Ramsbury

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Oxford Street, Ramsbury

Ramsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire. In the Census 2001, the parish had a population of 3257.

1 Location and administration
2 History
3 Notable residents
4 Note
5 Sources

[edit] Location and administration

Ramsbury is located at grid reference SU275715, in the Kennet Valley near the Berkshire border. As a civil parish, it has an elected parish council. It falls within the areas of Kennet District Council and Wiltshire County Council. All three councils are responsible for different aspects of local government.

Church of the Holy Cross, Ramsbury.

[edit] History

The well-known Littlecote Roman Villa is located within the parish, but the earliest recorded history of Ramsbury can only be traced back to the Saxons who considered the site of such importance that a bishopric was created in AD 909. The see was moved to Old Sarum in 1075.

The church is 13th century, and has a ghost story: if anyone counts the hundred studs on the north door at midnight, it will open, and Wild William Darrell of Littlecote House will come out.^[1]

[edit] Notable residents

The village's notable residents have included Sir Francis Burdett, a radical whig politician, and his daughter Angela Burdett-Coutts. In 1837 Angela became the wealthiest woman in England when she inherited her grandfather's fortune. Over the next few years she gave most of this money away to good causes. By the time she died in 1906 Angela Burdett-Coutts had given away nearly three million pounds. Both lived in Ramsbury Manor, which was sold in the 1960s and is now home to Harry Hyams, the property tycoon who built Centre Point in London.

Ramsbury Manor, Ramsbury.

[edit] Note

^ Rice, Douglas Walthew. The life and achievements of Sir John Popham, 1531-1607 : leading to the establishment of the first English colony in New England. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p.90