Wanborough, Wiltshire

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St Andrew's Church in Wanborough.

Wanborough is a village to the south-east of Swindon, Wiltshire, UK. The name is thought to derive from "Wain", i.e. cart. In Roman times the settlement was known as Durocornovium and was a little north west of the current position, at a road junction mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary. Being the last vicus on Ermin Street before the scarp slope of the Marlborough Downs, Durocornovium was a site where horses were watered before the steep climb off the Oxfordshire plain. Wanborough is just off the Ridgeway National Trail. Strip development along the road frontages characterised the plan, which reached maximum development in the fourth century CE.^[1]

Wanborough has a highly unusual church, St Andrew's, with a spire at one end and a tower at the other. There are only three parish churches with this feature in the UK (the others are at Purton and Ormskirk).

The village has a small post office/shop and is well served with six public houses: The Black Horse; The Brewers Arms; The Calley Arms; The Cross Keys; The Harrow; and The Plough. A seventh pub is The Shepherd's Rest, a couple of miles south on Ermin Street which is at the hamlet called Foxhill and sometimes considered part of the village.