbourn, 941 inhabitants. The living
is a vicarage, in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage
of the Dean and Canons of Windsor, rated in the king's
books at £14. 17. 6. The church, dedicated to St.
Michael, is principally in the Norman style. In that
part of the parish which is in the county of Wilts is an
ancient chapel, in a dilapidated state, with a house attached
to it, called Westcourt, and supposed to have
been a retreat for the monks of Sarum, or rather a place
of occasional relaxation from the austerities of the'
monastery. On the edge of the down, a continuance
of Salisbury plain, is a tumulus, commanding very exi
tensive prospects over several couiities. Fragments of
human skeletons and of horses, supposed to be the remains
of those slain in the wars during the Octarchy,
are often met with in the neighbourhood. Wansdyke,
the boundary between the kingdoms of Mercia and the
West Saxons, runs along one side of the parish, on the
north side of which is a chalybeate spring, formerly
in great repute.